Study of thermal cycling and temperature aging on PbSnAg die attach solder joints for high power modules

High power modules are still facing the challenges to increase their power output, increase the junction temperature, and increase their reliability in harsh conditions. Therefore this study is doing a detail analysis of the soldering joint between a direct copper bonded substrate and a high power IGBT made with the high lead solder alloy Pb92.5Sn5.0Ag2.5. The intermetallic phases and the microstructure of standard chip to substrate solder joint will be analysed and compared to deteriorated joints coming from modules which have undergone an active thermal cycling. As expected, the as soldered joint was clearly different than solder joints made for ball grid array or small components on PCBs. The as soldered joint shows no sign of Cu6Sn5 intermetallic layer, but instead shows the presence of Ag3Sn particles at the solder-chip interface. Furthermore, the failure mechanisms under active thermal cycling also seem to be different. There is no growth of intermetallic phases and no strong delamination of the device. Instead a large network of intermetallic particles (Ag3Sn) is produced during aging and seems to degrade the solder thermal properties.