Numerical simulation of impedance discontinuities resulting from degradation of interconnections on printed circuit boards

A 3-D model was developed for numerically simulating the effect of solder joint cracking on impedance. Some initial reflectometry results are reported of a microstrip transmission line as a crack propagates through a solder joint. Observations are made on the information obtained when using low-pass vs. band-pass modes for reconstructing reflectometry data from frequency domain results. A qualitative comparison is made with experimental results on samples with a design which is similar to the model. On the basis of these observations, approaches for improving the model and future applications are discussed.

[1]  Michael Pecht,et al.  An analytical model of the RF impedance change due to solder joint cracking , 2011, 2011 IEEE 15th Workshop on Signal Propagation on Interconnects (SPI).

[2]  Daeil Kwon,et al.  Effect of Solder Joint Degradation on RF Impedance , 2008, 2008 12th IEEE Workshop on Signal Propagation on Interconnects.

[3]  Jie Jun,et al.  Time Domain Analysis Using a Network Analyzer , 2010 .

[4]  M. Pecht,et al.  Prognostics of Interconnect Degradation using RF Impedance Monitoring and Sequential Probability Ratio Test , 2010 .

[5]  Michael Pecht,et al.  Identification of interconnect failure mechanisms using RF impedance analysis , 2009, 2009 IEEE Workshop on Signal Propagation on Interconnects.