In this study, we investigated the brittle fracture behavior of Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) solder joints with a Direct Electroless Gold (DEG) surface finish, formed using laser-assisted bonding (LAB) and mass reflow (MR) techniques. Commercial SAC305 solder balls were used to ensure consistency. LAB increases void fractions and coarsens the primary β-Sn phase with higher laser power, resulting in a larger eutectic network area fraction. In contrast, MR produces solder joints with minimal voids and a thicker intermetallic compound (IMC) layer. LAB-formed joints exhibit higher high-speed shear strength and lower brittle fracture rates compared to MR. The key factor in the reduced brittle fracture in LAB joints is the thinner IMC layer at the joint interface. This study highlights the potential of LAB in enhancing the mechanical reliability of solder joints in advanced electronic packaging applications.

Thermo-compression bonding (TCB) properties of Cu/SnAg pillar bumps on electroless palladium immersion gold (EPIG) were evaluated in this study. A test chip with Cu/SnAg pillar bumps was bonded on the surface-finished Cu pads with the TCB method. The surface roughness of the EPIG was 82 nm, which was 1.6 times higher than that of the ENEPIG surface finish because the EPIG was so thin that it could not flatten rough bare Cu pads. From the cross-sectional SEM micrographs, the filler trapping of the TC-bonded EPIG was much higher than that of the ENEPIG sample. The high filler trapping of the EPIG sample was due to the high surface roughness of the EPIG surface finish. The contact resistance increased as the thermal cycle time increased. The increase of the contact resistance with 1500 cycles of the thermal cycle test was 26% higher for the EPIG sample than for the ENEPIG sample.

In this study, an interconnection was formed between a Cu/SnAg pillar bump and an Ni-less surface-treated Cu pad through laser-assisted bonding (LAB), and its bonding characteristics were evaluated. The LAB process influences the bond quality and mechanical strength based on the laser irradiation time and laser power density. The growth of the intermetallic compound (IMC) in the joint cross-section was observed via FE-SEM analysis. Under optimized LAB conditions, minimal IMC growth and high bonding strength were achieved compared to conventional thermo-compression bonding (TCB) and mass reflow (MR) processes. As the laser irradiation time and laser power density increased, solder splashing was observed at bump temperatures above 300 °C. This is hypothesized to be due to the rapid temperature rise causing the flux to vaporize explosively, resulting in simultaneous solder splashing. With increasing laser power density, the failure mode transitioned from the solder to the IMC.