While the origin of the phrase "may you live in interesting times" is widely disputed, the fact that we indeed live in an interesting time certainly is not. While record bank failures and declines in stock values, only rivaled by the Depression era, wreak havoc on consumer confidence, the economic trickle-down effect translates to reductions in production output and, ultimately, the consolidation of many industries, including electronics assembly.
Because defluxing is new again, there is a newfound desire among engineers to learn more about modern defluxing alternatives. Board failures, due to the lack of proper post-reflow cleaning, are no longer exclusively the problem of super-high-reliability manufacturers. Konrad's discussion focused on the importance of cleaning in the current economy.
Michael Konrad is an SMT Advisory Board member and President of Aqueous Technologies. Konrad also is an IPC SMEMA Council APEX Committee Member, and was a �High Performance Electronics Assembly Cleaning Symposium� panelist.