Recent applications of optical and computer-vision methods to research for microelectronics assembly reliability

Material and structure evaluation for reliability is a key research area for advanced microelectronics and miniatures. This paper presents a new experimental mechanics-based approach devoted to the evaluation of critical failure conditions for solder materials and assembly structures. Several optical and computer-vision-based metrological techniques have been adapted and employed for three-dimensional (3D), multi-scale and real-time deformation measurement. Case studies are presented to illustrate how the approach accomplishes an evaluation with high efficiency and low cost. The paper raises the prospect for the in-situ deformation measurement to play a more extensive role in this area.