New Methodology Assessment of Copper Trace and

Solder Joint Fatigue Failures in Board-level Random

Vibrations for Automotive Applications
Valeriy Khaldarov Andy Zhang Dongji Xie Jeffrey Lee
ASONIKA, LLC Texas Instruments Nvidia Corporation iST-Integrated Service Technology
Tempe, AZ Dallas, TX Santa Clara, CA Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
val@asonika-llc.com azhang@ti.com dongjix@nvidia.com jeffrey_lee@istgroup.com

Xue SHI Romuald Roucou Sushil Doranga Minghong Jian

Bosch Automotive Products NXP Semiconductors Lamar University Nvidida Corporation
Suzhou P.R.China Nijmegen, The Netherlands Beaumont, TX Santa Clara, Ca
xue.shi@cn.bosch.com romuald.roucou@nxp.com sdoranga@lamar.edu mjian@nvidia.com

Brian Kelly Alexander Shalumov

AMD ASONIKA, LLC
Austin, TX Tempe, AZ
brian.kelly@amd.com alex@asonika-llc.com

Abstract—When assessing mechanical influences such as random Keywords—JEDEC, random vibration, printed circuit board
and sinusoidal vibration on printed circuit board assemblies assembly, SAC305 solder joints, copper traces, high-cycle fatigue,
(PCBAs) containing ball grid array (BGA) components, major Garofalo hyperbolic sine function.
focus is usually placed exclusively on the durability of the solder
joints. In the case of lead-free solder joints, such as SAC305, I. INTRODUCTION
however, we have found that copper traces emanating from the
High-cycle fatigue behavior of lead-free solder joints is important
solder pad can also be prone to failure.
in automotive applications which include vibration loading, but the
data published in literature on this topic reports wide variability in
In continuation of the study initiated by the JEDEC JESD22
mechanical constitutive properties of these materials. High reliance
working group, it was possible to determine through various
on RoHS compliant Pb-free alternatives similar to Sn3.0AG0.5Cu
failure analysis (FA) techniques the presence of the two
(SAC305) used for ball grid array (BGA) components in the
competing failure modes that are dependent primarily on the
automotive industry makes it necessary to assess for competing
design of the test vehicle (possibly its geometry such as side
failure mechanisms at board level such as copper trace cracking and
length of the printed circuit board) and less likely on the
pad cratering. These failures can arise due to thermo-mechanical and
vibration type (either sinusoidal or random) or its profile. These
mechanical stresses, where the source of vibration will come mainly
findings have led us to reassess and reinterpret test-to-failure
from the rough surfaces over which the vehicles are used. Due to
results presented previously and introduce additional level of
stress history differences, vibration loading has low amplitude and
detail into our finite element model.
high frequency; whereas other loading types (such as thermal, shock
and drop) are characterized by high amplitude and low frequency.
The cyclic bending of the two test vehicles (one containing small
This paper investigates the strain and fatigue levels of SAC305 solder
square PCB with 77mm side-length vs. big PCB with 140mm side
joints as well as copper traces and attempts to quantify the
length) subjected to white noise random vibration of 6.27 gRMS
accumulated damage dominated by elastic strain due to high-cycle
were originally modeled with 3D elastic high-cycle fatigue small
fatigue.
deformation that ignored the presence of any of the copper
traces. Due to the complexity of the geometry, a lumped method
Popular finite element analysis (FEA) packages don’t do an
was developed to characterize these failures, and preliminary
adequate job in determining whether failure would occur in the lead-
model constants for SAC305 solder joints and copper traces were
free solder joint, copper trace, or solder pad when high stress
estimated by ensuring that they were simultaneously compatible
concentration region is usually located at the interface of these
with test-to-failure data and fatigue curves for both materials.
elements of the PCBA design. Other challenges include great
variation in material properties of copper which depend on the
The important impact of this study includes insight into copper
fabrication process, the thickness, grain structure and other similar
trace and SAC305 solder joints failure in PCBAs subjected to
parameters. Our proposed model attempts to give a systematic
random vibration, FA techniques used to isolate such failures,
assessment of copper trace and solder joint fatigue failures for board-
the development of a simplified quantitative model used in
level random vibrations. This new methodology was then used to
predicting failure occurrence, and validated guidelines to prevent
identify failure modes and predict time to failure for other design
such failures in the design.
