Perspectives on climatic reliability of electronic devices and components

The miniaturization of electronic systems and the explosive increase in their usage has increased the climatic reliability issues of electronics devices and components especially having metal/alloys parts exposed on the Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) surface or embedded within the multi-layer laminate.

Problems are compounded by the fact that these systems are built by multi-material combinations and additional accelerating factors such as corrosion causing process related residues, bias voltage, and unpredictable user environment. Demand for miniaturised device has resulted in higher density packing with reduction in component size and closer spacing thereby increasing the electric field, while thinner metallic parts needs only nano-grams levels of metal loss for causing corrosion failures.

This paper provides an overview of the climatic reliability issues of electronic devices and components with a focus on the metals/alloys usage on PCBA surface together with cleanliness issues, humidity interaction on PCBA surface, and PCBA design and device design aspects.