B. P. Sood, M. Pecht, CALCE, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Summary: Conductive filament formation is an electrochemical process, which requires the transport of a metal through or across a nonmetallic medium, under the influence of an applied electric field. Previous studies, along with analysis and examinations conducted on failure sites in printed circuit boards due to CFF have shown that the conductive path is typically formed along delaminated or debonded fiber glass and epoxy resin interfaces. The advent of increas-ing board processing temperatures, dramatic miniaturization of electronic circuits and trend toward compact electronic devices has lead to increase in reliability concerns due to CFF failures. This paper is a result of an year long study to study the effects of reflow temperatures, halogen-free flame retardants, glass reinforcement weave style and conductor spacing on times to failure due to CFF.