alternatives for the test vehicles that showed good correlation with
experimental results.
 II. CHARACTERIZATION OF TEST VEHICLES
The two test vehicles considered in this study consist of one
BGA package mounted in the center of a PCB. The first test
vehicle (TV1) has a 77𝑚𝑚 × 7𝑚𝑚 square board with 1.0𝑚𝑚
thickness; while the second (TV2) has 140𝑚𝑚 × 140𝑚𝑚
square board geometry with 1.6𝑚𝑚 thickness (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Top view of CAD drawing for TV1 (a) and TV2 (b)
The BGA component, 24.5𝑚𝑚 × 24.5𝑚𝑚, is attached to the
FR4 PCB with 0.4𝑚𝑚 diameter 769 lead-free SAC305 solder
balls in 0.65𝑚𝑚 pitch. The two test vehicles are mounted on
the shaker table with metal standoffs screwed to four corner
screw holes. An event detector is used to monitor the
resistance of the daisy chain circuits continuously throughout
the test and record failure time. The test is stopped with
assumed electrical discontinuity when the resistance threshold
exceeds 1000 𝑂ℎ𝑚𝑠 in a daisy-chain for a period of 1𝜇𝑠 or
more with a crack or cracks fully detaching the path between
the interconnects.
Random vibration is conducted with the excitation input
specified as white noise (flat profile) having power spectral
density (PSD) level of 0.01976 𝐺 /𝐻𝑧 over the frequency
range from 10 𝐻𝑧 to 2000 𝐻𝑧; thus, having overall root mean
square (RMS) value of 6.27 𝑔𝑅𝑀𝑆. The excitation is given at
the four support locations on the bottom side of the board and
it is applied in vertical (z-direction) in all vibration tests. The
recorded time-to-failure results are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Time to failure results for two test vehicles at 0.01976
PSD level from 10 𝐻𝑧 to 2000 𝐻𝑧
Figure 2 shows corresponding Weibull probability plots with
number of cycles to failure (the top part of the figure) and
number of hours to failure (the bottom part) for TV1 (purple)
and TV2 (red). The first plot was generated by assuming only
the first (dominant) natural frequency of around 480 𝐻𝑧 for
TV1 and 180 𝐻𝑧 for TV2 responsible for fatigue failure. The
characteristic life, 𝜂, is 12.3 million cycles for TV1 and 19.1
million for TV2, representing the difference of around 55%
between the two test vehicles. The combined data set for TV1
and TV2 (green) shows 𝜂 of around 16.4 million cycles which
is greater than the characteristic life for TV1 but less then for
TV2. The coefficient of determination, 𝑅 , for the combined
number of cycles data set is about 0.87, which is higher than
𝑅 for TV1 (of around 0.80) and TV2 (of around 0.78). One
possible explanation (hypothesis 1) might include similar level
of stress concentration present at the failure sites of the two
test vehicles allowing for the usage of more data points in
construction of a straight-line regression. The Weibull shape
parameter, 𝛽, is around 1.5 and 1.9 for TV1 and TV2,
respectively, indicating increasing failure rate for both test
vehicles. In fact, the shape parameter value for TV2 is not far
from the special case in which 𝛽 = 2, where the Weibull
distribution reduces to the Rayleigh distribution. This
distribution is also referred to as the distribution of peaks or
ranges in a stationary narrow-band Gaussian process, which is
representative of a typical case with high cycle fatigue from
random vibration. The significant deviation between shape
parameter value for TV1 from this special case may be
indicative of the presence of mixed failure modes in TV1
(hypothesis 2).
The bottom portion of Figure 2 is generated from actual 4). On the other hand, it can be posited that the first natural
reported time to failure data. It shows 𝜂 of around 7 hours for frequency for TV2 may be responsible for a distinct failure
TV1 and 29 hours for TV2. The combined data set for TV1 mode (either failure only in the solder joints or copper traces),
and TV2 shows an improvement of 𝑅 value to around 0.92 while other natural frequencies may be responsible for a
over the top part of the figure. One possible explanation different failure mode type (hypothesis 5). This conclusion
might be inclusion of other (non-dominant) natural can be reached by comparing 𝛽 values between two combined
frequencies that may also contribute to fatigue failure data sets in Figure 2. Another possibility could be that the two
(hypothesis 3). Another important observation shows that 𝛽 test vehicles experience non-similar failure modes from each
for the combined data set for two test vehicles is around 1 other (hypothesis 6).
when time to failure data is considered, which represents
another special case where Weibull is reduced to Exponential
distribution having a constant failure rate. This implies the
presence of more than one failure modes in both test vehicles.
The combined data set for TV1 and TV2 also shows an effect
of downward shifting of failure data points for TV1 and
upward shifting for TV2.

