Effect of solder creep on the reliability of large area die attachment

High temperature solders have been widely used for power device die attachment. One typical solder is Pb92.5In5Ag2.5, which is a ternary eutectic alloy with a eutectic temperature of 310 degreesC. Such a Pb-based solder has a low Young's modulus, a low yield strength, and a high strain prior to failure. So it can be used to attach large size silicon die to mismatched substrates. In this paper, stresses and strains have been studied on a large size power MOSFET attachment using the Pb92.5In5Ag2.5 solders. A commercial finite element analysis software is employed as the simulation tool. Three types of substrates, pure copper, copper tungsten composite. and pure molybdenum are used in the study, where molybdenum has the closest coefficient of thermal expansion to silicon. In addition to the plastic deformation simulation of the solder, a creep model of the solder was incorporated due to the low melting temperature of the solder alloy. Firstly, stresses and strains are calculated during the cooling cycle after attachment. It is found that the creep strain is the dominant plastic strain at low cooling rate (less than or equal to 10 degreesC/min). Also, the maximum Von Mises stress in the Si chip is decreased from 174 to 62.7 MPa after adding creep strain. As expected. the maximum creep strain happens to the die-to-copper substrate attach. Simulation on temperature cycling is done from -55 degreesC to +150 degreesC. The peak Von Mises stress occurs at the low temperature extreme and holds steadily during the soaking period, indicating insignificant contribution from creep. The Von Mises stress at the high temperature extreme is much lower and decreases with holding time. Significant plastic deformation of the solder layer is observed in cooling cycles. For silicon to copper substrate attach, its plastic deformation increases with each cycle. For all three substrates used, considerable solder creep is observed at heating cycles. The creep strain is much larger than the rate-independent plastic strain in the solder alloy for all three types of substrates. It is concluded that solder creep is the dominant factor affecting long term reliability of power semiconductor die attachment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.