Technical Library | 2022-03-16 19:48:18.0
Dendrites, Electrochemical Migration (ECM) and parasitic leakage, are usually caused by process related contamination. For example, excess flux, poor handling, extraneous solder, fibers, to name a few. One does not normally relate these fails with environmental causes. However, creep corrosion is a mechanism by which electronic products fail in application, primarily related to sulfur pollution present in the air.1 The sulfur reacts with exposed silver, and to a lesser extent, exposed copper. This paper will explore various aspects of the creep corrosion chemical reaction
Technical Library | 2022-03-16 19:41:17.0
Creep corrosion occurs in electronics assemblies and it is reminiscent to electromigration but does not require electrical field to drive the reaction. Corrosive elements and moisture must be present for creep corrosion to occur. Sulfur is the most prominent element to cause creep corrosion in environments such as paper mills, rubber manufacturing, mining, cement manufacturing, waste water treatment etc., also including companies and locations nearby such industries. The main part of printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) to be affected is the PCB surface finish. Especially immersion silver is prone to creep corrosion, but it sometimes occurs in NiPd (lead frames), and to a lesser extent in ENIG and OSP surface finishes. As the use of immersion silver is increasing as PCB surface finish and electronics are more and more used in harsh environments, creep corrosion is a growing risk. In this paper we will present the driving forces and mechanisms as well as suitable tests and mitigation strategies against creep corrosion
Technical Library | 2018-05-09 22:15:29.0
Creep corrosion on printed circuit boards (PCBs) is the corrosion of copper metallization and the spreading of the copper corrosion products across the PCB surfaces to the extent that they may electrically short circuit neighboring features on the PCB. The iNEMI technical subcommittee on creep corrosion has developed a flowers-of-sulfur (FOS) based test that is sufficiently well developed for consideration as an industry standard qualification test for creep corrosion. This paper will address the important question of how relative humidity affects creep corrosion. A creep corrosion tendency that is inversely proportional to relative humidity may allow data center administrators to eliminate creep corrosion simply by controlling the relative humidity in the data center,thus, avoiding the high cost of gas-phase filtration of gaseous contamination. The creep corrosion relative humidity dependence will be studied using a modified version of the iNEMI FOS test chamber. The design modification allows the achievement of relative humidity as low as 15% in the presence of the chlorine-releasing bleach aqueous solution. The paper will report on the dependence of creep corrosion on humidity in the 15 to 80% relative humidity range by testing ENIG (gold on electroless nickel), ImAg (immersion silver) and OSP (organic surface preservative) finished PCBs, soldered with organic acid flux.
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