Figure 3: Amplitude-frequency response curve test measurements for

TV1 (a) and TV2 (b)

Thermal emission microscopy (EMMI) inspection was

performed on two TV1 units for failure analysis where a
detector made of Indium Antimony (InSB) receives thermal
radiation generated by a defective point after power-on
(Figure 4). This technique allows for positioning the defect
and even estimating the depth of the defect via the time
difference of thermal radiation transmission.

Figure 2: Weibull probability plots for TV1 (purple), TV2 (red) and
combined (green) with number of cycles to failure (a) and time to
failure (b)

Figure 3 shows amplitude-frequency response (AFR) curve Figure 4: Thermal EMMI setup
test measurement results for both test vehicles. The top part of
Multiple hot spots were found on the inspected units for TV1
the figure shows AFR curve for TV1 having only two natural
as indicated in Figure 5. As a result, cross sectioning was
frequencies with the first natural frequency having much
applied for unit 3787A00107 along a cutting line (Figure 6),
higher amplitude than the second. The bottom part of the
along which two full cracks were identified. The top part of
figure shows AFR curve for TV2 having four natural
Figure 7 shows a full crack along the intermetallic compound
frequencies. From the figure, it can be inferred that higher
(IMC) of a solder ball and the copper trace of the PCB. The
(non-dominant) natural frequencies for TV2 are more likely to
bottom part of this figure shows a full crack along a copper
contribute to fatigue damage than the second (last) natural
trace of the PCB, located in close proximity to the solder ball.
frequency for TV1. It can be further inferred that the first
These two findings may be indicative of the presence of
natural frequency for TV1 may be responsible for the presence
multiple failures with mixed failure modes in other units of
of mixed failure modes as indicated by its 𝛽 value (hypothesis
TV1 as well. However, no other cross sections were applied
on any of the remaining two failed units consistent with the
described thermal EMMI inspection technique.
Figure 5: Hot spot identification for TV1 unit 3787A00076 (a) and
3787A00107 (b).
Figure 6: Cross section cutting line definition for TV1 unit
3787A00107.
Figure 7: Full cracks identified along cross section line definition for
TV1 unit 3787A00107.
Cross section cut was also applied along several directions for
TV2 unit P0008 without performing thermal EMMI inspection
or lapping procedure on nearby copper traces located on the
BGA side. Some partial cracks were identified along several
corner most top side of the solder balls, however, no full
cracks were found (Figure 8). The top side location of micro
cracks is in line with the prediction made in [1] where finite
element model was correlated to AFR test results
measurements. The presence of micro cracks on the bottom
(PCB side) of solder balls in TV1 versus top (BGA side) in
TV2 may also support hypothesis 6.
Figure 8: Cross section cut for TV2 unit P0008 with corner most
balls along the top horizontal row (a) right vertical row (b) and
bottom horizontal row (c).
On the other hand, unit P0007 for TV2 has been examined for
failure using dye-n-pry (DnP) process. However, this method
could not identify any cracks in the solder balls (Figure 9). As
with the previous test unit, lapping procedure on copper traces
was not performed.
Figure 9: DnP test results for TV2 unit P0007.
Figure 10 shows an FEA model of a bare board with
outermost copper traces for TV1 (a) and TV2 (b). The figure
maps partial / full crack locations identified during the FA
process as well as maximum stress values for the solder balls
from previous ¼ FE model [2].
 length of the PCB) and less likely on the vibration type (either
sinusoidal or random) or its profile.

