Effect of Isothermal Aging and High Strain Rate on Material Properties of Innolot

Industry migration to lead-free solders has resulted in a proliferation of a wide variety of solder alloy compositions. The most popular amongst these are the Tin-Silver-Copper (Sn-Ag-Cu or SAC) family of alloys like SAC105, SAC305 etc. Recent studies have highlighted the detrimental effects of isothermal aging on the material properties of these alloys. SAC alloys have shown up to 50% reduction in their initial elastic modulus and ultimate tensile strength within a few months of elevated temperature aging. This phenomenon has posed a severe design challenge across the industry and remains a road-block in the migration to Pb-free. Multiple compositions with additives to SAC have been proposed to minimize the effect of aging and creep while maintaining the melting temperatures, strength and cost at par with SAC. Innolot is a newly developed high-temperature, high-performance lead-free substitute by InnoRel™ targeting the automotive electronics segment. Innolot contains Nickel (Ni), Antimony (Sb) and Bismuth (Bi) in small proportions in addition to Sn, Ag and Cu. The alloy has demonstrated enhanced reliability under thermal cycling as compared to SAC alloys. In this paper, the high strain rate material properties of Innolot have been evaluated as the alloy ages at an elevated temperature of 50°C. The strain rates chosen are in the range of 1–100 per-second which are typical at second level interconnects subjected to drop-shock environments. The strain rates and elevated aging temperature have been chosen also to correspond to prior tests conducted on SAC105 and SAC305 alloys at this research center. This paper presents a comparison of material properties and their degradation in the three alloys — SAC105, SAC305 and Innolot. Full field strain measurements have been accomplished with the use of high speed imaging in conjunction with Digital Image Correlation (DIC). Ramberg-Osgood non-linear model parameters have been determined to curve-fit through the experimental data. The parameters have been implemented in Abaqus FE model to obtain full-field stresses which correlates with contours obtained experimentally by DIC.