Electronics Manufacturing Technical Articles

Ready to Start Measuring PCB Warpage during Reflow? Why and How to Use the New IPC-9641 Standard

Aug 19, 2014 | Ken Chiavone

Understanding warpage of package attach locations on PCBs under reflow temperature conditions is critical in surface mount technology. A new industry standard, IPC 9641, addresses this topic directly for the first time as an international standard.

This paper begins by summarizing the sections of the IPC 9641 standard, including, measurement equipment selection, test setup and methodology, and accuracy verification. The paper goes further to discuss practical implementation of the IPC 9641 standards. Key advantages and disadvantages between available warpage measurement methods are highlighted. Choosing the correct measurement technique depends on requirements for warpage resolution, data density, measurement volume, and data correlation. From industry experience, best practice recommendations are made on warpage management of PCB land areas, covering how to setup, run, analyze, and report on local area PCB warpage.

The release of IPC 9641 shows that flatness over temperature of the package land area on the PCB is critical to the SMT industry. Furthermore, compatibility of shapes between attaching surfaces in SMT, like a package and PCB, will be critical to product yield and quality in years to come....

Publisher: Akrometrix

Advanced Organic Substrate Technologies To Enable Extreme Electronics Miniaturization.

Aug 14, 2014 | Susan Bagen, Dave Alcoe, Kim Blackwell, Frank Egitto.

High reliability applications for high performance computing, military, medical and industrial applications are driving electronics packaging advancements toward increased functionality with decreasing degrees of size, weight and power (SWaP) The substrate technology selected for the electronics package is a key enabling technology towards achieving SWaP. Standard printed circuit boards (PWBs) utilize dielectric materials containing glass cloth, which can limit circuit density and performance, as well as inhibit the ability to achieve reliable assemblies with bare semiconductor die components. Ceramic substrates often used in lieu of PWBs for chip packaging have disadvantages of weight, marginal electrical performance and reliability as compared to organic technologies. Alternative materials including thin, particle-containing organic substrates, liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and microflex enable SWaP, while overcoming the limitations of PWBs and ceramic.

This paper will discuss the use of these alternative organic substrate materials to achieve extreme electronics miniaturization with outstanding electrical performance and high reliability. The effect of substrate type on chip-package interaction and resulting reliability will be discussed. Microflex assemblies to achieve extreme miniaturization and atypical form factors driven by implantable and in vivo medical applications are also shown....

Publisher: i3 Electronics

Gold Embrittlement In Lead-Free Solder.

Aug 07, 2014 | Craig Hillman, Nathan Blattau, Joelle Arnold, Thomas Johnston, Stephanie Gulbrandsen; DfR Solutions, Julie Silk, Alex Chiu; Agilent Technologies.

Gold embrittlement in SnPb solder is a well-known failure mechanism in electronic assembly. To avoid this issue, prior studies have indicated a maximum gold content of three weight percent. This study attempts to provide similar guidance for Pb-free (SAC305) solder. Standard surface mount devices were assembled with SnPb and SAC305 solder onto printed boards with various thicknesses of gold plating. The gold plating included electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) and electrolytic gold of 15, 25, 35, and 50 microinches over nickel. These gold thicknesses resulted in weight percentages between 0.4 to 7.0 weight percent....

Publisher: DfR Solutions (acquired by ANSYS Inc)

Electrostatic Theory of Metal Whiskers.

Jul 31, 2014 | V. G. Karpov, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo.

Metal whiskers often grow across leads of electric equipment and electronic package causing current leakage or short circuits and raising significant reliability issues. The nature of metal whiskers remains a mystery after several decades of research. Here, the existence of metal whiskers is attributed to the energy gain due to electrostatic polarization of metal filaments in the electric field. The field is induced by surface imperfections: contaminations, oxide states, grain boundaries, etc. A proposed theory provides closed form expressions and quantitative estimates for the whisker nucleation and growth rates, explains the range of whisker parameters and effects of external biasing, and predicts statistical distribution of their lengths....

Publisher: University of Toledo

Copper Wire Bond Failure Mechanisms.

Jul 24, 2014 | Randy Schueller, Ph.D.

Wire bonding a die to a package has traditionally been performed using either aluminum or gold wire. Gold wire provides the ability to use a ball and stitch process. This technique provides more control over loop height and bond placement. The drawback has been the increasing cost of the gold wire. Lower cost Al wire has been used for wedge-wedge bonds but these are not as versatile for complex package assembly. The use of copper wire for ball-stitch bonding has been proposed and recently implemented in high volume to solve the cost issues with gold. As one would expect, bonding with copper is not as forgiving as with gold mainly due to oxide growth and hardness differences.

