The Role of Lengthscale in the Creep of Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu Solder Microstructures

Tianhong Gu*, Christopher M. Gourlay, T. Ben Britton

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Creep of directionally solidified Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu wt.% (SAC305) samples with near-<110> orientation along the loading direction and different microstructural lengthscale is investigated under constant load tensile testing and at a range of temperatures. The creep performance improves by refining the microstructure, i.e. the decrease in secondary dendrite arm spacing (λ2), eutectic intermetallic spacing (λe) and intermetallic compound (IMC) size, indicating a longer creep lifetime, lower creep strain rate, change in activation energy (Q) and increase in ductility and homogeneity in macro- and micro-structural deformation of the samples. The dominating creep mechanism is obstacle-controlled dislocation creep at room temperature and transits to lattice-associated vacancy diffusion creep at elevated temperature (TTM > 0.7 to 0.75). The deformation mechanisms are investigated using electron backscatter diffraction and strain heterogeneity is identified between β-Sn in dendrites and β-Sn in eutectic regions containing Ag3Sn and Cu6Sn5 particles. The size of the recrystallised grains is modulated by the dendritic and eutectic spacings; however, the recrystalised grains in the eutectic regions for coarse-scaled samples (largest λ2 and λe) is only localised next to IMCs without growth in size.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)926-938
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Electronic Materials
Volume50
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • digital image correlation
  • microstructural evolution
  • Pb-free solder
  • polygonisation
  • recrystallisation

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