Figure 10: Defeatured bare-board FEA model with outermost traces

for TV1 (a) and TV2 (b)

Comparing two test vehicles, it was established that maximum

stress for a corner solder ball (the most likely location where a
crack is expected to develop) is 4.4 𝑀𝑃𝑎 for TV1 and Figure 11: FA results for TV1 unit 3787A00097
5.1 𝑀𝑃𝑎 for TV2 or about 16% difference. Approximately
the same magnitude difference in strain was observed with a
strain gauge measurement located on the bottom side of a
PCBA directly across one of the corner solder joints. Such a
difference can be considered to be within the acceptable limits
for margin of error, thus providing some evidence for
hypothesis 1. In addition, the current bare board with
outermost copper traces shows that the maximum stress value
on a copper trace located nearby corner solder ball is around
7.8 𝑀𝑃𝑎 for TV1 and 11.8 𝑀𝑃𝑎 for TV2. This may
constitute a significant difference between two test vehicles,
however, as was noted previously cracks for TV2 are more
likely to develop closer to the BGA component than to the
PCB. This may also explain the fact that compared to TV1,
TV2 will on average require higher number of cycles to failure
despite experiencing higher stress levels.

To test other hypotheses, TV1 was also tested to failure using

Figure 12: FA results for TV1 unit 378aA00092
sinusoidal vibration at its first natural frequency. The FA
process was conducted on two units that were subjected to 2𝐺
sinusoidal vibration. Unit 378A00097 has failed after 2 hours Table 2: Failure analysis results for two test vehicles
(Figure 11) and unit 378A00092 failed after 8.5 hours (Figure
12). Close examination of the two failed units shows location
of failure sites and failure modes to be very similar to what
was found under random vibration tests. These findings seem
to confirm that for TV1, the first natural frequency may be
responsible for mixed failure modes (hypothesis 2 and 4).
Another key fact that can be observed and will become
important in the next section for the proposed mathematical
model is the presence of a partial crack in the IMC region of
the SAC305 solder in Figure 12(c). This may suggest that a
crack would most likely first initiate in the solder ball and
propagate down through the copper trace. The overview of
FA results with various experiments for two test vehicles is
also presented in Table 2. These results seem to indicate that
the observed failure modes are dependent primarily on the
design of the test vehicle (possibly its geometry such as side
 III. PROPOSED MODEL DESCRIPTION
Based on presented findings, we are now ready to propose a
simplified mathematical model. Figure 13 shows possible
failure modes for TV1 and Figure 14 for TV2. It is assumed
that TV2 fails differently from TV1 due to presence of two
additional higher natural frequencies and that both test
vehicles develop a partial crack in the solder joint and a full
crack in the copper trace / pad. Furthermore, crack initiation
takes place in the SAC305 solder material due to creep and
propagates through the copper trace / pad due to vibration
fatigue.
Figure 13: Possible failure modes for TV1
