Fracture of Sn-Ag-Cu Solder Joints on Cu Substrates. II: Fracture Mechanism Map

A methodology to construct fracture mechanism maps for Sn-3.8%Ag-0.7%Cu (SAC387) solder joints attached to Cu substrates has been developed. The map, which delineates the operative mechanisms of fracture along with corresponding joint fracture toughness values, is plotted in a space described by two microstructure-dependent parameters, with the abscissa describing the interfacial intermetallic compound (IMC) and the ordinate representing the strain-rate-dependent solder yield strength. The plot space encompasses the three major mechanisms by which joints fail, namely (i) cohesive fracture of solder, (ii) cleavage fracture of interfacial intermetallic compounds (IMC), and (iii) fracture of the solder–IMC interface. Line contours of constant fracture toughness values, as well as constant fraction of each of the above mechanisms, are indicated on the plots. The plots are generated by experimentally quantifying the dependence of the operative fracture mechanism(s) on the two microstructure-dependent parameters (IMC geometry and solder yield strength) as functions of strain rate, reflow parameters, and post-reflow aging. Separate maps are presented for nominally mode I and equi-mixed mode loading conditions (loading angle ϕ = 0° and 45°, respectively). The maps allow rapid assessment of the operative fracture mechanism(s) along with estimation of the expected joint fracture toughness value for a given loading condition (strain rate and loading angle) and joint microstructure without conducting actual tests, and may serve as a tool for both prediction and microstructure design.     

Solution processable quinoxaline based molecular materials for organic field effect transistors

Three new solution processable quinoxaline based donor–acceptor–donor (D–A–D) type molecules have been synthesized for application in field effect transistors. These molecules were characterized by UV–visible spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry and cyclic voltammetry. DFT calculation gives deeper insight into the electronic structure of these molecules. The crystallinity and morphology features of thin film were investigated using X-ray diffraction. These molecules show liquid crystalline phase confirmed by DSC and optical polarizing microscopy. Investigation of their field effect transistor performance indicated that these molecules exhibited p-type mobility up to 9.7 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1 s^?1 and on/off ratio of 10⁴.     

S-WiMAX: adaptation of IEEE 802.16e for mobile satellite services - [WiMAX update]

Mobile satellite services are attracting renewed attention stemming from the FCC ancillary terrestrial component ruling that allows satellite spectrum to be used for integrated terrestrial services in the footprint of the satellite. This attention is focused on the development of dual-mode satellite-terrestrial devices to facilitate hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks intended by the ATC order. The satellite component in these dual-mode devices is best adapted from the air interface chosen for the ATC to optimize form factor, especially for small hand-held devices, mobility management, power efficiency, and a common core network functionality. With the advent of WiMAX as a viable 4G technology, satellite adaptation of WiMAX has been considered for the satellite services coupled with WiMAX ATC. The main considerations for satellite adaptation of WiMAX, relative to its terrestrial counterpart, are reduced link margin and longer transmission delays ? both absolute delay from the center of a spot beam to the satellite and differential delay between the beam edge and the beam center to the satellite. These considerations suggest adaptation of the subchannelization schemes, the frame synchronization methods, and the ranging process in WiMAX to make it operable over satellite, while keeping the general framework of the WiMAX protocol stack intact, thereby facilitating the incorporation of S-WiMAX into a common baseband processor with terrestrial WiMAX; this allows S-WiMAX to be added to terrestrial WiMAX devices with minimal cost and formfactor impact. Methods for these adaptations are considered here.     

Exact solution of a bandpass matching problem

This paper discusses the exact design of a bandpass matching circuit for transmission of power from a source of internal resistanceR ₁ to a load of resistanceR ₂. The design is obtained in terms of an unknownQ factor, the value of which is to be determined by solving a cubic equation.     

IEEE 802.21: Media independent handover: Features, applicability, and realization

Providing users of multi-interface devices the ability to roam between different access networks is becoming a key requirement for service providers. The availability of multiple mobile broadband access technologies, together with the increasing use of real-time multimedia applications, is creating strong demand for handover solutions that can seamlessly and securely transition user sessions across different access technologies. A key challenge to meeting this growing demand is to ensure handover performance, measured in terms of latency and loss. In addition, handover solutions must allow service providers, application providers, and other entities to implement handover policies based on a variety of operational and business requirements. Therefore, standards are required that can facilitate seamless handover between such heterogeneous access networks and that can work with multiple mobility management mechanisms. The IEEE 802.21 standard addresses this problem space by providing a media-independent framework and associated services to enable seamless handover between heterogeneous access technologies. In this article, we discuss how the IEEE 802.21 standard framework and services are addressing the challenges of seamless mobility for multi-interface devices. In addition, we describe and discuss design considerations for a proof-of-concept IEEE 802.21 implementation and share practical insights into how this standard can optimize handover performance.     

