Designing Electronic Card Packages Against Shipping Shock

In optimizing packaging design, the product’s fragility is qualified by a protype undergoing quantitative and qualitative tests that rely heavily on past knowledge and experiments. By the addition of finite element analysis (FEA), the product’s fragility can be obtained in the initial stages of product design with material characterization and simulation. FEA can predict Gs on the product as well as examine the strains, which interpret product failure more easily in the design stage. To incorporate FEA, first the foam material was measured at various strain rates under compression. Next a shipping package containing an Al block with consistent density was dropped at different heights—610 mm (24”), 915 mm (36”), and 1067 mm (42”)—to confirm the methodology. An I/O book was packaged for the final demonstration incorporating FEA with an electronic card package. In an electronic card package, the electronic assemblies are sensitive to strains on the system board. If the strains on the board are high, the assemblies’ solder connections to the board could be damaged and result in a defect during shipment. The simulations’ predicted Gs and board strains were compared to experimental drop testing results at 610 mm (24”) and 915 mm (36”). The simulation results for each sensor location were within reasonable approximation of the experimental results, verifying that FEA could be used in the initial design stages to predict the accelerations and strains for packaging development in parallel to the product design.