Torsion test applied for reballing and solder paste volume evaluation

Electronic second level interconnect reliability characterization by accelerated thermal-cycling (ATC) test for long-term mission profile is costly and high time consuming. In order to reduce test duration, the torsion test was applied using some specific test parameters to reproduce the same failure modes found in accelerated thermal cycling (ATC) test and in the field. In this paper, we present the torsion test parameters definition and two demonstrations of torsion test application to accelerate reliability characterization of second level interconnect. The first application is the comparison between full SnPb (tin–lead) and reballed LF (lead-free) packages using SnPb balls. In the second the reliability of ceramic BGA solder joints using different solder paste volume was evaluated. In both cases, ATC test results were used as reference. The results suggest that torsion test is a valuable test method and can be applied to evaluate the impact of design and process variations in very short time.