Correlation Studies Between Laser Ultrasonic Inspection Data and Finite-Element Modeling Results in Evaluation of Solder Joint Quality in Microelectronic Packages

Abstract

Abstract Laser ultrasonic inspection (LUI) is a nondestructive and noncontact technique to evaluate the quality of solder ball interconnections in area-array micro-electronic packages. Dual-Fiber Array Laser Ultrasonic Inspection System was demonstrated identifying defects and failures in chip-scale packages, ball grid array packages, and flip-chip ball grid array packages. The location and severity of the defects and failures in packages have been identified accurately using this system. Further, it is important to establish the correlation between LUI results and the severity of the failures for failure mode analysis, which will enable us to eliminate the need for destructive testing and allow the study of failure evolution in a given sample under continued reliability testing. This paper discusses correlation studies between experimental LUI results and finite-element simulation results from the flip-chip ball grid array packages subjected to thermal cycling reliability testing. The correlation equations will help in predicting the severity of the failures at a given number of thermal cycles based on LUI results. Furthermore, the life of the micro-electronic packages can be predicted accurately from LUI results at a fewer number of thermal cycles.