Life expectancies of Pb-free SAC solder interconnects in electronic hardware

The transition from lead (Pb) bearing solder to Pb-free solder has arisen in response to government restrictions on the use of lead (Pb) by the European Union. As a result, electronic manufacturers have sought a material comparable to the conventional 63Sn37Pb solder that has been traditionally used to assemble electronic hardware. Based on extensive review of various solder combination, the majority of electronic manufacturers appear to be adopting a tin-silver-copper (SAC) solder as a popular Pb-free solder replacement. Significant investments have been made by many researchers to characterize the material behavior and durability of this solder system. While the exact composition of the SAC solder is still in question, it now appears that the 96.5Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) solder is gaining wider acceptance as the favored Pb-free replacement, for surface mount assemblies that are going to be subjected predominantly to cyclic thermal environments. This paper presents a review of our current understanding of the life expectancy of Pb-free SAC solder interconnects for electronic hardware. To this end, the paper focuses on material characterization of SAC solder, as well as its temperature cycling and vibration fatigue reliability. From this review, SAC solder interconnects are shown to be suitable for providing adequate life expectancies for temperature cycling in electronic hardware. However, it is clear that there are differences between SAC and the conventional Sn37Pb solder, that need to be understood in order to design reliable electronic hardware.