Impact of Low Temperatures on Solder Joint Failures

Abstract

An experiment with solder joints of thin plastic packages, cycled between −10° and 110°C, has demonstrated that the majority of solder joint failures occurred at the low temperatures. In this experiment, the low temperatures caused high peeling stresses in the heel area of solder joints and, as usual, relatively low plastic shear strain (as compared with these strains at high temperatures). This fact suggests that the impact of solder peeling stresses on the solder failure is noticeably higher than is anticipated by applying the commonly used failure criteria.