Effect of soldering and aging time on interfacial microstructure and growth of intermetallic compounds between Sn-3.5Ag solder alloy and Cu substrate

The formation and the growth of the intermetallic compound (IMC, hereafter) at the interface between the Sn-3.5Ag (numbers are all in wt.% unless otherwise specified) solder alloy and the Cu substrate were investigated. Solder joints were prepared by changing the soldering time at 250 degrees C from 30 sec to 10 h and the morphological change of IMCs with soldering time was observed. It resulted from the competition between the growth of IMC and the dissolution of Cu from the substrate and IMCs. They were further aged at 130 degrees C up to 800 h. During aging, the columnar morphology of IMCs changed to a more planar type while the scallop morphology remained unchanged. It was observed that the growth behavior of IMCs was closely related with the initial soldering condition.