Technical Library | 2019-12-05 13:30:46.0
Conformal coatings are regularly employed to protect the surface of a soldered printed circuit board assembly from moisture, chemicals in the PCBA's service environment, and foreign objects or debris. Conformal coatings are nonconductive and therefore cannot be placed on any location where electrical contact will be required, such as connector pins, test points, and sockets. Conformal coatings are also not permitted on any mechanical interface location, such as mounting holes or brackets, to assure the proper fit between items in the final assembly. In order to apply conformal coatings to an assembly and comply with the restrictions on keep-out areas, masking is employed to protect those surfaces.
Technical Library | 2019-06-07 14:49:54.0
ACI Technologies was contacted in regards to poor solder joint reliability. The customer submitted an assembly that was exhibiting intermittent opens at multiple locations on a ball grid array (BGA) component. The assembly’s functionality did not survive international shipping, essentially shock and vibration failures, immediately making the quality of the solder joints suspect. The customer was asked about the contract manufacturer and the reflow oven profile as well as the solder paste and surface finish used. The ACI engineering staff evaluated the contract manufacturer’s technique and determined that they were competent in the methods they used for placing thermocouples in the proper locations and developing the reflow oven profile. The surface finish was unusual, but not unheard of, in that it was hard gold over hard nickel, rather than electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG). The customer was able to supply boundary scan testing data which showed a diagonal row of troublesome BGA pins.
Technical Library | 2019-10-21 09:58:50.0
An ACI Technologies customer inquired regarding printed circuit board(PCB) failures that were becoming increasingly prevalent after the SMT (surface mount technology) manufacturing process. The failures were detected by electrical testing, but were undetermined as to the location and specific devices causing the failures. The failures were suspected to be caused predominately in the BGA (ball grid array) devices located on specific sites on this 16 layer construction. Information that was provided on the nature of the failures (i.e., opens or shorts) included high resistance shorts that were occurring in those specified areas. The surface finish was a eutectic HASL (hot air solder leveling) and the solder paste used was a water soluble Sn/Pb(tin/lead).
Technical Library | 2019-06-04 10:19:46.0
Interconnection technology relies very heavily on the ability of the conductors on a printed wiring assembly to maintain reliable signal integrity. Harsh environmental factors can precipitate a loss of conductivity due to oxidation and corrosion. Connections are typically soldered or inserted using pressure fitted connectors to obtain enough surface contact to meet the electrical conductivity requirements. In pressure contacts, surface integrity is especially critical where the abrasive effects of retraction and insertion can wear off the metallic finish from the contact area. This can expose the underlying copper or nickel and lead to increased resistance at the contact points. These types of conductors are frequently found in card edge connectors where the terminations are plated with a layer of nickel and gold (frequently referred to as gold fingers). A hard gold is typically used containing very small amounts of nickel and cobalt to increase the wear resistance.
Technical Library | 2007-02-01 10:08:40.0
The increased replacement of high lead count SMT devices with BGAs and other high ball count area array packages has brought increased challenges to PCB rework and repair. Often solder mask areas surrounding BGA pad areas are damaged when components are removed.
Technical Library | 2023-06-12 19:18:24.0
As any new technology emerges, increasing levels of refinement are required to facilitate the mainstream implementation and continual improvement processes. In the case of lead-free processing, the initial hurdles of alloy and chemistry selection are cleared on the first level, providing a base process. The understanding gained from early work on the base process leads to the next level of refinement in optimizing the primary factors that influence yield. These factors may include thermal profiles, PWB surface finishes, component metallization, solder mask selection or stencil design.
Technical Library | 2019-09-19 00:28:48.0
The symbiotic relationship between solder masks and selective finishes is not new. The soldermask application is one of the key considerations to ensure a successful application of a selective finish. The selective finish is the final chemical step of the PCB manufacturing process, this is when the panels are at their most valuable and are unfortunately not re-workable. Imperfections are not tolerated, even if they are wholly cosmetic. Quality issues often manifest themselves in the form of a 'ping pong' conversation between the fabricators, the soldermask suppliers and the selective finish suppliers. Without tangible evidence these discussions are difficult to resolve and the selective finish process is usually regarded as responsible. This paper will focus on the chemical characteristics and use them to predict or identify potential issues before they occur rather than specifically name 'critical' soldermasks. It is also the intention of this paper to address the potential of a soldermask to react to common yield hiking practices like UV bumping and oven curing. It is hoped that this awareness will help fabricators to ensure maximum yields by asking the right questions. 'Critical’ soldermasks impact all selective finishes. In this paper, practical experience using immersion tin will be used to highlight the relationship between 'critical' soldermasks and some of the issues seen in the field. The paper will include a novel approach to identify re-deposited volatiles after the reflow.
Technical Library | 2013-01-24 19:16:35.0
The electronics industry has mainly adopted the higher melting point Sn3Ag0.5Cu solder alloys for lead-free reflow soldering applications. For applications where temperature sensitive components and boards are used this has created a need to develop low melting point lead-free alloy solder pastes. Tin-bismuth and tin-bismuth-silver containing alloys were used to address the temperature issue with development done on Sn58Bi, Sn57.6Bi0.4Ag, Sn57Bi1Ag lead-free solder alloy pastes. Investigations included paste printing studies, reflow and wetting analysis on different substrates and board surface finishes and head-in-pillow paste performance in addition to paste-in-hole reflow tests. Voiding was also investigated on tin-bismuth and tin-bismuth-silver versus Sn3Ag0.5Cu soldered QFN/MLF/BTC components. Mechanical bond strength testing was also done comparing Sn58Bi, Sn37Pb and Sn3Ag0.5Cu soldered components. The results of the work are reported.
Technical Library | 2021-07-06 21:13:36.0
The surface finishes commonly used on printed circuit boards (PCBs) have an effect on solder paste performance in the surface mount process. Some surface finishes are non-planar like hot air solder level (HASL) which can lead to inconsistencies in solder paste printing. Other surface finishes are difficult to wet during reflow like organic solderability preservative (OSP). What is the overall effect of surface finish on solder paste performance? Which solder paste is best for each surface finish? It is the goal of this paper to answer these questions.
Technical Library | 2019-05-29 01:47:22.0
1.Vias near SMD pads: Solder can flow into the via after melted. As a result cold joint will appear in the end. Check the picture below. 2.Vias on SMD pads: Solder can flow into the via more easier after melted. Check the picture below. 3.Via opening without soldermask covered. When workers solder TH parts by hand, soldering iron can touch vias sometime, then tiny amounts molten solder will stay on vias. This can lead to electrical short easily. We recommend you make all vias tenting (covered by solder mask) if it is possible.
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