Multicasting streaming media to mobile users

Content distribution in general, and multicasting in particular, over a wired network to static hosts can be realized by placing proxies and gateways at several parts of the network. However, if the end hosts are mobile over heterogeneous wireless access networks, one needs to consider many operational issues such as network detection, handoff, join and leave latency, and desired level of quality of service, as well as caching and load balancing. This article surveys a set of protocols and technologies that offer multicast-based services for streaming multimedia in a mobile environment. It also brings forth some of the issues related to mobile content distribution in the wireless Internet that may be helpful during its deployment by application service providers.     

A constitutive model for creep of lead-free solders undergoing strain-enhanced microstructural coarsening: A first report

Lead-free solder joints in microelectronic applications frequently have microstructures comprising a dispersion of intermetallic particles in a Sn matrix. During thermomechanical cycling (TMC) of the solder joint, these particles undergo strain-enhanced coarsening, resulting in a continuously evolving, creep behavior. Because the extent of coarsening is dependent on the stress/strain state, which is dependent on the location within a joint, it is important that creep models used in joint-life prediction incorporate these effects. Here, an approach for incorporating the effect of in-situ second-phase particle coarsening in a dislocation-creep model applicable to lead-free solder alloys is proposed. The formulation, which can be expressed in a closed analytic form following some simplifications, incorporates the effects of both static- and strain-enhanced coarsening and accounts for the effects of inelastic-strain history and hydrostatic constraint. Predictions of coarsening based on the model agreed reasonably well with experimentally observed trends. Because of its simplicity, the microstructurally adaptive creep model proposed here can be easily incorporated in current finite-element codes for joint behavior simulation.     

CO2laser annealing of Si3N4, Nb2O5, and Ta2O5thin-film optical waveguides to achieve scattering loss reduction

Significant reductions in the optical scattering losses of Si3N4, Nb2O5, and Ta2O5waveguides fabricated on SiO2/Si substrates have been measured following CO2laser annealing. The largest improvements were observed for Si3N4waveguides, where waveguide attenuation values of about 6.0 dB/cm before laser annealing were reduced to as low as 0.1 dB/cm afterwards. An improvement of more than an order of magnitude was obtained for a Nb2O5waveguide upon laser annealing, the attenuation coefficient decreasing from 7.4 to 0.6 dB/cm. In the case of one Nb2O5waveguide no improvement was obtained upon laser annealing. The attenuation coefficient of a reactively sputtered Ta2O5waveguide was found to decrease from 1.3 dB/cm before laser annealing to 0.4 dB/cm afterwards. In the case of a thermally oxidized Ta2O5waveguide a small initial improvement in waveguide attenuation was followed by degradation upon further laser annealing.     

Temperature dependence of the lasing characteristics of the 1.3 µm InGaAsP-InP and GaAs-Al0.36Ga0.64As DH lasers

We report here our experimental observations on the temperature dependence of threshold current, carrier lifetime at threshold, external differential quantum efficiency, and gain of both the 1.3 μm InGaAsP-InP and GaAs-AlGaAs double heterostructure (DH) lasers. We find that the gain decreases much faster with increasing temperature for a 1.3 μm InGaAsP DH laser than for a GaAs DH laser. Measurements of the spontaneous emission observed through the substrate shows that the emission is sublinear with injection current at high temperatures for the 1.3 μm InGaAsP DH laser. Such sublinearity is not observed for GaAs DH lasers in the entire temperature range 115-350 K. The experimental results are discussed with reference to the various mechanisms that have been proposed to explain the observed temperature dependence of threshold of InGaAsP DH lasers. We find that inclusion of a calculated nonradiative Auger recombination rate can explain the observed temperature dependence of threshold current, carder lifetime at threshold, gain, and also the sublinearity of the spontaneous emission with injection current of the 1.3 μm InGaAsP-InP DH laser. Measurement of the nonradiative component of the carrier lifetime (τA) as a function of injected carrier density (n) shows thattau_{A}^{-1} sim n^{2.1}which is characteristic of an Auger process.     

Some properties and fast algorithms of slant transform in image processing

A first order stationary Markov process model has been considered for image processing problems. A relative performance measure of unitary transforms to image data has been defined. It has been proved that the slant transform is superior to Walsh-Hadamard transform in this relative performance measure for positive correlation under the assumed model. A lower bound of relative performance has also been found. Furthermore, fast algorithms for computing diagonal elements of any slant transformed matrix have been presented. Finally, it has been shown how slant transform can be modified to improve the relative performance.