This paper will examine the common failure mechanisms that one might experience when implementing this new technology....

Publisher: DfR Solutions (acquired by ANSYS Inc)

Enhancing Thermal Performance in Embedded Computing for Ruggedized Military and Avionics Applications.

Jul 17, 2014 | Darren Campo, Jens Weyant, Bryan Muzyka

Embedded computing systems used in many military and avionics applications are trending toward higher heat fluxes, and as a result performance is being hindered by thermal limitations. This is intensified by the high ambient conditions experience by today’s modern warfighter. In many applications liquid cooling is replacing air flow through chassis for both thermal and environmental benefits(...)

This paper outlines a series of passive thermal improvements which are easily integrated into legacy, or existing, systems and can provide a 3-4x increase in dissipated power....

Publisher: Advanced Cooling Technologies

Fatigue Damage Behavior of a Surface-mount Electronic Package Under Different Cyclic Applied Loads.

Jul 10, 2014 | Ren Huai-Hui, Wang Xi-Shu

This paper studies and compares the effects of pull–pull and 3-point bending cyclic loadings on the mechanical fatigue damage behaviors of a solder joint in a surface-mount electronic package.

The comparisons are based on experimental investigations using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in-situ technology and nonlinear finite element modeling, respectively. The compared results indicate that there are different threshold levels of plastic strain for the initial damage of solder joints under two cyclic applied loads; meanwhile, fatigue crack initiation occurs at different locations, and the accumulation of equivalent plastic strain determines the trend and direction of fatigue crack propagation. In addition, simulation results of the fatigue damage process of solder joints considering a constitutive model of damage initiation criteria for ductile materials and damage evolution based on accumulating inelastic hysteresis energy are identical to the experimental results. The actual fatigue life of the solder joint is almost the same and demonstrates that the FE modeling used in this study can provide an accurate prediction of solder joint fatigue failure....

Publisher: Tsinghua University

Effect of Cu–Sn intermetallic Compound Reactions on the Kirkendall Void Growth Characteristics in Cu/Sn/Cu Microbumps

Jul 02, 2014 | Jong-Myeong Park, Seung-Hyun Kim, Young-Bae Park - Andong National University, Myeong-Hyeok Jeong - NEPES Corporation.

Growth behaviors of intermetallic compounds (IMCs) and Kirkendall voids in Cu/Sn/Cu microbump were systematically investigated by an in-situ scanning electron microscope observation. Cu–Sn IMC total thickness increased linearly with the square root of the annealing time for 600 h at 150°C, which could be separated as first and second IMC growth steps. Our results showed that the growth behavior of the first void matched the growth behavior of second Cu6Sn5, and that the growth behavior of the second void matched that of the second Cu3Sn. It could be confirmed that double-layer Kirkendall voids growth kinetics were closely related to the Cu–Sn IMC growth mechanism in the Cu/Sn/Cu microbump, which could seriously deteriorate the mechanical and electrical reliabilities of the fine-pitch microbump systems...

Publisher: Nepes Corporation

Enhancing Mechanical Shock Performance Using Edgebond Technology

Jun 26, 2014 | Steven Perng, Tae-Kyu Lee, and Cherif Guirguis - Cisco Systems, Inc., Edward S. Ibe - Zymet, Inc.

Edgebond adhesives have been widely used by the industry for improving the shock performance of area array packages. Most of the studies focus on the impact of material properties, such as coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and glass transition temperature (Tg), on reliability at room temperature. However, the operating temperature of a component on the printed circuit board bonded with edgebond adhesive can be close to or exceed Tg of the adhesive, where the material properties may be very different than at room temperature....

Publisher: Cisco Systems, Inc.

OOOH Colors, It Must Be Lead Free

Jun 23, 2014 | John Maxwell, Director of Product Development, Johanson Dielectrics Inc.

It was unusual to see chip terminations change colors when tin lead solders were used but with the introduction of lead free reflow soldering and the corresponding increases in reflow temperatures terminations are now changing colors. Two conditions are present when reflow temperatures are increased for lead free solder alloys that leads to discoloration. Reflow temperatures are above the melting point of tin (Sn MP is 232oC). Air temperatures commonly used in forced convection reflow systems are high enough to both melt the tin plating on the termination allowing it to be pulled into the solder joint due to solder joint liquid solder surface tension leaving behind the exposed nickel barrier. Now those metal oxide colors will be visible due to high air temperatures during reflow....

