Industry News | 2016-03-30 20:06:51.0
BTU International today announced that Fred Dimock will present during the SMTA webtorial entitled, “Solder Reflow Fundamentals Understanding Thermal Profiles and Defect Mitigation” The webtorial is scheduled to take place April 26-28th.
Industry News | 2016-10-04 16:22:38.0
SMART Group announces that it will host a workshop called “Soldering Voids: Formation, Causes and Mitigation” on Tuesday 25th October 2016 at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Ansty Park near Coventry.
Industry News | 2018-03-01 19:26:29.0
Metcal announces that it has been awarded a 2018 IPC APEX EXPO Innovation Award for its Connection Validation (CV) Robotic Soldering System. The award was presented to the company during a Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018 ceremony that took place at the San Diego Convention Center during the IPC APEX EXPO. Robotic soldering is becoming more commonplace as manufacturers look to reduce risk and increase productivity.
Industry News | 2021-06-07 11:44:52.0
Photon steam aging system provides accelerated life testing simulating elongated storage conditions for high reliability applications.
Industry News | 2021-08-13 08:37:00.0
Circuit Technology Center announces that it has recently purchased and commissioned an Oxford 980 X-Strata series XRF (x-ray fluorescence) system to support the testing of electronic components for restricted substances such as lead or tin above specified limits. The system can also verify the coating thickness. Defense base customers often require XRF verification testing of components after components have been processed through lead-free to leaded solder alloy exchange for tin mitigation applications. XRF testing may also be required to verify RoHS compliance of components that have been re-balled or re-processed for lead-free applications. In addition to XRF testing, Circuit Technology Center also supports ionic cleanliness testing, X-ray, Acoustic Microscopy, Solderability, and BGA ball shear testing services.
Technical Library | 2013-04-12 08:20:15.0
There is much to read about the shifting sands of electronics manufacturing, including current moves by OEMs to alter their EMS relationships to better mitigate risk and cost, while EMS companies look for additional ways in which to adjust their business models in an attempt to improve their profitability. Electronics outsourcing over time evolved from a means to buffer manufacturing demand fluctuations into a wide scale shift in capabilities, in part in order to deal with vastly shorter product life cycles. Following the global economic crash of 2000, aka “the internet bubble,” more and more EMS providers responded by transferring their manufacturing to low cost labour regions, and in particular China.
Technical Library | 2013-12-19 16:57:50.0
With the adoption of RoHS and implementation of Lead Free solders a major concern is how this will impact reliability. Both commercial and military hardware are impacted by this change even though military hardware is considered exempt from the requirements of RoHS. As the supply chain has moved to the new lead free alloys both markets are being forced to understand these impacts and form risk mitigation strategies to deal with the change. This paper documents the effect of mixing Leaded and Lead Free alloys on BGA devices and how this impacts reliability. Three of the most common pitch BGA packages are included in the study to determine if the risk is the same as pitches decrease
Technical Library | 2015-03-04 10:56:26.0
As the proliferation of modern day electronics continues to drive miniaturization and functionality, electronic designers/assemblers face the issue of environmental exposure and uncommon applications never previously contemplated. This reality, coupled with the goal of reducing the environmental and health implications of the production and disposal of these devices, has forced manufacturers to reconsider the materials used in production. Furthermore, the need to increase package density and reduce costs has led to the rapid deployment of leadless packages such as QFN, POP, LGA, and Micro-BGA. In many cases, the manufacturers of these devices will recommend the use of no clean fluxes due to concerns over the ability to consistently remove flux residues from under and around these devices. These concerns, along with the need to implement a tin whisker mitigation strategy and/or increase environmental tolerance, have led to the conundrum of applying conformal coating over no clean residues.
Technical Library | 2015-12-23 16:57:27.0
The onset of copper barrel cracks is typically induced by the presence of manufacturing defects. In the absence of discernible manufacturing defects, the causes of copper barrel cracks in printed circuit board (PCB) plated through holes is not well understood. Accordingly, there is a need to determine what affects the onset of barrel cracks and then control those causes to mitigate their initiation.The objective of this research is to conduct a design of experiment (DOE) to determine if there is a relationship between PCB fabrication processes and the prevalence of fine barrel cracks. The test vehicle used will be a 16-layer epoxy-based PCB that has two different sized plated through holes as well as buried vias.
Technical Library | 2017-11-15 22:49:14.0
While a significant level of voiding can be tolerated in solder joints where electrical conductivity is the main requirement, voiding at any level severely compromises thermal conductivity. For example, in LED lighting modules effective conduction of heat through the 1st level die attach to the substrate and then through the 2nd level attach to the heat sink is critical to performance so that voiding in the solder joints at both levels must be minimized. (...) In this paper, the authors will review the factors that influence the incidence of voids in small and large area solder joints that simulate, respectively, the 1st and 2nd level joints in LED modules and discuss mitigation strategies appropriate to each level. They will also report the results of a study on the effect on the incidence of voids of flux medium formulation and the optimization of the thermal profile to ensure that most of the volatiles are released early in the reflow process.
