Fatigue Life Prediction of Solder Joints in Electronic Packages with Ansys®

Fatigue reliability of solder joints is an important issue in the electronics industry. There have been several attempts to accurately predict the expected service life of an electronic component. One method has emerged as the most widely used for a multitude of package configurations. However, this method requires the knowledge of finite element modelling and simulation with ANSY TM, a commercially available finite element program. Furthermore, a three-dimensional finite element modelling of any electronic package remains a formidable task even if the analyst has extensive knowledge of ANSYS TM. This text describes the method in great detail starting from the theoretical basis. The reader is supplied with an add-on software package to ANSYS TM that is designed for solder joint fatigue reliability analysis of electronic packages. Specific steps of the analysis method are discussed through examples without leaving any room for confusion.