Creep and fatigue behaviors of the lead-free Sn-Ag-Cu-Bi and Sn60Pb40 solder interconnections at elevated temperatures

Creep and fatigue behaviors of the interconnections soldered by the lead-free Sn-Ag-Cu-Bi solder were investigated at different elevated temperatures (with the homologue temperature in the range of 0.71- 0.82), with a comparison to that of a traditional Sn60Pb40 solder. The results show that the lead-free Sn-Ag-Cu-Bi solder shows a superior anti-creep performance over the Sn60Pb40 solder, in terms of a much lower creep strain rate and a vastly elongated creep fracture lifetime; in the secondary creep regime, the calculated creep-activation energy for two solders is reasonably close to other published data. In addition, it has also been shown that the joints soldered by the lead-free Sn-Ag-Cu-Bi solder exhibits a superb fatigue property.