Excessive growth of intermetallic compounds (IMCs) during service affects the reliability of solder joints, so how to suppress the growth of IMC thickness at the interface in solder joints becomes a widespread concern. In this work, the interfacial reaction between Sn-10Bi solder and Cu substrate after thermal aging was investigated. Moreover, to depress the IMC growth at the interface, trace amounts of Zn was added into the Sn-10Bi solder, and the interfacial reactions of Sn-10Bi-xZn solders (x = 0.2, 0.5) and Cu substrate after thermal aging were studied in this paper. Compounds such as Cu6(Sn, Zn)5 and Cu5Zn8 were formed at the interface after adding trace amounts of Zn. The addition of 0.2 and 0.5 wt% Zn significantly inhibited the thickness growth of IMCs and the formation of Cu3Sn IMC at the interface of Sn-10Bi-0.2Zn/Cu and Sn-10Bi-0.5Zn/Cu during thermal aging. Therefore, the addition of trace Zn had an obvious effect on the interfacial reaction of Sn-10Bi/Cu solder joint. Interestingly, the evolution of IMC thickness in Sn-10Bi-0.5Zn/Cu solder joints was completely different from that in Sn-10Bi or Sn-10Bi-0.2Zn solder joints, in which the spalling of IMCs occurred. In order to explore the mechanisms on the depressing effect from the addition of trace Zn, the activation energy Q in solder joints during aging was calculated.
Keywords: Sn-Bi solder; Zn addition; aging; intermetallic compounds; solid solution.