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.
Technical Library | 2020-10-27 02:07:31.0
For companies that choose to take the Pb-free exemption under the European Union's RoHS Directive and continue to manufacture tin-lead (Sn-Pb) electronic products, there is a growing concern about the lack of Sn-Pb ball grid array (BGA) components. Many companies are compelled to use the Pb-free Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) BGA components in a Sn-Pb process, for which the assembly process and solder joint reliability have not yet been fully characterized. A careful experimental investigation was undertaken to evaluate the reliability of solder joints of SAC BGA components formed using Sn-Pb solder paste. This evaluation specifically looked at the impact of package size, solder ball volume, printed circuit board (PCB) surface finish, time above liquidus and peak temperature on reliability. Four different BGA package sizes (ranging from 8 to 45 mm2) were selected with ball-to-ball pitch size ranging from 0.5mm to 1.27mm. Two different PCB finishes were used: electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) and organic solderability preservative (OSP) on copper. Four different profiles were developed with the maximum peak temperatures of 210oC and 215oC and time above liquidus ranging from 60 to 120 seconds using Sn-Pb paste. One profile was generated for a lead-free control. A total of 60 boards were assembled. Some of the boards were subjected to an as assembled analysis while others were subjected to an accelerated thermal cycling (ATC) test in the temperature range of -40oC to 125oC for a maximum of 3500 cycles in accordance with IPC 9701A standard. Weibull plots were created and failure analysis performed. Analysis of as-assembled solder joints revealed that for a time above liquidus of 120 seconds and below, the degree of mixing between the BGA SAC ball alloy and the Sn-Pb solder paste was less than 100 percent for packages with a ball pitch of 0.8mm or greater. Depending on package size, the peak reflow temperature was observed to have a significant impact on the solder joint microstructural homogeneity. The influence of reflow process parameters on solder joint reliability was clearly manifested in the Weibull plots. This paper provides a discussion of the impact of various profiles' characteristics on the extent of mixing between SAC and Sn-Pb solder alloys and the associated thermal cyclic fatigue performance.
Technical Library | 2021-07-13 19:59:34.0
We have investigated the processing of lead-zirconate-titanate-based thick films by inkjet printing Pb (Zr0.53Ti0.47)0.98Nb0.02O3 with a 6 mol% excess of PbO nanosized powder dispersed in water. Differentwaveforms were employed to determine the optimum size and shape of the drops. A uniform, defect-free pattern with dimensions of 4 mm × 4 mm can be printed using 20 V and a drop spacing of 20 μm. The inkjet-printed films were heated to 400 °C to remove the organics and subsequently sintered at 750 and 850 °C. The correlations between the density, grain size and electromechanical properties of the thick films and bulk ceramics are qualitatively discussed. A thickness coupling factor of 46% was obtained for a 15-μm-thick film sintered at low temperature of 850 °C, which is comparable to the value of the bulk ceramic with an identical nominal chemical composition. Our results are important for the economic and environmental-benign printing of piezoelectric materials applicable in variety of electronic devices, such as sensors, actuators, transformers, piezoelectric energy harvesters and transducers.
Technical Library | 2012-12-13 21:20:05.0
First published in the 2012 IPC APEX EXPO technical conference proceedings. We investigated the micro-void formation of solder joints after reliability tests such as preconditioning (precon) and thermal cycle (TC) by varying the thickness of Palladium (Pd) in Electroless Nickel / Electroless Palladium / Immersion Gold (ENEPIG) surface finish. We used lead-free solder of Sn-1.2Ag-0.5Cu-Ni (LF35). We found multiple micro-voids of less than 10 µm line up within or above the intermetallic compound (IMC) layer. The number of micro-voids increased with the palladium (Pd) layer thickness. Our results revealed that the micro-void formation should be related to (Pd, Ni)Sn4 phase resulted from thick Pd layer. We propose that micro-voids may form due to either entrapping of volatile gas by (Pd, Ni)Sn4 or creeping of (Pd, Ni)Sn4.
Technical Library | 2017-10-16 15:03:32.0
The miniaturization and advancement of electronic devices have been the driving force of design, research and development, and manufacturing in the electronic industry. However, there are some issues occurred associated with the miniaturization, for examples, warpage and reliability issues. In order to resolve these issues, a lot of research and development have been conducted in the industry and university with the target of moderate melting temperature solder alloys such as m.p. 280°C. These moderate temperature alloys have not resolve these issues yet due to the various limitations. YINCAE has been working on research and development of the materials with lower temperature soldering for higher temperature application. To meet this demand, YINCAE has developed solder joint encapsulant paste to enhance solder joint strength resulting in improving drop and thermal cycling performance to eliminate underfilling, edge bonding or corner bonding process in the board level assembly process. This solder joint encapsulant paste can be used in typical lead-free profile and after reflow the application temperature can be up to over 300C, therefore it also eliminates red glue for double side reflow process. In this paper, we will discuss the reliability such as strength of solder joints, drop test performance and thermal cycling performance using this solder joint encapsulant paste in detail.
