Mechanical Performance and Reliability of a Sn–Ag–Cu–Sb Alloy at Elevated Temperatures

Solder interconnects are essential to the reliability of electronic devices. The addition of alloying elements was reported to provide beneficial effects to the microstructure and mechanical reliability of lead-free solder alloys. In this work, the effects of Sb addition on the mechanical behavior of SAC305 solder alloy were investigated. Based on differential thermal analysis, it was observed that melting point of SAC-Sb solder was slightly higher than that of SAC305. The mechanical behavior was studied at different temperatures (25 °C-125 °C) and strain rates ( 1×10 ^-4 - 1×10 ^-2 1/s) for SAC-Sb and SAC 305 solders as a comparison. From the results, ultimate tensile strength of SAC-Sb (10-72 MPa) was generally higher than that of SAC305 (4.54-61.5 MPa) at the aforementioned test conditions. A linear relation between the UTS and yield strength and temperature was identified for test results of SAC305, but the relation was found to be nonlinear for SAC-Sb solder because of solution strengthening effect of Sb in the Sn matrix. Parameters of Anand model were estimated based on mechanical behavior of SAC-Sb and SAC305 solders. Next, the model was used to evaluate thermal fatigue life of an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module with SAC-Sb and SAC305 as chip-to-directed bonding copper (DBC) and DBC-to-baseplate attachment materials by finite element modeling. The increase of maximum inelastic strain in one thermal cycle in SAC-Sb solder joints was lower than that in SAC305 solder joints. This result indicates that SAC-Sb solder can provide a considerably better fatigue life under harsh service conditions.