Publisher: Johanson Dielectrics, Inc.

Anisotropic grain growth and crack propagation in eutectic microstructure under cyclic temperature annealing in flip-chip SnPb composite solder joints

Jun 19, 2014 | Y.C. Liang, H.W. Lin, H.P. Chen, C. Chen, K.N. Tub, Y.S.Lai

For high-density electronic packaging,the application of flip-chip solder joints has been well received in the microelectronics industry. High-lead(Pb) solders such as Sn5Pb95 are presently granted immunity from the RoHS requirements for their use in high-end flip-chip devices, especially in military applications. In flip-chip technology for consumer electronic products, organic substrates have replaced ceramic substrates due to the demand for less weight and low cost. However, the liquidus temperatures of high-Pb solders are over 300°C which would damage organic substrates during reflow because of the low glass transition temperature. To overcome this difficulty, the composite solder approach was developed......

Publisher: National Chiao Tung University

Instrumentation for Studying Real-time Popcorn Effect in Surface Mount Packages during Solder Reflow

Jun 12, 2014 | Arijit Roy

Occurrence of popcorn in IC packages while assembling them onto the PCB is a well known moisture sensitive reliability issues, especially for surface mount packages. Commonly reflow soldering simulation process is conducted to assess the impact of assembling IC package onto PCB. A strain gauge-based instrumentation is developed to investigate the popcorn effect in surface mount packages during reflow soldering process. The instrument is capable of providing real-time quantitative information of the occurrence popcorn phenomenon in IC packages. It is found that the popcorn occur temperatures between 218 to 241°C depending on moisture soak condition, but not at the peak temperature of the reflow process. The presence of popcorn and delamination are further confirmed by scanning acoustic tomography as a failure analysis....

Publisher: WASET - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology

Stencil Printing Yield Improvements

Jun 05, 2014 | Dr. Mike Bixenman, Debbie Carboni, Jason Chan

Stencil printing capability is becoming more important as the range of component sizes assembled on a single board increases. Coupled with increased component density, solder paste sticking to the aperture sidewalls and bottom of the stencil can cause insufficient solder paste deposits and solder bridging. Yield improvement requires increased focus on stencil technology, printer capability, solder paste functionality and understencil cleaning.

(...) The purpose of this research is to study the wipe sequence, wipe frequency and wipe solvent(s) and how these factors interact to provide solder paste printing yield improvement....

Publisher: KYZEN Corporation

Solder Joint Encapsulant Adhesive Pop TMV High Reliability And Low Cost Assembly Solution

Jun 02, 2014 | Dr. Mary Liu and Dr. Wusheng Yin

With the advancement of the electronic industry, package on package (POP) has become increasingly popular IC package for electronic devices, particularly POP TMV (Through Mold Vials) in mobile devices due to its benefits of miniaturization, design flexibility and cost efficiency. However, there are some issues that have been reported such as SIR drop due to small gap between top and bottom components, difficulty underfilling and rework due to stacked IC components and process yield issues. Some suppliers have reported using some methods such as dipping epoxy paste or epoxy flux to address these issues, but so far no customer has reported using these methods or materials in their mass production. In order to address these issues for POP TMV assembly, YINCAE has successfully developed and commercialized the first individual solder joint encapsulant adhesive for mass production for years....

Publisher: YINCAE Advanced Materials, LLC.

Microspring Characterization and Flip-Chip Assembly Reliability

May 29, 2014 | B. Cheng, D. De Bruyker, C. Chua, K. Sahasrabuddhe, I. Shubin, J. E. Cunningham, Y. Luo, K. F. Böhringer, A. V. Krishnamoorthy, E, M. Chow

Electronics packaging based on stress-engineered spring interconnects has the potential to enable integrated IC testing, fine pitch, and compliance not readily available with other technologies. We describe new spring contacts which simultaneously achieve low resistance (< 100 mΩ) and high compliance (> 30 μm) in dense 2-D arrays (180 ~ 180-µm pitch). Mechanical characterization shows that individual springs operate at approximately 150-µN force. Electrical measurements and simulations imply that the interface contact resistance contribution to a single contact resistance is < 40 mΩ. A daisy-chain test die consisting of 2844 contacts is assembled into flip-chip packages with 100% yield. Thermocycle and humidity testing suggest that packages with or without underfill can have stable resistance values and no glitches through over 1000 thermocycles or 6000 h of humidity.

