Abstract: This study investigated the characteristics of fracture behavior and mode on solder joints before and after thermal shock test for automotive application component using Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu solder, which has a outstanding property as lead-free solder. The shear strength was decreased with thermal cycle number, after 432 cycles of thermal shock test. In addition, fracture mode was verified to ductile, brittle fracture and base materials fracture such as different kind fractured mode using SEM and EDS. Before the thermal shock, the fractured mode was found to typical ductile fracture in solder layer. After thermal shock test, especially, Ag was found on fractured portion as roughest surface. Moreover, it occurred delamination between a PCB and a Cu land. Before thermal shock test, most of fractured mode in solder layer has dimples by ductile fracture. However, after thermal shock test, the fractured mode became a combination of ductile and brittle fracture, and it also could find that the fracture behavior varied including delamination between substrate and Cu land.
