Technical Articles From AT&S

Predicting the Lifetime of the PCB - From Experiment to Simulation

Sep 18, 2014 | Markus Leitgeb, AT&S Peter Fuchs, PCCL.

Two major drivers in electronic industry are electrical and mechanical miniaturization. Both induce major changes in the material selection as well as in the design. Nevertheless, the mechanical and thermal reliability of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) has to remain at the same high level or even increase (e.g. multiple lead-free soldering). To achieve these reliability targets, extensive testing has to be done with bare PCB as well as assembled PCB. These tests are time consuming and cost intensive. The PCBs have to be produced, assembled, tested and finally a detailed failure analysis is required to be performed.

This paper examines the development of our concept and has the potential to enable the prediction of the lifetime of the PCB using accelerated testing methods and finite element simulations....

Reliability Performance of Very Thin Printed Circuit Boards with regard to Different any Layer Manufacturing Technologies.

Sep 19, 2013 | Gerhard Schmid, Martin Fischeneder, Gerhard Stoiber

The next generation of smart phones will demand very thin multi-layer boards to reduce the product thickness again. This paper shows three different manufacturing approaches, which can be used for very thin any-layer build-ups. The technological approaches are compared on reliability level – the any-layer copper filled micro-via technology which is to be considered as state of the art technology for high end phones and the ALIVH-C/G technology that is well established in Japan. A test vehicle design featuring test coupons for comprehensive reliability test series has been defined as target application for investigation......

SMT Manufacturability and Reliability in PCB Cavities

May 31, 2012 | Markus Leitgeb, Christopher Michael Ryder

First published in the 2012 IPC APEX EXPO technical conference proceedings. Considering technological advances in multi-depth cavities in the PCB manufacturing industry, various subtopics have materialized regarding the processing and application of such ...