Low cycle fatigue analysis of microelectronics solder joints incorporating damage and size effects using a thermodynamics based rate dependent constitutive model

Below certain length scales and in the presence of a nonuniform plastic strain field the mechanical behavior of many metals and its alloys is substantially different from that in bulk specimens. In particular, an increase in resistance with decreasing size has been observed in Pb/Sn eutectic solder alloys which are extensively used in microelectronics packaging interconnects. Due to the high homologous temperature, the Pb/Sn solder exhibits creep-fatigue interaction and significant time, temperature, stress and rate dependent material characteristics. The simultaneous consideration of all the above mentioned factors makes constitutive modeling an extremely difficult task. In this paper, a viscoplastic constitutive model unified with a thermodynamics based damage evolution model is embedded into a couple stress framework in order to simulate low cycle fatigue response coupled to size effects. The model is implemented into commercial finite element code ABAQUS. The microbending experiment on thin nickel foils is used to validate the model. Analyses are performed on a thin layer solder joint in bending under cyclic loading conditions.