
FBGA User’s Guide
Version 4.2, November 1, 2002
63
Convection Reflow
The Heller 1800, a forced air convection reflow system was used in the assembly of the boards.
High concentrations of Oxygen (if using air reflow) can degrade the components due to oxidation
when they are at elevated temperatures. In particular, the problem of combustion of the flux in air gives
rise to only a small available process-temperature window for the reflow process. Using Nitrogen can
significantly eliminate the oxidation of the parts and extends the available process-temperature
window for the test boards and fluxes. Therefore, Nitrogen was used for the reflow process.
AMD preferred to control the Oxygen level below 20 ppm during the reflow process. However, there
was no Oxygen analyzer available at the contractor manufacturer site to measure the actual Oxygen
level when processing AMD test boards. We can only state at this time that the maximum Oxygen
level was 100ppm during reflow.
The reflow profile characteristics were as follows:
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Ramp to 110°C with rate of 1.2°C/sec.
Dwell between 110 and 135°C for 90 seconds.
Maintain time above liquidus (183°C) for 45 seconds.
Reach peak temperature at 213 to 215°C.
Cool down with ramp rate of 1.5°C/sec.
Stress Testing
The assembled boards were subjected to temperature cycling. This is the appropriate stress test to
accelerate the wearout failure mechanism being investigated which is solder joint fatigue, primarily
driven by coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatches.
The 0/100°C temperature cycling range is the most commonly used test condition in the industry for
the board level reliability assessment of CSPs and it accelerates the correct failure mechanism. It is
also probably going to be the future High Density Packaging Users Group (HDPUG) standard, and
there is consensus among North American users and manufacturers for this test condition.
The exact temperature profile used was:
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30 min cycles
10 min ramp up/down
5 min soak at hot and cold temperatures
This profile is again consistent with the future HDPUG standard for CSPs.
Test Procedure
The following is a brief description of the various steps involved in carrying out the board level
temperature cycling experiment.