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The effect of electroplating parameters and substrate material on tin whisker formation

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posted on 2015-01-21, 09:20 authored by Mark Ashworth, Geoffrey Wilcox, Rebecca HigginsonRebecca Higginson, Richard HeathRichard Heath, Changqing Liu, Roger J. Mortimer
Electroplated tin finishes are widely used in the electronics industry due to their excellent solderability, electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance. However, the spontaneous growth of tin whiskers during service can result in localised electrical shorting or other harmful effects. Until recently, the growth of tin whiskers was successfully mitigated by alloying the tin with lead. However, restriction in the use of lead in electronics as a result of EU legislation (RoHS) has led to renewed interest in finding a successful alternative mitigation strategy. Whisker formation has been investigated for a bright tin electrodeposit to determine whether whisker growth can, at least partially, be mitigated by control of electroplating parameters such as deposition current density and deposit thickness. The influence of substrate material and storage at 55 C/85% humidity on whisker growth have also been investigated. Whisker growth studies indicate that deposition parameters have a significant effect on both whisker density and whisker morphology. As deposition current density is increased there is a reduction in whisker density and a transition towards the formation of large eruptions rather than potentially more harmful filament whiskers. Increasing the tin coating thickness also results in a reduction in whisker density. Results demonstrate that whisker growth is most prolific from tin deposits on brass, whilst that from tin deposits on rolled silver is greater than that observed for tin deposits on copper.

Funding

UK EPSRC Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) WHISKERMIT programme

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Materials

Published in

Microelectronics Reliability

Volume

55

Issue

2015

Pages

180 - 191

Citation

ASHWORTH, M.A. ... et al., 2015. The effect of electroplating parameters and substrate material on tin whisker formation. Microelectronics Reliability, 55, pp. 180 - 191.

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Publication date

2014-11-04

Notes

This is an Open Access Article (CC-BY 3.0). It is published by Elsevier as Open Access at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2014.10.005

ISSN

1872-941X

Language

  • en

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