Role of Out-of-Plane Coefficient of Thermal Expansion in Electronic Packaging Modeling

Components in electronic packaging structures are of different dimensions and are made of dissimilar materials that typically have time, temperature, and direction-dependent thermo-mechanical properties. Due to the complexity in geometry, material behavior, and thermal loading patterns, finite-element analysis (FEA) is often used to study the thermo-mechanical behavior of electronic packaging structures. For computational reasons, researchers often use two-dimensional (2D) models instead of three-dimensional (3D) models. Although 2D models are computationally efficient, they could provide misleading results, particularly under thermal loading. The focus of this paper is to compare the results from various 2D, 3D, and generalized plane-deformation strip models and recommend a suitable modeling procedure. Particular emphasis is placed to understand how the third-direction coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) influences the warpage and the stress results predicted by 2D models under thermal loading. It is seen that the generalized plane-deformation strip models are the best compromise between the 2D and 3D models. Suitable analytical formulations have also been developed to corroborate the findings from the study. [S1043-7398(00)01402-X]