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    EMSv 1

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    Nick Lavery
    This document discusses predicting fatigue failure of lead-free solders in new power electronic components. It describes working with a company to simulate thermal and power cycles using creep-fatigue models to predict failure areas and better understand failure mechanisms of lead-free solders.

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    EMSv 1

    Uploaded by

    Nick Lavery
    88 views1 page
    This document discusses predicting fatigue failure of lead-free solders in new power electronic components. It describes working with a company to simulate thermal and power cycles using creep-fatigue models to predict failure areas and better understand failure mechanisms of lead-free solders.

    Original Description:

    Case study for creep in lead-free solders

    Original Title

    EMSv1

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    This document discusses predicting fatigue failure of lead-free solders in new power electronic components. It describes working with a company to simulate thermal and power cycles using creep-fatigue models to predict failure areas and better understand failure mechanisms of lead-free solders.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    88 views1 page

    EMSv 1

    Uploaded by

    Nick Lavery
    This document discusses predicting fatigue failure of lead-free solders in new power electronic components. It describes working with a company to simulate thermal and power cycles using creep-fatigue models to predict failure areas and better understand failure mechanisms of lead-free solders.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Prediction of the fatigue failure of lead‐free solders in new 

    power electronic components

    Business: Electronic Motion Systems Ltd Duration: 9 months
    Industry: Electrical / Electronic Manufacturing for Automotive Applications
    Technology: Lead‐free solder creep‐fatigue simulation                      Key result areas: Increasing the product life cycles 

    Background: Electronic Motion Systems (EMS) develop and manufacture control modules and systems for power
    conversion and electric motor drives for the automotive industry. Originally part of the large world‐wide group
    International Rectifier, EMS was purchased by the employees and is now a Swansea based SME.

    Due to environmental concerns, legislation has been introduced banning lead from solders and industry and
    research organisations worldwide have been working on converting to lead‐free solders based on metals such as tin.
    This conversion process has been relatively rapid over the past decade, particularly in the European Union, however,
    the full impact on the electronics industry is still unknown as the reliability of lead‐free solders is more difficult to
    predict due to the build‐up of intermetallic layers. Certainly, new generations of lead‐free solders are being
    developed on almost a yearly basis, and no single composition has been adopted world wide as standard. This has
    led to a lack of comprehensive thermo‐mechanical data for lead‐free solders.

    EMS’s products require high standards of reliability at some of the highest power and thermal cycle ratings. Fatigue
    of solder joints in electronic assemblies arises from thermal expansion mismatch of various components (ceramic
    substrates, copper, solders ...), and this accumulates over the repetitive cycling over the lifetime of the package.
    Computational modelling can be used to accelerate design iterations, and optimise geometry of sub‐components
    and board layouts.

    Using visco‐plastic creep‐fatigue models, ASTUTE has simulated thermal and power cycles on sub‐components such
    as leads and on complete assembled modules. The computational power required has been significant with the 3D
    full board simulations taking over 10‐15 days to run for only 10 cycles (failure can occur at many thousands of
    cycles). However, the areas of predicted failure closely match those being seen in the testing of actual components,
    and in conjunction with metallographic analysis, has given an insight into the failure mechanisms of lead‐free
    solders. As a result of the work, EMS has been able to proceed with a cost‐based down‐selection of appropriate
    lead‐free solders to be used in new products. Further work is planned where modelling is incorporated into a
    redesigned layout of the module which minimises the fatigue of solder joints in key areas.

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