An advanced quality and reliability assessment approach applied to thermal stress issues in electronic components and assemblies

A new failure analysis and reliability assessment approach has been developed, based on surface topography analysis of ICs and assemblies under thermal stress conditions. An important application concerns the assessment of the ability of ICs to withstand typical JEDEC type solder cycles without too strong stress accumulation in the components. An important advantage of this new technology is the predictive power, i.e. the delamination risk may be visualized before physical failure occurs.