Figure 14: Possible failure modes for TV2
The last assumption is based on the fact that creep of lead-free
solder material is an important factor governing its reliability.
Since the solidus or melting temperature, 𝑇 , of SAC305 is
217°𝐶 or 490𝐾, its homologous temperature, 𝑇 , is around
0.61𝑇 at room temperature suggesting limited mechanical
strength. Copper, on the other hand, has a much higher
melting point resulting in the homologous temperature range
from 0.16𝑇 to 0.29𝑇 making its material properties to be
little affected by temperature.
The proposed simplified model lumps a double layer of
SAC305 solder and copper into a single material which
experiences both creep and fatigue failure modes developing a
full crack. One advantage for such assumption is that it allows
for the use of only one high-cycle Basquin fatigue curve
(instead of two) in the calculations.
A versatile equation that relates the minimum creep rate to
stress and temperature is Garofalo hyperbolic sine function:
𝜖̇ = 𝐶 (sinh(𝐶 𝜎)) 𝑒 / Δ𝜖
where 𝐶 is a constant; 𝐶 is temperature-dependent parameter
such that 𝐶 𝜎 is an effective stress, 𝐶 is another constant for
sinh law exponent, 𝐶 is apparent activation energy, 𝑅 is the
universal gas constant, and 𝑇 is temperature.
A particular attribute of the Garofalo hyperbolic sine function
is that it adequately represents creep strain rate over an
extended range of stresses, thereby eliminating the need for
multiple exponent values, 𝐶 . In particular, at low stresses
this relation can be approximated to the power law relation:
𝜖̇ (𝜎) = 𝐶 ( ) 𝜎 (1)
where 𝐶 ( ) = 𝐴𝑒 / ; 𝐴 is a constant, and subscript 𝑖 takes
values of either 1 or 2, corresponding to designations for TV1
and TV2 respectively.
For low strain rate values when 𝜖̇ ≤ 1, we can derive the
following inequality:
𝐶 log(2𝜋𝜎 ) ≤ 𝐶 ( ) (2)
where 𝐶 ( )
= log 𝐶 ( ) and 𝐶 ( )
= 2𝜋/𝐶 ( ) .
Since
𝐸 = 𝜎̇ /𝜖 ̇ (3)
where 𝐸 is Young’s modulus, 𝜎̇ = 2𝜋𝑓 𝜎 and 𝑓 is apparent
frequency, the following inequality can be derived by
substituting expressions (1) and (3) into (2):
𝐸 𝐸
log + (log 𝜎 )𝐶 ≤ 𝐶 ( )
≤ log + (log 𝜎 )𝐶
𝑓𝜎 𝑓𝜎
where 𝐸 ≤ 𝐸 ≤ 𝐸 are lower and upper bounds for
Young’s modulus.
The above expression can be plotted to identify Young’s
modulus feasible region. Figure 15 is a depiction for such a
region with lower bound of 5𝐺𝑃𝑎 (SAC305 alloy) and upper
bound of 130𝐺𝑃𝑎 (copper) for both test vehicles. Other
values used to generate this figure include 𝜎 = 4.4𝑀𝑃𝑎, 𝑓 =
462𝐻𝑧, 𝜎 = 5.1𝑀𝑃𝑎, 𝑓 = 1705𝐻𝑧 [2]. One of the
advantages for generating the above inequality this way is that
it gives us an ability to formulate a problem in terms of
optimization, where we need to find 𝐸 within the defined
feasible region. In these types of problems, the maximum /
minimum value of the objective function is found at one of the
four corners. A proposed objective function for our case may
be Basquin relation:
(4)
= 𝑎(2𝑁 )
2
 relation (4) is satisfied for each test vehicle. The new corner
where 𝑎 and 𝑏 are material constants; 𝑁 = 𝑓 × 𝑡 , 𝑡 is time where these 2 additional lines intersect is a point that satisfies
to failure. all constraint and compatibility requirements.

