Creep deformation behavior of Sn-3.5Ag solder at small length scales

To adequately characterize the behavior of solder spheres in electronic packaging, their mechanical behavior needs to be studied at small-length scales. The creep behavior of single Sn-3.5Ag solder spheres on a copper substrate was studied between 25°C and 130°C using a microforce testing system. In the low-stress regime, the creep stress exponent changed from 6 at lower temperatures to 4 at higher temperatures, indicating creep by dislocation climb. The activation energy for creep was also found to be temperature dependent, and correlated with values for dislocation core diffusion and lattice diffusion in pure tin. A change in the stress exponent with increasing stress was also observed and explained in terms of a threshold stress for dislocation motion, due to the presence of obstacles in the form of Ag₃Sn particles.