This paper suggests that integrated testing and packaging can be performed with the springs, enabling new capabilities for markets such as multichip modules....

Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Pb-free solders: Comparison of different geometrical models in calculating of enthalpy of mixing of In-Sn-Zn ternary system.

May 22, 2014 | A. Boulouiz, M. El Moudane, M. Mekkaoui, A. Sabbar

In this paper, the general solution model of Chou has been used to predict the integral enthalpies of mixing of liquid In-Sn-Zn ternary alloys in five selected sections, xIn/xSn = 0.15/0.85, 0.34/0.66, 0.50/0.50, 0.67/0.33 and 0.85/0.15. The other traditional models such as Kohler, Muggianu, Toop and Hillert are also included in calculations. Comparison with literature data was done and showed reasonable agreement with Toop and Hillert asymmetric models....

Publisher: Université Mohammed V-Agdal

Performance of Light Emitting Diode on Surface Machined Heat Sink

May 15, 2014 | S. Shanmugan*, D. Mutharasu, O. Zeng Yin

In the point of efficient heat removal from light emitting diode (LED) package to ambient, the surface of the heat sinks must be finished based on required condition. The surface finishing plays an important role in efficient heat dissipation. In our work, the top surface of heat sink was machined like two different shapes (slotted and 'W' shaped) and tested the thermal performance for 3W green LED. The total thermal resistance was high for 'W' shaped surface at 100 mA. Surface modification was not influenced much on the thermal resistance (Rth) value at higher operating current. Noticeable increase on junction temperature was observed for 'W' shaped surface at 100 mA than slotted surface. In optical properties, low lux values were recorded for ‘W’ shaped surface at all operating current. In addition, 'W' shaped surface showed low value in CRI than other two surfaces (plain and slotted). The observed CCT value was decreased as the measuring time increased. High value in CCT was observed for ‘W’ shaped surface at higher operating current (> 350mA). Slotted surface showed good performance on both thermal and optical properties of the given 3W green LED....

Publisher: Universiti Sains Malaysia

Lead-Free Soldering Guide

May 12, 2014 | AIM

The issue of lead-free soldering has piqued a great deal of interest in the electronics assembly industry as of late. What was once an issue that seemed too far away to worry about has become a pressing reality. In order to avoid confusion, last minute panic, and a misunderstanding of how the issue of lead-free soldering will affect the industry and individuals users of solders, it is necessary for all suppliers and assemblers to become educated in this matter....

Publisher: AIM Solder

Solder Joint Encapsulant Adhesive POP Assembly Solution

May 12, 2014 | Dr. Mary Liu and Dr. Wusheng Yin

With the advancement of the electronic industry, Package on package (POP) has become increasingly popular IC package for electronic devices, particularly in mobile devices due to its benefits of miniaturization, design flexibility and cost efficiency. However, there are some issues that have been reported such as SIR drop due to small gap between top and bottom components, difficulty underfilling and rework due to stacked IC components and process yield issues. Some suppliers have reported using some methods such as dipping epoxy paste or epoxy flux to address these issues, but so far, no customer has reported using these methods or materials in their mass production. In order to address these issues for POP assembly, YINCAE has successfully developed a first individual solder joint encapsulant adhesive....

Publisher: YINCAE Advanced Materials, LLC.

Challenges in Bare Die Mounting

May 08, 2014 | Larry Gilg, Die Products Consortium.

Bare die mounting on multi-device substrates has been in use in the microelectronics industry since the 1960s. The aerospace industry’s hybrid modules and IBM’s Solid Logic Technology were early implementations that were developed in the 1960’s. The technologies progressed on a steady level until the mid 1990’s when, with the advent of BGA packaging and chip scale packages, the microelectronics industry started a wholesale move to area array packaging. This paper outlines the challenges for both traditional wire-bond die attached to a printed wiring board (pwb), to the more recent applications of bumped die attached to a high performance substrate....

Publisher: Die Products Consortium

Strain Solitons and Topological Defects in Bilayer Graphene

May 01, 2014 | Jonathan S. Aldena, Adam W. Tsena, Pinshane Y. Huanga, Robert Hovdena, Lola Brownb, Jiwoong Parkb,c, David A. Mullera,c, and Paul L. McEuen.

