Mechanical Properties and Interface Microstructure of SAC305 Solder Joints Made to a Ag-Pd-Pt Thick Film Metallization: Part 2—Isothermal Aging Effects

The performance and reliability were documented for solder joints made between the 96.5Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (wt.%, abbreviated SAC305) Pb-free solder and a Ag-Pd-Pt thick film conductor on an alumina substrate. The Sheppard’s hook pull test was used to assess the solder joint strength. The Part 1 study confirmed that the solder joint fabrication process had a wide process window. The current study determined that the SAC305 solder joints maintained that robustness after accelerated aging at temperatures of 70–205°C and time durations of 5–200 d. Short-term aging of 5–10 d caused a peak in the pull strength peak that resulted from precipitation hardening by Ag-Pd and (Pd, Pt)xSny intermetallic compound (IMC) particles. The pull strengths did not decrease significantly after longer aging times at 70°C and 100°C; those conditions were accelerations of typical service lifetimes. Longer aging times at temperatures of 135–205°C resulted in a gradual, albeit not catastrophic, strength decrease when the precipitation hardening mechanism was lost to dissolution of the particle phases and their reprecipitation at the solder/alumina interface. The failure modes were ductile fracture in the solder except for the most severe aging conditions. These findings confirmed that the SAC305 solder/Ag-Pd-Pt thick film interconnections have excellent long-term reliability for hybrid microcircuit and high-temperature electronics applications.