Functional Cycles and Surface Mounting Attachment Reliability

One concern that has slowed the progress of surface mounted technology, in particular leadless chip carriers, has been the question of the reliability of the surface mount attachment technology. This concern follows from the realisation that the functional reliability of surface mount technology is a very complex issue involving many not very well understood components. What is needed is a relatively simple, useful, predictive model. The model reported here sidesteps the numerous complex underlying issues, which, if considered separately, make a predictive reliability model all but impossible, by taking a purely phenomenological approach and relegating second‐order effects to a lumped empirical figure of merit.