Assembly House Inc.'s Senior Manufacturing Engineer Ken Ghadia obtained certification as a trainer for the latest revision of the J-STD-001E standard, which is is recognized worldwide as the sole industry-consensus standard covering soldering materials and processes.

Solder paste printing is a critical step in surface mount manufacturing, as printing results directly affect the quality and yield of assembly. Good printing results rely on the "proper" solder paste theology in addition to the printing equipment and the printing operating process, including printer set-up and stencil design and selection.

Electrolube will be showcasing its newest product, Reflow Oven Cleaner, a specially-formulated micro-emulsion for cleaning reflow ovens and wave solder machines, at Assembly and Automation Technology Expo in Chicago, September 28-30, 2010.

An evaluation of solder wettability and spreadability was conducted with lead-free flux cored solder wire of SN100C and SAC305 alloys on stranded wire used for speakers. SN100C wets and spreads faster than SAC305.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about what tin whiskers are, what causes them and what impact they have. The term evokes terror in electronics circles, it's almost like bird flu or swine flu, something that's going to wipe out the free world as we know it," said Sam Platt of Delphi.

In this study, the authors research low-residue and lead-free flux structures, identify solvent compositions that will dissolve these residue types and offer options for performing both bulk and site-specific ionic cleanliness testing methods. Don't miss Part II of this exciting research.

A new line of rework systems, ranging from manually assisted models for video game repair to versatile, fully automatic versions with split vision, can now be seen at manncorp/smt/rework.com.

The Heraeus Photovoltaic Business Unit has begun introduction of a new line of front side silver pastes, the SOL9400 Series, that provide greater performance over Heraeus' current industry leading pastes for crystalline photovoltaic cells.

EMS007 Guest Editor Jasbir Bath grills Indium Corporation Vice President of Technology, Dr. Ning-Cheng Lee on what effects Mn or Ce doping has on the reliability of SAC lead-free solder joints. Find out what the latest cost and reliability results are when adding these doping agents to SAC alloy.

Industry experts will shine a spotlight on recent revisions to key electronics manufacturing industry standards and guidelines during IPC's professional development program at Electronics Midwest.

In this study, the authors research low-residue and lead-free flux structures, identify solvent compositions that will dissolve these residue types and offer options for performing both bulk and site-specific ionic cleanliness testing methods. Don't miss Part II of this exciting research.

EMS007 Guest Editor Jasbir Bath grills Indium Corporation Vice President of Technology, Dr. Ning-Cheng Lee on what effects Mn or Ce doping has on the reliability of SAC lead-free solder joints. Find out what the latest cost and reliability results are when adding these doping agents to SAC alloy.

Many a company has learned the hard way that product reliability is directly related to the ionic cleanliness of a circuit board. In this study, the authors research low-residue and lead-free flux structures, identify solvent compositions that will dissolve these residue types and offer options for performing both bulk and site-specific ionic cleanliness testing methods.

For several years technologies have been developed for the embedding of chips in circuit boards to achieve 3-D packages using conventional processes from PCB manufacturing. Ultra-thin chips are suited to be integrated in rigid circuit boards, as well as on, and in, multilayer flexible substrates.

Werner Engelmaier, noted author and expert in all things reliability, discusses reliability issues related to lead-free and RoHS. He notes three failure modes he's seeing more of: Pad cratering, trace lifting/buckling and "eyebrow" cracking. Adjusting board cooling rates can help tackle such issues, but, sometimes, that's not enough.

Dual-row QFN designs help bridge the gap between conventional QFN packages and BGAs. They enable a higher I/O count per area of single-row QFN packages and they maintain similar costing due to the lead frame-based technology. This paper focuses on the board-level solder joint reliability of a 28-lead dual-row QFN package.

Computational tools that render digitally processed images in pseudo-color can enable inspectors to recognize soldering defects, such as lifted leads and cold solder, in SMT mounting processes. With enhanced images, comparative evaluations to determine cases of defects or no defects are easily accomplished.

With the advent of lead-free solders, as well as the spike in tin prices, the moderate economic pain of dross generation has become acute. This paper will show the true cost of dross, including metal replacement, loss of efficiency and safety, as well as environmental and quality issues associated with the elimination of dross.

As solder suppliers formulate more variations on the lead-free solder theme, it appears that standardization is needed. But who's going to take ownership of the problem? Guest Editor Jasbir Bath and Indium Corporation Senior Technologist Dr. Ron Lasky have a spirited discussion on this proliferation problem.