Bilayer graphene has been a subject of intense study in recent years. The interlayer registry between the layers can have dramatic effects on the electronic properties: for example, in the presence of a perpendicular electric field, a band gap appears in the electronic spectrum of so-called Bernal-stacked graphene. This band gap is intimately tied to a structural spontaneous symmetry breaking in bilayer graphene, where one of the graphene layers shifts by an atomic spacing with respect to the other. This shift can happen in multiple directions, resulting in multiple stacking domains with soliton-like structural boundaries between them...

Publisher: Cornell University

Expectations for Companies' Conflict Minerals Reporting

Apr 24, 2014 | Darren Fenwick, Patricia Jurewicz.

By May 31, 2014, it is expected that companies, officially known as issuers, will be required to take the unprecedented step of submitting their first conflict minerals disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. This paper is intended to describe the content that certain sustainable and responsible investors, or SRIs, and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, expect to see in an issuer's Specialized Disclosure, or Form SD, and Conflict Minerals Report, or CMR, if a CMR is deemed necessary....

Publisher: Responsible Sourcing Network

A Novel Low Temperature Fast Flow And Fast Cure Reworkable Underfill

Apr 11, 2014 | Dr. Mary Liu and Dr. Wusheng Yin

In order to meet the increasing demand of device miniaturization, high speed, more memory, more function, low cost, and more flexibility in device design and manufacturing chain, underfilling has increasingly become an essential process for the good reliability of electronic devices. Filled capillary underfill has been selected for use in package-level where there is large thermal stress caused by CTE mismatch issue, but the underfill is usually not reworkable. Unfilled capillary underfill has been used for board-level application such as BGA/CSP, POP, WL-CSP where there is need for mechanical shock resistance, the underfill is usually reworkable....

Publisher: YINCAE Advanced Materials, LLC.

Solar Panel Design Decision and General Information Sheet

Apr 10, 2014 | Alexander L Carrere.

This paper is meant to be a guide and a reference to new and old members alike who wish to know about, understand, and improve on the decisions made and processes implemented to build the current solar panels. The following paragraphs in the introduction will lay out background information on solar panels and cube satellites. This entire document was written with the idea that the reader will be able to follow the decisions made to construct the solar panels and then with this knowledge find areas of the project for improvement....

Publisher: iSAT Group

A System Level Electrostatic Discharge Protection Modeling Methodology for Time Domain Analysis.

Apr 03, 2014 | Nicolas Monnereau, Fabrice Caignet, David Trémouilles, Nicolas Nolhier, Marise Bafleur.

A system level modeling methodology is presented and validated on a simple case. It allows precise simulations of electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress propagation on a printed circuit board (PCB). The proposed model includes the integrated circuit (IC) ESD protection network, IC package, PCB lines, passives components, and externals elements. The impact of an external component on the ESD propagation paths into an IC is demonstrated. Resulting current and voltage waveforms are analyzed to highlight the interactions between all the elements of an operating PCB. A precise measurement technique was designed and used to compare with the simulation results. The model proposed in this paper is able to predict, with good accuracy, the propagation of currents and voltages into the whole system during ESD stress. It might be used to understand why failures occur and how to fix them with the most suitable solution....

Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Cleaning PCB's in Electronics - Understanding Today's Needs.

Mar 27, 2014 | P.J. Duchi, Anne-Marie Laugt, Marie Verdier, G.Aabidh.

Because of the phase out of CFC's and HCFC's, standard solder pastes and fluxes evolved from RA and RMA fluxes, to No-Clean, to low residue No-Clean, to very low residue No-Clean. Many companies came out with their cleaning solutions, aqueous and semi-aqueous, with each product release being more innovative than the previous one. Unfortunately for most of the suppliers of cleaners, two other trends appeared; lead-free soldering and the progressive miniaturization of electronic devices....

Publisher: Inventec Performance Chemicals

PCB Surface Finishes & Cost Effective Pb Free Assembly Materials

Mar 27, 2014 | Richard Puthota Director – Business Development & CTS India & Africa, Cookson Electronics

The surface finish you select will have a large influence on quality, reliability and cost. It is a complex decision that impacts many areas of the business. Select a finish that optimal for the business (and not just one function). Know that there are engineering tricks to improve on weak areas of each finish. Stay current in this field because new developments continue to be made....

