Fatigue Life Estimation of Solid-state Drive due to the Effect of Dummy Solder Ball under Forced Vibration

Abstract

This research proposes a method to estimate the fatigue life of a solid-state drive (SSD) due to the effect of dummy solder ball under forced vibration. A mechanical jig is developed to describe the SSD in a laptop computer. The jig with an SSD is mounted on a shaker, and excited by a sinusoidal sweep vibration within the narrow frequency band around the first resonant frequency until the SSD fails. A finite element model of the SSD is also developed to simulate the forced vibration. Additionally, a global local modeling technique was used in the finite element analysis to calculate the stress of a solder ball in the SSD under vibration. It shows that the solder joints at the corners of the controller package are the most vulnerable components, and that placing dummy solder balls in those areas is an effective method for increasing the fatigue life of an SSD.