Figure 16: Two additional constraints at 𝐸 = 7.5𝐺𝑃𝑎 for TV1 and

Figure 15: Young’s modulus feasible region plot for TV1 and TV2.
𝐸 = 12.0𝐺𝑃𝑎 for TV2.
Since we are not interested in minimizing / maximizing an
Figure 16 shows two additional constraints for both test
objective function, we assume that material constants 𝑎 and 𝑏
vehicles – the vertical line representing 𝑏 and the other line
in the equation (4) are equal or approximately equal for TV1
representing 𝑎.
and TV2.
Table 3: Material Constants Comparison
Substituting equations (1) and (3) into
TV1 TV2 SAC305 [3] Copper
Δ𝜖 𝜎 traces [4]
= 𝐸 (GPa) 7.5 12.0 51 120
2 2𝐸
𝜎 (MPa) 40.5 64.8 64.8 643.2
𝑎 = 𝜎 /𝐸 0.0054 0.0013 0.0054
we obtain
𝑏 0.13 0.14 0.11

𝑦 = 𝐶 log 𝜎 − 𝐶 ( ) − log(2𝑓 ) Table 3 shows calculated material constants for both test
vehicles and compares them to reported values for SAC305
where 𝑦 = log . solder joints [3] and copper traces [4]. We note that calculated
fatigue strength coefficient, 𝜎 , value for TV2 matches to the
Since relation (4) is a system of two equations with two reported value for SAC305 solder joints; while the value for
unknows, solving for material properties 𝑎 and 𝑏 gives: both test vehicles parameter 𝑎 matches with the reported value
for copper traces. In addition, the 𝑏 exponent parameter for
𝑎=𝑒 two test vehicles lies between what was reported for copper
traces and SAC305 solder joints. The mismatch between TV1
log(𝜎 ) − log(𝜎 ) log(𝑓 ) − log(𝑓 ) and TV2 for 𝜎 may be due to the fact that the two test
𝑏= 𝐶 − vehicles experience different failure modes. Also, the
log(2𝑁 ) − log(2𝑁 ) log(2𝑁 ) − log(2𝑁 )
calculated Young’s modulus for two test vehicles is much
where 𝑥 = log (2𝑁 ). lower to what is used in the literature for SAC305 solder joints
and copper traces. This mismatch may be attributable to the
The last two expressions can be added as additional influence of the FR4 material of the PCB as well as the
constraints to Figure 15 by varying 𝐶 parameter such that material used for BGA substrate for TV1 and TV2,
respectively, corresponding to the location of the failure sites. Electronic Assemblies, College Park: University of
To be more specific, ref. [1] reports Young’s modulus for the Maryland, 2015.
BGA substrate to be 11.3𝐺𝑃𝑎. This value is very close to the
calculated value of 12.0𝐺𝑃𝑎 for TV2. On the other hand, ref.
[1] reports Young’s modulus of 14.4𝐺𝑃𝑎 for the FR4 board,
which is much higher than the calculated value of 7.5𝐺𝑃𝑎 for
TV1. One possible explanation may be presence of epoxy
resin material used in the production of the copper clad
laminate (CCL) in the PCB. Averaging Young’s modulus for
epoxy resin (typical value of around 3.35𝐺𝑃𝑎) and the FR4
material for the PCB would give us an overall Young’s
modules of around 8.9𝐺𝑃𝑎. However, further testing is
needed to confirm this hypothesis.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this work, a simplified mathematical model was presented
in an analysis of microelectronics subjected to random
vibration at the board level. The presented FA results have
shown that both solder joints and copper traces are involved in
the competing failure mechanism where the solder joints
develop only partial while the copper traces have developed
full cracks. This proposed method will help overcome the
challenge of providing consistent results when assessing the
durability of the PCBA with Pb-free solder joints experiencing
high-cycle fatigue in the automotive industry. The
effectiveness of the proposed methodology was investigated
by comparing computed material properties with results
presented in the literature.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Keith Newman and Mihaela
Tanesescu (AMD) and Gerhard Haubner (Infineon) for their
contribution to the JEDEC JESD working group.

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