Technical Articles From Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials

Optimizing Stencil Design For Lead-Free Smt Processing

Jun 12, 2023 | Ranjit S Pandher, Chrys Shea

As any new technology emerges, increasing levels of refinement are required to facilitate the mainstream implementation and continual improvement processes. In the case of lead-free processing, the initial hurdles of alloy and chemistry selection are cleared on the first level, providing a base process. The understanding gained from early work on the base process leads to the next level of refinement in optimizing the primary factors that influence yield. These factors may include thermal profiles, PWB surface finishes, component metallization, solder mask selection or stencil design....