Technical Library | 2019-10-10 00:26:28.0
Voids are a plague to our electronics and must be eliminated! Over the last few years we have studied voiding in solder joints and published three technical papers on methods to "Fill the Void." This paper is part four of this series. The focus of this work is to mitigate voids for via in pad circuit board designs. Via holes in Quad Flat No-Lead (QFN) thermal pads create voiding issues. Gasses can come out of via holes and rise into the solder joint creating voids. Solder can also flow down into the via holes creating gaps in the solder joint. One method of preventing this is via plugging. Via holes can be plugged, capped, or left open. These via plugging options were compared and contrasted to each other with respect to voiding. Another method of minimizing voiding is through solder paste stencil design. Solder paste can be printed around the via holes with gas escape routes. This prevents gasses from via holes from being trapped in the solder joint. Several stencil designs were tested and voiding performance compared and contrasted. In many cases voiding will be reduced only if a combination of mitigation strategies are used. Recommendations for combinations of via hole plugging and stencil design are given. The aim of this paper is to help the reader to "Fill the Void."
Technical Library | 2019-07-02 23:02:05.0
The introduction of lead-free solders resulted in a selection of different chemistries for solder pastes. The higher melting points of lead-free alloys required thermal heat resistant rosin systems and activators that are active at elevated temperatures. As a result, more frequent maintenance of the filtration systems is required and machine downtime is increased.Last year a different method of cleaning reflow ovens was introduced. Instead of cooling down the process gasses to condensate the residues, a catalyst was used to maintain the clean oven. Catalytic thermal oxidation of residues in the nitrogen atmosphere resulted in cleaner heating zones. The residues were transformed into carbon dioxide. This remaining small amount of char was collected in the catalyst. In air ovens the catalyst was not seen as a beneficial option because the air extracted out of the oven was immediately exhausted into the environment. When a catalyst is used in an air environment there is not only the carbon dioxide residues, but also water. When a catalyst is used in an air reflow oven the question is where the water is going to. Will it condensate in the process part of the oven or is the gas temperature high enough to keep it out of the process area? A major benefit of using a catalyst to clean the air before it is exhausted into the environment is that the air pollution is reduced dramatically. This will make environmental engineers happy and result in less pollution of our nature. Apart from this, the exhaust tubes remain clean which reduces the maintenance of air ovens.This paper will give more detailed information of catalyst systems during development and performance in production lines.
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