Seamless Tool Integration for Solder Joint Qualifications

This paper presents an approach and its demonstration for seamless tool integration for the virtual qualification and reliability prediction of solder joints of surface mounted electronic components on a populated circuit board. Starting from software called Surface Evolver, it can be used to realistically reproduce complicated geometry profiles of solder joints with various lead frames and pad specifications. User routines have been developed under ANSYS platform for automatic geometry transfer from the Surface Evolver and mesh regeneration of the solder joints inside ANSYS, as demonstrated in this paper. Moreover, a number of electronic packages with their solder joints on a typical printed circuit board (PCB) were also regenerated with parametric capability. Finite element analyses (FEAs) with proper set-up of materials, boundary conditions, and constitutive models were performed automatically by hitting one-button to go. Reliability prediction of solder joints and the failure rate of electronic components can be predicted based on failure criteria and test data implemented. An in-house tool was developed for the whole procedure of solder joint qualification and reliability assessment from deterministic to statistical aspects, including the evaluation of defect impacts.