Electrochemical migration investigations on Sn-Sb solder alloys using 3.5 wt% NaCl solution

ECM (electrochemical migration) is sort of short failure mechanism that can lead to series defect in case of loaded circuits, when moisture exist on/in a conductor-dielectric-conductor system. Water drop (WD) test and scanning electron microscopy - energy disperse spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) methods were used to investigate the ECM behavior on different Sn-Sb alloys and pure Sn was the reference. The results show that all of the samples have similar ECM risk comparing to the pure Sn. However, in case of Sn95-Sb5 solder alloy antimony was found in the dendrites next to Sn content, which was dominated during the ECM processes in all cases.