Electronics Manufacturing Technical Articles

Soldering fume in electronics manufacturing - damaging effects and solutions for removal

Nov 10, 2017 | ULT AG

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....

Publisher: ULT Canada Sales Incorporated

Void Reduction in Reflow Soldering Processes by Sweep Stimulation of PCB Substrate

Nov 08, 2017 | Viktoria Rawinski

Due to the ongoing trend towards miniaturization of power components, the need for increased thermal conductivity of solder joints in SMT processes gains more and more importance. Therefore, the role of void free solder joints in power electronics becomes more central. Voids developed during soldering reduce the actual thermal transfer and can cause thermal damage of the power components up to their failure. For this reason, the company has developed a new technique to minimize the formation of these voids during the soldering process....

Publisher: kurtz ersa Corporation

Solder Paste Printing – the Most Critical Part of Building a Quality PCB Explained

Nov 03, 2017 | Tuan Tran

If someone were to ask what the most important part of their favorite electronic device is, they are likely to point to the printed circuit board (PCB) responsible for making the device work before moving on to other components. From large motherboards to tiny chips, most of the technology that retail consumers take for granted comes down to a properly installed and calibrated PCB. ...

Publisher: Power Design Services

Just‐In‐Time Material Management for the PCB Industry

Nov 03, 2017 | Tuan Tran

As with any production industry, businesses in the PCB industry need to maintain a healthy balance between the components they keep in stock and those they use for meet client orders. Ordering too many components comes with serious disadvantages, as does not ordering enough, and PCB manufacturers need to stay as close as possible to a happy medium between the two....

Publisher: Power Design Services

21st Century PCB FAB Factory Design Which Eliminates Regional Cost Advantages

Nov 01, 2017 | Alexander Stepinski

Over fifteen years has passed since North America and Europe ceased being the center of worldwide PCB fabrication, and were supplanted by a Far East market with low cost labor, more relaxed environmental requirements, and strong government support. In just a few short years, the superior cost advantages of this new dynamic put volume PCB production in the West out of business, aside for the military and specialty technology applications contained in the few shops that continue to exist today.

Recently, however, the conditions which created the current equilibrium appear to be shifting again. In this new dynamic, automation, innovative green wastewater technologies, and next generation process equipment innovations have combined to make new factories capable of achieving rapid ROI for PCB fabrication almost anywhere. This paper means to illustrate this new dynamic, and provide case study examples from the new greenfield installation at the company captive facility in New Hampshire....

Publisher: Whelen Engineering

Can Nano-Coatings Really Improve Stencil Performance?

Oct 26, 2017 | Tony Lentz

Nano-coatings have been introduced by various manufacturers, with the promise of addressing some of the challenges relative to solder paste printing. Stated benefits include: Reduced underside cleaning, reduced bridging, improved solder paste release and improvements in yield. With several nano technologies already on the market and more likely to be introduced, how can the performance be quantified? How robust are these coatings? How can an assembler approach the ROI of these coatings? What hidden benefits or negative impacts should be considered?

This paper will present a rigorous method for evaluating the performance and economic benefits of solder paste stencil nano-coatings....

Publisher: FCT ASSEMBLY, INC.

To Quantify a Wetting Balance Curve

Oct 19, 2017 | Frank Xu Ph.D., Robert Farrell, Rita Mohanty Ph.D.

Wetting balance testing has been an industry standard for evaluating the solderability of surface finishes on printed circuit boards (PCB) for many years. A Wetting Balance Curve showing Force as a function of Time, along with the individual data outputs "Time to Zero" T(0), "Time to Two-Thirds Maximum Force" T(2/3), and "Maximum Force" F(max) are usually used to evaluate the solderability performance of various surface finishes. While a visual interpretation of the full curve is a quick way to compare various test results, this method is subjective and does not lend itself readily to a rigorous statistical evaluation. Therefore, very often, when a statistical evaluation is desired for comparing the solderability between different surface finishes or different test conditions, one of the individual parameters is chosen for convenience. However, focusing on a single output usually doesn't provide a complete picture of the solderability of the surface finish being evaluated.

In this paper, various models here-in labeled as "point" and "area" models are generated using the three most commonly evaluated individual outputs T(0), T(2/3), and F(max). These models have been studied to quantify how well each describes the full wetting balance curve. The solderability score (S-Score) with ranking from 0 to 10 were given to quantify the wetting balance curve as the result of the model study, which corresponds well with experimental results....

Publisher: Enthone

High Reliability and High Temperature Application Solution - Solder Joint Encapsulant Paste

Oct 16, 2017 | Dr. Mary Liu and Dr. Wusheng Yin

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 300C, 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. ...

Publisher: YINCAE Advanced Materials, LLC.

Mitigation of Pure Tin Risk by Tin-Lead SMT Reflow- Results of an Industry Round-Robin

Oct 12, 2017 | David Pinsky - Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, Tom Hester - Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, Dr. Anduin Touw - The Boeing Company, Dave Hillman - Rockwell Collins

The risk associated with whisker growth from pure tin solderable terminations is fully mitigated when all of the pure tin is dissolved into tin-lead solder during SMT reflow. In order to take full advantage of this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which such coverage can be assured. A round robin study has been performed by IPC Task group 8-81f, during which identical sets of test vehicles were assembled at multiple locations, in accordance with IPC J-STD-001, Class 3. All of the test vehicles were analyzed to determine the extent of complete tin dissolution on a variety of component types. Results of this study are presented together with relevant conclusions and recommendations to guide high reliability end-users on the applicability and limitations of this mitigation strategy....

Publisher: Raytheon

Intermetallic Compounds In Solar Cell Interconnections Including Lead-Free, Low Melting Point Solders

Oct 05, 2017 | Torsten Geipel, Achim Kraft, Ulrich Eitner - ISE, Monja Moeller - Kiel University

Intermetallic compounds (IMC) in solder bonds are commonly considered critical for the reliability of interconnections. The microstructure and thermal aging characteristics of solder bonds of crystalline silicon solar cells are investigated, whereby two solders, Sn60Pb40 and a lead-free, low melting point alternative Sn41Bi57Ag2 are considered....

Publisher: Fraunhofer Insitute for Solar Energy Systems ISE