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Corrosion Testing for Electronics

Technical Report · April 2018

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18536.19201

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Amer Charbaji
University of Rhode Island
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 Corrosion Testing for Electronics
Amer Charbaji – Project Report Submitted for OCE534 Class at URI –
04/24/2018

Summary Conclusions:

Electronics are steadily becoming more and more prevalent in everyday life. Electronics
utilize conductive metallization which is prone to corrosion. Their corrosion raises
reliability concerns and causes sudden and unexpected failure in the field which could
result in production loss and pose health and safety risks. Corrosion testing of electronics
helps provide a better understanding of possible failure mechanisms in the field and aids
in material selection to reduce the possibility of corrosion or to increase the useful service
life of the systems in the field.

Introduction:
Peoples’ dependence on and use of electronics has increased over the past years.
Electronics are being widely used both directly and indirectly in everyday applications
and their presence is felt in every facet of life whether for educational, medical,
recreational, transport or utility use. An example of direct use of electronics would be the
use of smart phones, tablets or laptops. Indirect use of electronics includes the many uses
of electronic sensors in the safety systems of cars or kitchen and home appliances.

Application and presence of electronics is only forecasted to proliferate especially as

individuals and governments are heading to increase their use of “smart” systems. People
heavily rely on their smart phones to stay connected to the world whether it is for social
or professional purposes. Schools are now depending on tablets and other forms of
mobile electronic systems to convey course material with one-third of middle and high
school students in the US using mobile devices issued by their schools [1] compared to
almost a 70% prevalence rate of tablets in primary and secondary schools in the UK [2].

Governments are trying hard to improve the quality of life of their residents by
transforming into smart governments similar to the transformation that Dubai is currently
undertaking [3]. Such a transformation would not be feasible without the use of advanced
electronic infrastructure such as smart utility meters that allow customers to optimize
their electricity and water consumption [4]. The outdoor environment there is hot, humid
and dusty; and electronic systems are expected to have a prolonged service life to reduce
maintenance costs and system down time.

Nowadays, more and more car manufacturers are providing their eco-conscious
customers options for electric or hybrid cars which involve more sophisticated electronic
systems and controls compared to traditional cars that rely simply on internal combustion
engines for power. Volvo, which is one of the biggest car manufacturers in the auto
market, has announced that starting 2019 and onwards, all of its car models released will
be either electric or hybrid and none of its models would be solely powered by an internal
combustion engine [5]. Many of the new car models built by different car manufacturers
have additional safety features that rely on electronic sensors such as the parking assist
system or the lane keeping features that make driving safer [6]. This is coupled with
market research reports predicting that by 2022, high-end cars will contain more than
$6,000 worth of electronics on board giving rise to a $160 billion automotive electronics
market by that time [7].

Electronic components and systems rely on metallic conductors to transmit power and
electrical signals. As with other metals, these conductors and metallization are prone to
corrosion if conditions are suitable for material deterioration. Copper is the most widely
used metallization conductor material in printed circuit boards but oxidizes rapidly when
exposed to the environment [8] [9]. Surface finishes are applied early in the fabrication
process of printed circuit boards to protect exposed copper from forming surface oxides
and hence preserve its solderability [9] [10]. Unpredictable usage conditions and varying
environmental exposure and patterns not accounted for during the design stage maybe
more severe than what was intended for the electronic system to see while in service in
the field. As a result, the applied surface finish may not provide enough protection to the
metallization from corrosion. Corrosion impacts the reliability of electronic systems.
Corrosion can change signal integrity by lowering its amplitude and adding noise to it
[11] and hence affect the reliable use of the electronic system or can cause complete
failure of the system by creating unintended electrical opens, leakages or shorts between
the conductive paths [8]. Sudden and unanticipated failure of electronic systems could
result in production loss or pose grieve health and safety risks for individuals.

As electronic systems sizes become smaller due to the miniaturization of the overall
product, spacing between different components on the printed circuit board has been
greatly reduced over the years [12] [13]. The reduction in size and distance of
components on the printed circuit board is from around 100 μm in the mid 1990’s to
around 5 μm by the late 2000s [13]. This decrease in feature size and spacing has
increased the susceptibility of electronic systems to corrosion problems [13].

