Fatigue Life Prediction of Automotive Electronic Components under Vibration Load

In modern automotive control modules, mechanical failures of surface mounted electronic components such as microprocessors, crystals, capacitors, transformers, inductors, and ball grid array packages, etc., are major roadblocks to design cycle time and product reliability. This paper presents a general methodology of failure analysis and fatigue prediction of these electronic components under automotive vibration environments. Mechanical performance of these packages is studied through finite element modeling approach for given vibration environments in automotive application. Using the results of vibration simulation, fatigue life is predicted based on cumulative damage analysis and material durability information. Detailed model of solder/lead joints is built to correlate the system level model and obtain solder strains/stresses. The primary focus in this paper is on surface-mount interconnect fatigue failures and the critical component selected for this analysis is 80 pin plastic leaded microprocessor.