Technical Library | 2021-05-13 16:03:25.0
Sn-based lead-free solders such as Sn-Ag-Cu, Sn-Cu, and Sn-Bi have been used extensively for a long time in the electronic packaging field. Recently, low-temperature Sn-Bi solder alloys attract much attention from industries for flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) applications. Low melting temperatures of Sn-Bi solders avoid warpage wherein printed circuit board and electronic parts deform or deviate from the initial state due to their thermal mismatch during soldering. However, the addition of alloying elements and nanoparticles Sn-Bi solders improves the melting temperature, wettability, microstructure, and mechanical properties. Improving the brittleness of the eutecticSn-58wt%Bi solder alloy by grain refinement of the Bi-phase becomes a hot topic. In this paper, literature studies about melting temperature, microstructure, inter-metallic thickness, and mechanical properties of Sn-Bi solder alloys upon alloying and nanoparticle addition are reviewed
Technical Library | 2021-09-08 14:23:27.0
Although the electronics industry has largely settled on the use of SAC alloys for the assembly of the majority of lead free products, debate continues to exist over which SAC alloy – SAC305 (Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu) or SAC405 (Sn3.8Ag0.8Cu) – to use. The North American industry generally favours SAC405, while the Asian industry favours SAC305. SAC305 has the significant benefit of being less expensive than SAC405 owing to its lower silver content. However, there are lingering questions about whether the reliability of SAC305 is comparable to that of SAC405. Recent studies have concluded that no significant difference exists, but many potential applications were not studied. This paper compares the results of reliability testing of SAC305 and SAC405 in three different cases on a test vehicle representative of a mid-complexity server-type product which included a range of component types from CBGAs to discrete resistors.
Technical Library | 2021-10-20 18:21:06.0
The solderability of the SAC305 alloy in contact with printed circuit boards (PCB) having different surface finishes was examined using the wetting balance method. The study was performed at a temperature of 260 _C on three types of PCBs covered with (1) hot air solder leveling (HASL LF), (2) electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG), and (3) organic surface protectant (OSP), organic finish, all on Cu substrates and two types of fluxes (EF2202 and RF800). The results showed that the PCB substrate surface finish has a strong effect on the value of both the wetting time t0 and the contact angle h. The shortest wetting time was noted for the OSP finish (t0 = 0.6 s with EF2202 flux and t0 = 0.98 s with RF800 flux), while the ENIG finish showed the longest wetting time (t0 = 1.36 s with EF2202 flux and t0 = 1.55 s with RF800 flux). The h values calculated from the wetting balance tests were as follows: the lowest h of 45_ was formed on HASL LF (EF2202 flux), the highest h of 63_ was noted on the OSP finish, while on the ENIG finish, it was 58_ (EF2202 flux). After the solderability tests, the interface characterization of cross-sectional samples was performed by means of scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy.
Technical Library | 2019-08-07 22:56:45.0
The requirement to reconsider traditional soldering methods is becoming more relevant as the demand for bottom terminated components (QFN/BTC) increases. Thermal pads under said components are designed to enhance the thermal and electrical performance of the component and ultimately allow the component to run more efficiently. Additionally, low voiding is important in decreasing the current path of the circuit to maximize high speed and RF performances. The demand to develop smaller, more reliable, packages has seen voiding requirements decrease below 15 percent and in some instances, below 10 percent.Earlier work has demonstrated the use of micro-fluxed solder preforms as a mechanism to reduce voiding. The current work builds upon these results to focus on developing an engineered approach to void reduction in leadless components (QFN) through increasing understanding of how processing parameters and a use of custom designed micro-fluxed preforms interact. Leveraging the use of a micro-fluxed solder preform in conjunction with low voiding solder paste, stencil design, and application knowhow are critical factors in determining voiding in QFN packages. The study presented seeks to understand the vectors that can contribute to voiding such as PCB pad finish, reflow profile, reflow atmosphere, via configuration, and ultimately solder design.A collaboration between three companies consisting of solder materials supplier, a power semiconductor supplier, and an electronic assembly manufacturer worked together for an in-depth study into the effectiveness of solder preforms at reducing voiding under some of the most prevalent bottom terminated components packages. The effects of factors such as thermal pad size, finish on PCB, preform types, stencil design, reflow profile and atmosphere, have been evaluated using lead-free SAC305 low voiding solder paste and micro-fluxed preforms. Design and manufacturing rules developed from this work will be discussed.
