Investigation on hygro-thermo-mechanical stress of a plastic electronic package

Plastic packaging materials tend to absorb moisture from ambient environment and get swollen, this may raise hygro-stress in plastic electronic package and redistribute the internal stress. In this paper, we reviewed the dramatic deformation of a plastic package (Flip Chip Plastic Ball Grid Array-FCPBGA) due to moisture absorption first, then hygro-thermo-mechanical stress of the plastic package and its evolution during a period of three months were investigated with finite element method, user development was performed for this investigation. The finite element model was verified with hygro-thermal deformation of the FCPBGA measured with a 3-D moiré interferometry system. Following findings were obtained: A. Thermal stress field was changed a lot due to moisture absorption; B. Thermal stress of chip was released to some extent, but peal stress up to 62.2MPa occurred to the solder bump, thus the danger of Under Bump Metal (UBM) opening increased.