The finite element method was used to simulate the thermo-mechanical behaviour of a flip chip under thermocyclic loading between -55°C (-67°F) and 125°C (257°F). In order to simulate realistically the inelastic material response of the solder bump, Chaboche's viscoplastic material model instead of a classical ORNL-theory was implemented into the finite element code ABAQUS and applied to a flip chip configuration. This so-called unified constitutive model is able to describe the Bauschinger effect as well as the creep/plasticity interaction. Herewith the influence of the substrate material on the inelastic deformation behaviour of a tin-lead solder bump was analysed. A comparison is given with respect to the influence of the two substrate materials namely Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3 </sub> and our self-developed Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) on the inelastic response of the Sn60Pb40 eutectic solder material. It may be shown that the thermoelastic behaviour of the LTCC substrate significantly reduces the cyclic stresses in the bump compared to Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> as well as the cumulative inelastic strain which is responsible for the development of damage and hence flip chip failure
The successive fatigue failure process, i.e. crack initiation and growth up to electrical failure, has been investigated for a flip chip configuration. A cracked and uncracked solder bump was analysed using an unified viscoplastic constitutive model (Chaboche). The electrical failure of a bump seems to be reached in general not before a deep crack has grown into the bump. In order to update the actual loading situation two different cracked structures were calculated.
The finite element method was used to simulate the thermo-mechanical behaviour of a solder bump configuration on Al2O3 substrate under thermo-cyclic loading between -55 °C and 125 °C. Chaboche's viscoplastic material model was used to describe the Bauschinger effect and the creep/plasticity interaction for the tin-lead solder material. The influence of two different viscoelastic underfill materials (Epoxy+50 % SiO2, Epoxy+70 % SiO2) on the inelastic deformation of the tin-lead solder was analyzed and compared. It may be shown that the thermally matched 'hard' underfiller (Epoxy+70 % SiO2) significantly reduces the accumulated inelastic strain in the bump compared to 'soft' underfiller or no underfill material. On the other hand, the maximum lateral normal stress will increase slightly.