Investigating the Impact of Dynamic Excitation and Boundary Conditions on the Fatigue Life of Board-Level Electronic Packages

Abstract Electronic packages are transitioning from cloud computing (controlled environment) to edge computing (uncontrolled environment), presenting new challenges, especially in high-vibration environments like transportation applications. The durability of critical components, such as solder joints, is crucial for the endurance of these packages. Therefore, there is a growing emphasis on modeling solder joints exposed to vibration environments. This study investigates the performance of board-level ball grid array (BGA) packages under harmonic and random vibration excitations, considering different boundaries and excitation conditions. We modified the boundary conditions from a four-corner screws mounting platform to a six-screws mounting platform and the excitation condition from very low harmonic excitation (linear behavior) to high excitation. For the first time in technical literature, we have demonstrated the geometric nonlinearity in the BGA package and its impact on the fatigue parameters of the solder joint. The results indicate that as the excitation increases, the package behaves nonlinearly, and the source of nonlinearity comes from the dynamics of the printed circuit board (PCB), resulting in a complete change in the fatigue parameters of the solder joint. These results can be instrumental in developing test strategies for the semiconductor design industry and facilitating the research community in devising a nonlinear dynamic modeling approach for electronic packages.