LKC FES alumna won Best Engineering Student Award 2019

The award won by Tay

UTAR Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) Material and Manufacturing Engineering alumna Tay Yu Jun beamed with joy when she won an award at the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) Malaysia Chapter. Tay walked away with the Best Engineering Student Award (BESA) for 2019 Undergraduate Winners. Her award-winning final year project was titled “Thermomigration in Sn-Ag-Cu-Pt Solder Joints”.

Tay received RM3,000; a part of it was used to sign up for IEEE main and IEEE EPS membership and to purchase a book valued at approximately RM300 by IEEE EPS Malaysia Chapter. The book will be donated to the UTAR library under her name and IEEE EPS Malaysia Chapter.

Tay expressed her gratitude to the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) Malaysia Chapter for the BESA 2019 award. She also expressed her appreciation to her FYP supervisor Ts Dr Wong Mee Chu for providing guidance in participating in the competition. Tay also shared her winning tips to her juniors, “A good presentation of work, be it a poster or video, is very important. At the beginning of your presentation, you have to find a way to make the topic simpler and interesting. This is to avoid boring your audience while at the same time attracting their attention. Gradually add more details and in-depth explanation along the way and lastly, come up with a strong conclusion, leaving the audience feeling enlightened.”

Her research was mainly on the thermomigration (TM) phenomenon in Sn-Ag-Cu-Pt (SAC-Pt) solder joints. The reliability of solder joints is often compromised due to thermomigration caused by large thermal gradient generated from high current density and joule heating across the interconnection. In the research, a patented (Malaysia & International patents) SAC-Pt alloy was used to compare against the commercial SAC solder to study the microstructural evolution behaviour under TM stressing for up to 600 hours. Signs of TM were pronounced in unreinforced SAC solder joints throughout 600 hours of TM stressing due to the high growth rate of the intermetallic compound (IMC) layer on the cold side and progressive decrease of IMC layer thickness on the hot side. This observation is noticeably subdued in SAC-Pt samples due to the formation of (Cu, Pt) 6Sn5 compound on the IMC layer which slows down the interfacial diffusion process.

Microstructure of Unreinforced SAC305 Solder Joints at the hot and cold side at 600h of TM Stressing

Microstructure of SAC305 – 0.20Pt Solder Joint at the Hot and Cold Side at 600h of TM Stressing

IEEE EPS Malaysia Chapter regularly presents the “Best Engineering Student Award (BESA)” to final year undergraduates and the year 2019 was the third year of its rollout to reward and encourage technical excellence among the next generation of engineers in Malaysia. The competition also aimed to support the growth of the smart manufacturing industry, enhance the level of technical skills at vocational college and improve the quality of education and teaching of intelligent building-related professionals.

The competition was open to full-time and part-time undergraduates who were studying in areas broadly related to electrical and electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, applied physics and chemistry, and other related disciplines. Also, their final year project has to cover topics of electronic packaging. Three finalists selected for the said award submitted their final year projects to IEEE EPS Secretariat for the selection of BESA 2019 winner.

The IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) (https://eps.ieee.org) is positioned as the leading international forum for scientists and engineers engaged in the research, design and development of revolutionary advances in microsystems packaging and manufacturing. Its objectives are scientific, literary, and educational in character. The Society strives for the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical and electronics engineering and of the allied arts and sciences. The EPS Society promotes close cooperation and exchange of technical information among its members and others through technical conferences and workshops, peer-reviewed publications, and collaboration with other organisations.