The effect of post-reflow cleaning processes on creep corrosion are discussed in this paper from Alcatel-Lucent.The authors examine a laboratory MFG test that replicates field creep corrosion. Comparisons of creep corrosion susceptibility between OSP and ImAg PWB surface finishes are also made.

In this study, the authors research low-residue and lead-free flux structures, identify solvent compositions that will dissolve these residue types and offer options for performing both bulk and site-specific ionic cleanliness testing methods. Don't miss Part II of this exciting research.

EMS007 Guest Editor Jasbir Bath grills Indium Corporation Vice President of Technology, Dr. Ning-Cheng Lee on what effects Mn or Ce doping has on the reliability of SAC lead-free solder joints. Find out what the latest cost and reliability results are when adding these doping agents to SAC alloy.

Many a company has learned the hard way that product reliability is directly related to the ionic cleanliness of a circuit board. In this study, the authors research low-residue and lead-free flux structures, identify solvent compositions that will dissolve these residue types and offer options for performing both bulk and site-specific ionic cleanliness testing methods.

In March 2007, a process industrial engineer was notified of whisker-like anomalies on a QFP. Optical inspection revealed a large quantity of anomalies that appeared to be tin whiskers. This paper details the investigation to determine the root cause and identification of the anomalies observed on the QFP during optical inspection.

These images of SMT defects and attributes were compiled by consultant Tom Clifford. Section 11 includes images of odd via-fill, fiber debris, lead-on-land, bridges, tombstoning, dead-shorts, "type G" defects and more. These images of SMT defects and attributes provide resources for training, quality control specs and standards and research.

New columnist Steve Gregory will compile just a few of the many topics discussed on IPC TechNet, an e-mail forum comprised of individuals from all over the world involved in the electronics manufacturing industry. In his first offering, he relays a post concerning solder joint height and reliability which received several replies from industry experts, including Werner Engelmaier.

Over the coming weeks in this column I will be highlighting the types of questions and answers discussed on TechNet and smart-e-link. This should give you a quick reality-check on the kinds of issues faced by the industry or individual engineers.

Surface mount has been a critical manufacturing technology for the electronics PCB assembly for three decades (plus or minus a couple years) and is expected to continually play an important role in the years to come. In parallel, solder paste will continue to be the most viable interconnecting material for circuit board level mass production. As an electronic material, solder paste is "old," as well as "new."

Werner Engelmaier, noted author and expert in all things reliability, discusses reliability issues related to lead-free and RoHS. He notes three failure modes he's seeing more of: Pad cratering, trace lifting/buckling and "eyebrow" cracking. Adjusting board cooling rates can help tackle such issues, but, sometimes, that's not enough.

Dual-row QFN designs help bridge the gap between conventional QFN packages and BGAs. They enable a higher I/O count per area of single-row QFN packages and they maintain similar costing due to the lead frame-based technology. This paper focuses on the board-level solder joint reliability of a 28-lead dual-row QFN package.

Solder paste printing is a critical step in surface mount manufacturing, as printing results directly affect the quality and yield of assembly. Good printing results rely on the "proper" solder paste theology in addition to the printing equipment and the printing operating process, including printer set-up and stencil design and selection.

New columnist Steve Gregory will compile just a few of the many topics discussed on IPC TechNet, an e-mail forum comprised of individuals from all over the world involved in the electronics manufacturing industry. In his first offering, he relays a post concerning solder joint height and reliability which received several replies from industry experts, including Werner Engelmaier.

Over the coming weeks in this column I will be highlighting the types of questions and answers discussed on TechNet and smart-e-link. This should give you a quick reality-check on the kinds of issues faced by the industry or individual engineers.

Surface mount has been a critical manufacturing technology for the electronics PCB assembly for three decades (plus or minus a couple years) and is expected to continually play an important role in the years to come. In parallel, solder paste will continue to be the most viable interconnecting material for circuit board level mass production. As an electronic material, solder paste is "old," as well as "new."

Corner cracks are observed less often than barrel cracks, but with high-rel boards, we can't be too careful. Unlike barrel cracks, which can fail catastrophically, knee cracks tend to propagate over time. The damaged pad actually resembles a funnel and the warp and weft of the glass give the funnel an uneven, puckered shape.