The effects of Ni on the properties of the Sn-2.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.1Re solder alloy and its creep properties of solder joints are researched. The results show that with adding 0.05wt% Ni in the Sn-2.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.1Re solder alloy, the elongation can be sharply improved without decreasing its tensile strength and it is 1.4 times higher than that of the commercial Sn-3.8Ag-0.7Cu solder alloy. Accordingly the creep rupture life of Sn-2.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.1Re-0.05Ni solder joints is the longest, which is 13.3 times longer than that of Sn-2.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.1Re and is also longer than that of the commercial Sn-3.8Ag-0.7Cu solder alloy. In the same environmental conditions, the creep rupture life of Sn-2.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.1Re-0.05Ni solder joints can sharply decrease with increasing the temperature and stress.

Creep property of solder alloys is one of the important factors to effect the reliability of surface mount technology (SMT) soldered joints. The creep behavior and its rupture life of Sn2.5Ag0.7CuXRE lead-free soldered joints were separately investigated and predicted under constant temperature by a single shear lap creep specimen with a 1mm2 cross sectional area and finite element method (FEM) in this paper. Results show that the creep property of Sn2.5Ag0.7Cu0.1RE is superior to that of the commercial employed lead-free solder Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu and the creep rupture life of its soldered joints is 8.4 times more than that of Sn2.5Ag0.7Cu solder. The creep rupture life of Sn2.5Ag0.7CuXRE lead-free soldered joints indirectly predicted by FEM is better in accord with that of actual testing results, which are important to design the reliability of lead-free soldered joints for SMT.

In this paper, the effects of drying chamber pressure, heating plate temperature and material thickness on the drying time of Tan lamb in vacuum freeze-drying process were studied using quadratic regression orthogonal design. The results showed that the drying time was significantly affected by drying chamber pressure, heating plate temperature and material thickness as well as the interaction of heating plate temperature and material thickness. The optimized parameters were drying chamber pressure 27.9 Pa, heating plate temperature 47.9°C and material thickness 4.3 mm. On these parameters, the drying time was 4.3 h.