Investigation of electrochemical migration on Sn-0.7Cu-0.3Ag-0.03P-0.005Ni solder alloy in HNO3 solution

Current issue in lead-free solder in term of its reliability is still under investigation. This high impact research attempts to investigate the electrochemical migration (ECM) on Sn-0.7Cu-0.3Ag-0.03P-0.005Ni solder alloy by Water Drop Test (WDT) in different concentration of HNO3 solution. The concentration of HNO3 solution used in this research was 0.05, 0.10, 0.50 and 1M. Optical Microscope (OM), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX) were carried out in order to analysis the ECM behavior based on the growth of dendrite formation after WDT. In general, the results demonstrated that dendrite growth is faster in higher concentration compared with low concentration of HNO3. The concentration of HNO3 solution used has a strong correlation with Mean-Time-To-Failure (MTTF). As the concentration of HNO3 increases, the MTTF value decreases. Based on the MTTF results the solder alloy in 1M HNO3 solution is most susceptible to ECM. SnO2 forms as a corrosion by-product in the samples proved by EDX analysis. The solder alloy poses a high reliability risk in microelectronic devices during operation in 1M HNO3 solution.