Seeking Cure for Electronics-killing Whiskers -- COMPAMED Trade Fair

Seeking Cure for Electronics-killing Whiskers

Photo: An audio

Whiskers and more benign raised formations called hillocks are believed to be a metal's means of relieving stress generated by the electroplating process. But they can lead to electrical shorts and failures across component leads and connectors. Therefore, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers have been trying to identify the origins of such stresses and better understand the resulting mechanisms for whisker and hillock growth.

In a recent paper in Acta Materialia, they reported that the surfaces of tin-copper deposits developed extremely long whiskers while pure tin deposits - the simplest lead-free plating finish - only produced hillocks. By comparison, the soon-to-be-banned tin-lead deposits did not form either type of deformity.

