Monitors Keep Track of PCB Contamination

Concoat Systems has further expanded and enhanced its CM range of contamination testers (or contaminometers).

These are used to perform extract cleanliness solvent extracted conductivity (SEC), or resistance of organic solvent extracted (ROSE) testing to measure ionic contamination levels on bare boards, components and loaded assemblies.

Ionic contamination can dramatically affect long-term reliability in the field.

SEC testing can be used to detect such contamination before, during and after manufacture (including cleaning and final assembly).

In this way process stability can be maintained and manufacturing stages where most ionic contamination is being introduced can be identified.

This allows manufacturers to rectify ionic contamination problems before they result in an end-of-line - and ultimately field - product failure.

The range includes the CM11 (formerly available from Multicore Solders) and its immediate cousin the CM12 that lay at the heart of the new CM series range.

These are entry-level contaminometers and process monitoring tools that are competitively priced, have a compact desktop size, high accuracy, ultra fast test cycle speed, a pass/fail response, and can be successfully operated by nontechnical personnel.

Both can be linked to a PC or laptop and enable users to rapidly establish - usually within 3 to 5min - whether a manufacturing process is within or outside an ionic contamination quality control spec.

They also exploit a 'dynamic' contamination test procedure where an isopropanol and water test solution is continuously passed over a test sample and then regenerated for re-use.

The use of a relatively small 3.5 litre tank of test solution supplemented by high quality internal pumps and resistivity measurement cells that yield the exceptionally fast test cycle time while retaining the space efficiency of a desktop design.

At the top of the new range is the CM80 combined cleaning and ionic contamination cleanliness test system.

This can simultaneously clean and test as many as 20 to 30 assemblies to a preset cleanliness level, usually within 2min.

This makes the CM80 dramatically faster than any other comparable ionic extract cleanliness test system.

All CM series testers measure ionic cleanliness in accordance with IPC, DEF-STD, ANSI-J-STD and other major international specifications.

Concoat Limited

http://www.concoat.co.uk