The worldwide electronics industry has sales of $750 billion, two thirds of which is accounted for by PCB assembly. PCB manufacturing is characterised by an obsessive drive for increased productivity in the context of three significant industry drive...

Evidence has come to light that increased solder process temperatures, specifically for lead free solder, are dramatically shortening life expectancy of components; failures do not show up during initial test, but much later on in the products life, ...

Advances in solid state light emitting diodes (LEDs) over the last several years have opened new applications for these devices. Traditionally used only in low power, low light output applications, modern high power LEDs are finding their way into a...

The Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) alloys have been considered promising replacements for the lead-containing solders for the microelectronics applications. However, due to the rigidity of the SAC alloys, compared with the Pb-containing alloys, more failures ha...

Have you ever been asked to lead a project to fix a problem, implement a new technology or some other initiative? It can be intimidating. Just because you, yourself are a good problem-solver, doesn't mean you have the capacity or drive to work wit...

This article presents design guidelines for helping users of HDMI mux-repeaters to maximise the device's full performance through careful printed circuit board (PCB) design. We'll explain important concepts of some main aspects of high-speed PCB de...

Over the past several years, post-reflow defluxing of circuit assemblies has gained in popularity. Microminiaturization of components and boards, combined with higher expected reliability and increased product liability, have contributed to the promi...

Open product reliability testing in Stockholm, Sweden in January as part of a live production event generated some quite startling results. It was apparent that many components simply cannot handle the high reflow temperatures of a lead-free solderin...

In a recent survey of 89 organizations conducted by Whataboutquality.com, respondents were asked what few key characteristics defined quality, in the eyes of their customer, the most popular response was: the product or service met my requirements. T...

STI has developed a patented1 packaging technology coined Imbedded Component/Die Technology (IC/DT�) to integrate multiple subsystems within an electronics assembly into a single, advanced, high-density assembly. Imbedded Component/Die Technology (...