Thermal cycling effect on the crack formation of solder joint in ball grid array package

Abstract Ball grid array (BGA) technology is one of the technologies used in surface mount technology (SMT). It provides many interconnection points via the solder ball and thus give advantages such as good heat dissipation, improved the PCB design, BGA package become robust and reliable. In electronic industry, the reliability of BGA package is being concerned. Thermal cycling test (TCT)is one of typical reliability test used to investigate the reliability of the BGA package. This study investigates on the thermal cycling effect on the crack formation of solder joint in ball grid array package. The BGA package was subjected to thermal cycle test with temperature cyclic of -40°C and 85°C for 500, 750 and 1000 cycles. The finding shows that the cracks were observed in solder joint in 750 and 1000 cycles. This shows that the BGA package is sensitive to the thermal cycling and effect its reliability. The package was modified with adding underfill materials and tested through the same cycles. Cross sectional and Dye and pry test show no crack formation and dye penetration for all thermal cycles in the BGA package with underfill.