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 | 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 | 2020-07-15 18:29:34.0
In the early 2000s the first fine-pitch ball grid array devices became popular with designers looking to pack as much horsepower into as small a space as possible. "Smaller is better" became the rule and with that the mechanical drilling world became severely impacted by available drill bit sizes, aspect ratios, and plating methodologies. First of all, the diameter of the drill needed to be in the 0.006" or smaller range due to the reduction of pad size and spacing pitch. Secondly, the aspect ratio (depth to diameter) became limited by drill flute length, positional accuracy, rigidity of the tools (to prevent breakage), and the throwing power of acid copper plating systems. And lastly, the plating needed to close up the hole as much as possible, which led to problems with voiding, incomplete fill, and gas/solution entrapment.
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