Technical Library | 2016-12-29 15:37:51.0
The reliabilities of the flux residue of electronic assemblies and semiconductor packages are attracting more and more attention with the adoption of no-clean fluxes by majority of the industry. In recent years, the concern of "partially activated" flux residue and their influence on reliability have been significantly raised due to the miniaturization along with high density design trend, selective soldering process adoption, and the expanded use of pallets in wave soldering process. When flux residue becomes trapped under low stand-off devices, pallets or unsoldered areas (e.g. selective process), it may contain unevaporated solvent, "live" activators and metal complex intermediates with different chemical composition and concentration levels depending on the thermal profiles. These partially-activated residues can directly impact the corrosion, surface insulation and electrochemical migration of the final assembly. In this study, a few application tests were developed internally to understand this issue. Two traditional liquid flux and two newly developed fluxes were selected to build up the basic models. The preliminary results also provide a scientific approach to design highly reliable products with the goal to minimize the reliability risk for the complex PCB designs and assembly processes. This paper was originally published by SMTA in the Proceedings of SMTA International
Technical Library | 2020-11-04 17:57:41.0
Residues present on circuit boards can cause leakage currents if not controlled and monitored. How "Clean is Clean" is neither easy nor cheap to determine. Most OEMs use analytical methods to assess the risk of harmful residues. The levels that can be associated with clean or dirty are typically determined based on the exposed environment where the part will be deployed. What is acceptably clean for one segment of the industry may be unacceptable for more demanding segments. As circuit assemblies increase in density, understanding cleanliness data becomes more challenging. The risk of premature failure or improper function is typically site specific. The problem is that most do not know how to measure or define cleanliness nor can they recognize process problems related to residues. A new site specific method has been designed to run performance qualifications on boards built with specific soldering materials, reflow settings and cleaning methods. High impedance measurements are performed on break off coupons designed with components geometries used to build the assembly. The test method provides a gauge of potential contamination sources coming from the assembly process that can contribute to electrochemical migration.
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