Solder joint reliability of TFBGA assemblies with fresh and reworked solder balls

Abstract In this article, the solder joint reliability of thin and fine-pitch BGA (TFBGA) with fresh and reworked solder balls is investigated. Both package and board level reliability tests are conducted to compare the solder joint performance of test vehicle with fresh and reworked solder balls. For package level reliability test, ball shear test is performed to evaluate the joint strength of fresh and reworked solder balls. The results show that solder balls with rework process exhibit higher shear strength than the ones without any rework process. The results also exhibit that the different intermetallic compound (IMC) formation at solder joints of fresh and reworked solder balls is the key to degradation of shear strength. For board level reliability tests, temperature cycling and bending cyclic tests are both applied to investigate the fatigue life of solder joint with fresh and reworked solder balls. It is observed that package with reworked solder ball has better fatigue life than the one with fresh solder ball after temperature cyclic test. As for bending cyclic test, in addition to test on as-assembled packages, reworked and fresh samples are subjected to heat treatment at 150 °C for 100 h prior to the bending cyclic test. The purpose is to let Au–Ni–Sn IMC resettle at solder joints of fresh solder ball and examine the influence of Au–Ni–Sn IMC on the fatigue life of solder joints (Au embrittlement effect). The final results confirm that reworked solder balls have better reliability performance than fresh one since Au embrittlement dose exist at fresh solder ball.