Vibration fatigue experiments of SMT solder joint

The low-cycle fatigue induced by thermal cycling is the major concern in the reliability of SMT for electronic packaging; however, dynamic loading effects on solder joint fatigue life have not been thoroughly investigated. In fact, the high-cycling fatigue induced by vibration can also contribute a significant effect. In certain circumstances it can become a dominant failure case when semiconductor devices are used in vibration environment. In this paper, a series of vibration fatigue experimental vehicles including PBGA256 assembly and FCBGA1521 assembly were conducted. After these experiments, a new phenomenon of cracks of solder joints have been detected and given a reasonable reason, which could lead to a new concept of solder joints' fatigue.