Eliminating Whisker Growth by Indium Addition in Electroplated Sn on Copper Substrate

Abstract

Whisker growth from Sn coatings is a reliability concern in electronic packages, until recently mitigated by Pb addition. Recently, it was demonstrated that doping with In dramatically reduces whisker growth in 1 μm thick Sn. Here, we present the results of In-doping on whisker growth from 3 μm and 6 μm thick Sn-films and explore the reasons behind this mitigation, and compare the results with a baseline sample of pure Sn and a control sample of tri-layer Sn-In-Sn, all subjected to identical thermal treatments. It is shown that In addition completely stops whisker growth from electroplated Sn. The impact of In addition on the film microstructure and the role of the surface oxide coating are investigated. Previous work had shown that while In addition reduces grain boundary diffusivity, it does not fully account for the observed dramatic reduction of whisker growth. In this work, it is shown by Auger electron spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy that In is incorporated in the surface-oxide. Since whisker-growth is contingent on the presence of a tenacious surface-oxide, this suggests that the alteration of the oxide properties may be responsible for the observed reduction in whisker growth. Finite element modeling is utilized to demonstrate that a reduction of the elastic modulus of the surface oxide would reduce the driving force of Sn whisker growth, thus proffering a rationale for the effect of In incorporation.