Corrosion can occur on individual integrated circuits or can attack the metallization on
printed circuit boards. Different corrosion mechanisms have been reported in electronic
systems including uniform corrosion, galvanic corrosion, dendritic growth, creep
corrosion and fretting corrosion [8] [9] [12] [13] [14] [15]. Different corrosion tests have
been developed, are used to simulate the corrosive environment and aim to induce the
same corrosion mechanisms anticipated to occur in the field but at an accelerated
corrosion rate. Acceleration factors of 50 to 100 are desired for accelerated corrosion
testing to be of practical value and acceleration factors of 65 and 100 were reported by
Eriksson et.al [16] in their corrosion testing procedure.

Pure and properly prepared copper coupons, and more recently additional pure and
properly prepared silver coupons, are placed in the corrosion testing chamber to
characterize the corrosively of the environment and determine the appropriate corrosion
acceleration models and factors. Corrosion film thickness, corrosion weight gain
(metallic weight loss) or the chemistry of the corrosion products on these copper coupons
are used as characterization parameters of the accelerated corrosion tests.
Process:
Different corrosion tests are available for corrosion testing of electronics. These tests
have been developed to simulate the corrosive environment that electronic products are
expected to endure while in service in the field but at an accelerated rate. These tests
include high humidity and temperature, mixed flowing gas, dust, salt spray, flower of
sulfur, and clay tests [12] [17] [18]. These test methods will be introduced in this section
and some of their advantages and disadvantages will be mentioned in the following
Discussion section of this paper.

High humidity and temperature testing is conducted in a chamber with capabilities to

control the temperature and humidity inside. These chambers are used to test different
thermal and mechanical properties of electronics but can also be used for corrosion
testing. A high humidity and temperature chamber was used to accelerate the formation
of conductive filament formation which is an electrochemical process resulting in the
dissolution of copper from the anode and deposition of copper corrosion products to form
a short between two conductors [19].

Mixed flowing gas (MFG) testing is an accelerated corrosion test method in which
corrosive gases are mixed at different chamber temperature and relative humidity
conditions to simulate a corrosive environment. There are different parameters that affect
MFG testing [20] such as gas nature, mixture and concentration, temperature and
humidity levels. Standards are present for characterization of MFG chambers, and
literature is available to provide test parameters to give a particular corrosion acceleration
factor for different test conditions [17].

Dust testing includes spraying the inside of the test chamber with actual dust particles
collected from indoor and outdoor locations [12] or by spraying it with quartz particles
(SiO2) [15]. The test conditions may include varying the humidity levels as in [12] or
simulating a fretting test by micro-motion between contact interfaces as in [15].

Salt spray test consists of a chamber containing the electronic systems, a salt solution
reservoir containing a 5% NaCl solution which would be sprayed into the chamber by an
atomizing nozzle. There are standards available that provide recommendations on how to
prepare and run the salt spray test such as ASTM B 117. It’s possible to maintain the
temperature constant by placing the chamber in a constant temperature room or placing a
jacket with constant water or air temperature around the chamber [21].

Flower of sulfur test consists of a chamber which contains powdered sulfur in a dish.
Elemental sulfur vapor can exist in equilibrium with the sulfur powder in a closed system
and this would attack any exposed metallization in the electronic systems. There is a
standard [22] that provides a method by which to run a flower of sulfur test and this test
has been used to compare the corrosion response of different electronic systems [23].
A clay test consists of a chamber which contains the electronic products and pieces of
modeling clay. Modeling clay contains elemental sulfur that gets released into the
chamber when the clay is heated which provides a corrosive environment for the
electronic systems in the chamber [18].

A less common corrosion testing method is actual field exposure. In this method,
electronic systems are placed in an area that has corrosion parameters of interest such as
high heat, high humidity and dust. The electronic systems are placed in boxes that have
vents which allow temperature variations inside the box and exposure to dust but would
block other elements such as radiation, rain and wind [24] [25].

