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Dr. Jennie Hwang to address “Solder Joint Reliability” at the 2025 SMTA International Conference on Monday, October 20. Leveraging her decades of extensive real-world experiences and deep knowledge, Dr. Hwang has provided solutions to many challenging problems - from production defects to field failure diagnosis to high-reliability issues, covering both commercial & military applications. She has solved the reportedly toughest reliability issues for high-reliability electronics. Join your industry colleagues to hear the true authority in solder joint reliability at SMTA International.
PDC6: “Solder Joint Reliability – Principle and Practice”
The course provides a comprehensive understanding of solder joint reliability, enabling participants to drive competitive manufacturing and enhance product reliability. The reliability of solder joint interconnections at the chip, packaging, and board levels is crucial to the end-use product reliability. As the number of solder joints continues to increase and the volume of each solder joint becomes smaller, ensuring solder joint integrity is paramount. When a single solder joint fails, the product fails.
Emphasizing practical, working knowledge, yet balanced and substantiated with science, the important aspects of solder joint reliability, including the critical “players” (e.g., manufacturing process, PCB/component coating/surface finish, solder alloys), will be discussed. Fundamentals in fatigue and creep damage mechanisms (via ductile, brittle, ductile-brittle fracture), and the likely solder joint failure modes and Intermetallic Compounds (e.g., interfacial, near-interfacial, bulk, inter-phase, intra-phase, voids-induced, surface cracks) will be highlighted. The predictive significance of the solder alloy selection through a straightforward and simple test will be illustrated. To withstand harsh environments, the course identifies the discriminating test parameters.
The course also highlights the power of metallurgy and its ability to anticipate the relative performance by contrasting the comparative performance vs. metallurgical phases and microstructure, as well as the parameters to be considered to derive a universal prediction model. A relative reliability ranking among commercially available solder systems, including “Low Temperature Solder”, as well as the scientific, engineering, and manufacturing reasons behind the ranking, will be outlined. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own selected systems for deliberation.
Main Topics:
- Premise – What is reliability? What are critical players?
- Solder joint fundamentals – stress vs. strain, thermo-mechanical degradation, fatigue and creep interaction;
- Solder joint failure modes - interfacial, near-interfacial, bulk, inter-phase, intra-phase, voids-induced, surface-crack, and the effects of Intermetallic Compounds;
- Solder joint failure mechanisms – ductile, brittle, ductile-brittle transition fracture;
- Solder joint strengthening metallurgy;
- Solder joint voids vs. reliability - effects, criteria;
- Solder joint surface-crack –causes, effects;
- Distinctions and commonalties between Pb-free and SnPb solder joints;
- Thermal cycling conditions - effects on test results and test results interpretation;
- Testing solder joint reliability – discriminating tests and discerning parameters;
- Life-prediction model vs. reliability;
- Solder joint performance in harsh environments;
- “Low Temperature Solder” and SnCu+ x, y, z and SnAgCu + x, y, z systems with dopants;
- Best practices and competitive manufacturing;
- Concluding thoughts.
