The present and future of QCD

This White Paper presents an overview of the current status and future perspective of QCD research, based on the community inputs and scientific conclusions from the 2022 Hot and Cold QCD Town Meeting. We present the progress made in the last decade toward a deep understanding of both the fundamental structure of the sub-atomic matter of nucleon and nucleus in cold QCD, and the hot QCD matter in heavy ion collisions. We identify key questions of QCD research and plausible paths to obtaining answers to those questions in the near future, hence defining priorities of our research over the coming decades

Board level reliability assessment of consumer components for automotive use by simulation and sophisticated optical deformation analyses

The development of automotive electronics (AE) towards autonomous driving applications generates various challenges, in particular also on the reliable functionality. In various cases dedicated automotive grade components are lacking and consumer components have to be used instead, which hardly fulfil automotive standards. Some of the reliability challenges are therefore thermo-mechanical in nature. Some example issues, which are related to consumer electronics (CE) packaging, in particular MEMS-packaging, are given in the paper. Main focus is laid on the development of FE-simulation based evaluation methodologies accompanied by experimental characterization methods, in particular with regard to solder fatigue. It is shown that secondary effects such as, for example, intrinsic warpage of the component and of the circuit board, that are system related effects, can play an important role in AE application. A newly developed optical multi-sensor metrology method is presented for the thermo-mechanical deformation measurement of electronic components and systems for different size and resolution ranges. Thermally induced intrinsic warpage of circuit boards and components were analyzed both by means of the method. It was found that significant intrinsic deformations and warpages can occur and should be considered directly in AE system design and indirectly when evaluation stress risks, e.g. for solder fatigue

"3rd Level" Solder Joint Reliability Investigations for Transfer of Consumer Electronics in Automotive Use

Developments directed towards autonomous driving require complex smart functionalities at reasonable cost, e.g., combined sensing and high volume data processing. Reliability remains a key issue in that process. However, in various cases dedicated automotive grade components are lacking. Therefore, thermo-mechanical reliability issues are one focus of the European project TRACE, which studies the issues for transfer of consumer electronics (CE) into automotive electronics (AE). Gaps between these use scenarios are figured out and measures to be taken are searched [1].Besides the well-known harsh environmental AE requirements, mounting induced effects on components loadings need to be considered. These mounting conditions superimpose stresses driven by the component-board induced CTE mismatch and are in particular critical for leadless components like QFNs, LGAs; WLPs, characteristic of CE use. For evaluation of this loading scenario, a combined measuring-simulation technique has been developed. It uses an optical multi-sensor metrology system for the thermo-mechanical deformation measurement of electronic components and systems for different size and resolution ranges. An application to critical components in an electronic control unit (ECU) is depicted.The combined experimental-numerical method is applied to test-setups, to figure out effects from board mounting on component reliability and characteristic limits due to mounting. Test-boards with systems in QFNs are analyzed. It is shown, that system effects can have major impact on components stress and solder fatigue life