Some testing procedures for accelerated corrosion testing mentioned in the literature
combine one or more of the above testing methods. One such procedure is described by
Eriksson et al. in [16] which exposes the samples to a series of MFG and salt spray test
cycles. Another procedure described by Jellesen et al. in [26] combines exposure to dust
followed by high humidity and temperature testing.

Discussion:
Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the different corrosion test methods will be
discussed in this section. An advantage of high humidity and temperature testing is that it
is conducted in a chamber that is fairly simple to operate and control. The only
parameters of interest in this test method are temperature and humidity levels.
Continuous monitoring, recording and control of these parameters can be easily achieved
by a simple control program on a computer. Another advantage of this type of testing is
that some of these chambers allow for the electronic systems to be powered on and can
hence simulate failure mechanism in service field conditions more appropriately such as
failure by conductive filament formation which requires high humidity conditions and an
applied electric field. A disadvantage of this test method is that there isn’t an acceleration
factor that can be used to evaluate test corrosion rate to actual field service. This testing is
suitable to see if failure would occur for the system and to compare the response of
different systems to check which components provide for a longer and more reliable
service life under severe temperature and humidity conditions.

An advantage of MFG testing is that it allows for continuous monitoring, recording and
control of test conditions such as gas concentrations, temperature and relative humidity.
These conditions can be maintained at a preset values inside the chamber within a small
tolerance range. Another advantage of MFG testing is that some chambers allow for the
electronic systems to be powered on. This helps in better simulating conditions
experienced by the electronic systems while in service in the field and would give rise to
corrosion mechanisms such as dendritic growth or electrochemical migration that depend
on the presence of an applied electric field. A drawback of MFG testing is that it is more
expensive to run in comparison with other corrosion testing methods available. Another
disadvantage is that it requires skilled operation and proper handling of the corrosive and
toxic gasses used such as chlorine and hydrogen sulfide.
An advantage of salt spray testing is that it is used as a qualification of corrosion
resistance of electronic systems in the automotive industry [16]. A disadvantage is that
distribution of the salt fog inside the chamber can’t be properly controlled. Another
drawback is that salt spray testing has a poor ability to forecast the actual corrosion
mechanisms in service [16].

An advantage of flower of sulfur testing is that it can provide a comparison of the

corrosion response of different electronic systems [23]. A disadvantage is that test
parameters can’t be controlled during the test. Another drawback is that there isn’t any
acceleration factor that can relate exposure in the chamber to actual exposure in the field.

An advantage of clay testing is that it is fairly simple and inexpensive to run. A drawback
of this test method is that testing can’t be continuously controlled. There will be periods
of interruptions in the exposure to the corrosive environment during testing in which the
clay has to be removed from the chamber to be reheated.

An advantage of dust testing is that it is fairly simple to run and can simulate the
corrosion mechanism of fretting to cause failure similar to what has been observed in the
field [15]. A disadvantage is that test parameters are still not well developed nor well
understood properly [12]. There isn’t any control on the distribution or amount of dust
deposited on the samples. An acceleration factor still doesn’t exist and more research is
needed on the type of dust to use, voltage, relative humidity and temperature conditions
that would affect the corrosion response of electronic systems.

An advantage of actual field exposure is that corrosion products and mechanisms are
simulated perfectly according to actual service use. This testing method provides accurate
reliability data of the electronic systems in actual field service. A disadvantage is that this
method doesn’t give any acceleration factor and takes a long time to run. Specimens were
analyzed after being exposed for a year in the field [24].

Conclusions:

Use of electronics has increased drastically over the past years and is expected to
continue growing with the advent of smart electronics, autonomous cars and other
systems that heavily rely on electronic systems. The miniaturization of electronic systems
has raised reliability concerns over these systems especially in terms of their corrosion
resistance when exposed to varying and unpredictable service conditions. Corrosion
testing can be used to qualify and compare the corrosion resistance of different electronic
systems during the design stage which helps in better component selection for systems
before actual field service. It can also be used to relate exposure of electronic systems to
an accelerated testing with actual exposure in the field for some of the tests mentioned in
this paper. Understanding the corrosion response of electronic systems is critical to avoid
intermittent and unreliable operation or sudden and unexpected failure in the field which
could result in production loss or pose safety and health risks for individuals.
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