Technical Library | 2019-06-21 10:39:15.0
Recently, an ACI Technologies (ACI) customer called to discuss failures that they had observed with some through-hole capacitor parts. The components were experiencing failures following vibration and accelerated stress testing. Upon receipt of the samples, ACI performed three levels of inspection and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) testing to investigate the root cause of the failures. These analyses enabled ACI to verify the elements comprising the solder joints and make the following recommendations in order to prevent future occurrences. The first inspection was to investigate the capacitor leads using optical microscopy, and no anomalies were found that could indicate bad parts from the vendor or improper handling prior to assembly. However, vertical fill in the barrel of the plated through-holes was too close to the IPC-A-610 minimum specification of 75% to determine a pass/fail condition, and therefore required further investigation.
Technical Library | 2016-03-31 17:39:52.0
Electrical overstress causes damage to sensitive components, including latent damage. A significant source of EOS is high-frequency noise in automated manufacturing equipment. This paper analyses sources of such noise, how it affects components and how to mitigate this problem.
Technical Library | 2012-12-14 14:17:56.0
This article provides practical and affordable Design-for- Test (DFT) and Design-for-Inspection (DFI) methods that will have a positive impact on product costs, yield, reliability, and time-to-market. The properties of testability (including controllability and observability) will be analysed as they relate to analogue and digital design rules and their cause/effect, as well as the electrical and physical characteristics of proper PCB design.
Technical Library | 1999-05-07 10:38:11.0
This paper is a report of a study made to determine the maximum allowable impurities in solder used for wave soldering applications. This report concludes with a list of impurities compiled from actual analyses of solder which caused production problems. A list of recommended maximum allowable impurities will assist in establishing reliable quality controls on the purity level of the solder in a wave soldering machine.
Technical Library | 2013-10-03 16:05:39.0
Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is an essential component of almost all electrical and electronic equipments. The rapid growth of the use of such equipments has contributed enormously to the generation of large quantity of waste PCBs. The WPCBs not only contain valuable metals but also a large variety of hazardous materials. Conventional treatments of such WPCBs have their own limitations. By pyrolysis of WPCBs, it is not only possible to obtain the organic part of it as a fuel or useful chemical but can make further processing to recover metals much easier and efficient. In the present work, a kinetic study on the low temperature pyrolysis of WPCBs using a thermogravimetric analyser has been attempted...
Technical Library | 2013-12-11 23:24:32.0
Today's analyses of electronics reliability at the system level typically use a "black box approach", with relatively poor understanding of the behaviors and performances of such "black boxes" and how they physically and electrically interact (...) The incorporation of more rigorous and more informative approaches and techniques needs to better understand (...) Understanding the Physics of Failure (PoF) is imperative. It is a formalized and structured approach to Failure Analysis/Forensics Engineering that focuses on total learning and not only fixing a particular current problem (...) In this paper we will present an explanation of various physical models that could be deployed through this method, namely, wire bond failures; thermo-mechanical fatigue; and vibration.
Technical Library | 2017-11-10 00:58:37.0
Modern electronics manufacturing is made up by a multiplicity of different separation and joining processes, with the later surely taking the vast majority of production technology. Alongside gluing, welding and laser processes, soldering still holds a primary position in electronic assemblies. However, soldering does not always equal soldering, because there are quite a lot of different soldering technologies. Accordingly, you have to distinguish between automated and manual soldering procedures. No matter which soldering process you analyse, all of them have one aspect in common: they produce airborne pollutants, which may have a negative impact on employees, plants and products as well.
Technical Library | 2012-03-08 20:08:57.0
You may have heard talk in the news lately regarding counterfeit electronic components making it into the US military supply chain. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) recently reported in the Counterfeit Electronic Parts in the Defense Department Supply Chain hearing held on November 17, 2011, 1,800 cases of suspected counterfeit components that went into more than 1 million individual products. If you consider this number for the military, we can only imagine the number of counterfeits in our commercial yet high reliability products, such as life support or other critical systems. If you are the person within your electronics-based company who must perform risk analyses, counterfeiting is not a new concern, yet many do not realize just how good counterfeiters have become at their "trade".
Technical Library | 2020-04-01 23:32:29.0
Low temperature solder alloys are preferred for the assembly of temperature-sensitive components and substrates. The alloys in this category are required to reflow between 170 and 200oC soldering temperatures. Lower soldering temperatures result in lower thermal stresses and defects, such as warping during assembly, and permit use of lower cost substrates. Sn-Bi alloys have lower melting temperatures, but some of its performance drawbacks can be seen as deterrent for its use in electronics devices.Here we show that non-eutectic Sn-Bi alloys can be used to improve these properties and further align them with the electronics industry specific needs. The physical properties and drop shock performance of various alloys are evaluated, and their results are analysed in terms of the alloy composition, including Bi content and alloying additions.
Technical Library | 2016-10-24 15:14:23.0
Biosensors – a new Sensor Type from IST AG What are Biosensors? A biosensor is a device capable of detecting a certain substance or analyte with high specificity. Examples of such analytes are glucose, lactate, glutamine and glutamate. Most biosensors measure the concentration of an analyte in an aqueous solution, usually producing an electrical signal, which is proportional to the analyte’s concentration in its measuring range. An enzymatic biosensor comprises an enzyme, which recognizes and reacts with the target analyte generating a chemical signal, a transducer, which produces a physical signal out of that chemical one, and an electronic amplifier, which conditions and amplifies the signal. Biosensors allow the analysis in complex biological media. The detection of a large number of compounds is of great relevance not only for scientific research but also for process control in the chemical and food industry. It is also indispensable in the health care field for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and monitoring of illnesses. The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries greatly desire frequent to continuous analysis of biological media. Such analyses are conducted with the aid of analytical instruments like HPLC systems, which, although robust and reliable, are expensive and have a limited suitability for online operation. For this reason, the acquisition of Jobst Technologies GmbH positions IST AG as a key provider of high-performance and reliable online biosensors.
