The statistics of tin whisker diameters versus the underlying film grains

Abstract

We compare the statistics of tin whisker diameters to that of the underlying film grains. Both are well approximated by the lognormal distributions. However, the parameters of those distributions can be rather different, not confirming the assumption that each whisker grows from a single grain. We conclude that several adjacent grains with similar crystal orientations can contribute to a whisker development. Our observations are consistent with the recent theory of multi-filament whisker structure. A modification of the particle size log-normal distribution is developed clarifying the nature of its dispersion.

The study on modulable tin whisker growth behaviors and mechanisms on Ti2SnC

“…Spontaneous Sn whisker growth has drawn considerable attention for more than 70 years as it may result in short circuits [1,2]. For a long period of time, investigations mainly focused on the whiskering phenomenon on Sn coatings and solders [3][4][5]. However, with the development of new materials, the growth of whiskers has been found on many other materials, such as intermetallics [6,7], MAX phases [8,9].…”