Publisher: Cookson Electronics

Data Bus Components - The Communication System that Helps in Transferring Data

Mar 27, 2014 | Joe Faruqui

Data bus in computer terminology is a communication system that helps in transferring data between components within a computer, or between separate computers. Know more about data bus components and advancements in data bus technology by reading this article....

Publisher: Just Connectors

Today's Vapor Phase Soldering An Optimized Reflow Technology for Lead Free Soldering

Mar 20, 2014 | Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Leicht; Andreas Thumm - IBL-Löttechnik GmbH.

In the beginning of SMT, Vapor Phase Soldering was the preferred reflow soldering technology because of its excellent heat transfer capabilities. There were also some disadvantages like fast temperature rise, nearly no influence on the temperature profiles and high costs. So the use of Vapor Phase Soldering was reduced to special applications with high mass or complex boards in low numbers (e.g. for military or aerospace use)....

Publisher: IBL - Löttechnik GmbH

Stencil Design Guidelines for Electronics Assembly Technologies.

Mar 13, 2014 | Budapest University of Technology and Economics Department of Electronics Technology

A student competition paper at Budapest University of Technology And Economics, Department of Electronics Technology gives background, covers stencil design and discusses stencils intended for pin in paste application. The stencil applied for depositing the solder paste is a thin, 75–200 µm thick metal foil, on which apertures are formed according to the solder pads on the printed circuit board. Stencil printing provides a fast, mass solder paste deposition process; relatively expensive, appropriate and recommended for mass production....

Publisher: Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Investigation and Development of Tin-Lead and Lead-Free Solder Pastes to Reduce the Head-In-Pillow Component Soldering Defect.

Mar 06, 2014 | Jasbir Bath, Roberto Garcia - Christopher Associates Inc. Noriyoshi Uchida, Hajime Takahashi, Gordon Clark, Manabu Itoh - Koki Solder

Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the rate of Head-in-Pillow component soldering defects which interrupts the merger of the BGA/CSP component solder spheres with the molten solder paste during reflow. The issue has occurred across a broad segment of industries including consumer, telecom and military. There are many reasons for this issue such as warpage issues of the component or board, ball co-planarity issues for BGA/CSP components and non-wetting of the component based on contamination or excessive oxidation of the component coating. The issue has been found to occur not only on lead-free soldered assemblies where the increased soldering temperatures may give rise to increase component/board warpage but also on tin-lead soldered assemblies....

Publisher: Christopher Associates Inc.

A Novel High Thermal Conductive Underfill For Flip Chip Appliation

Feb 27, 2014 | Dr. Mary Liu and Dr. Wusheng Yin

Silicon dioxide is normally used as filler in underfill. The thermal conductivity of underfill is less than 1 w/mk, which is not able to meet the current flip chip application requirements such as 3D stacked multi-chips packaging. No matter which direction the heat will be dissipated through PCB or chip, the heat has to pass through the underfill in 3D stacked chips. Therefore the increase of thermal conductivity of underfill can significantly enhance the reliability of electronic devices, particularly in 3D package devices...

Publisher: YINCAE Advanced Materials, LLC.

Screening for Counterfeit Electronic Parts

Feb 20, 2014 | Bhanu Sood and Diganta Das

In this chapter, we discuss the type of parts used to create counterfeits and the defects/degradations inherent in these parts due to the nature of the sources they come from, proposed inspection standards, and limitations of these standards. The processes used to modify the packaging of these parts to create counterfeits are then discussed along with the traces left behind from each of the processes. We then present a systematic methodology for detecting signs of possible part modifications to determine the risk of a part or part lot being counterfeit....

Publisher: CALCE Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering

Why Signal Always Be Loss in a High Speed, High Frequency Transmission Line

Feb 13, 2014 | Albert Chen.

The high speed transmission applications in the electronic product become inevitable developing trend. The signal integrity becomes the most important issue in the electronics industry. The material suppliers, PCB manufacturers, OEM designers commonly face the serious issue "how to keep signal integrity operated in the high speed transmission" for the modern electronic application nowadays...

Publisher: Elite Material Co., Ltd.

Understanding SIR

Feb 06, 2014 | Chris Nash, Technical Support Engineer, Eric Bastow, Senior Technical Support Engineer; Indium Corporation.

Many electronics manufacturers perform SIR testing to evaluate solder materials and sometimes the results they obtain differ significantly from those stated by the solder material provider. The difference in the results is typically the result of SIR coupon preparation. This paper will discuss the issue of SIR coupon preparation, board cleaning techniques, and how board cleanliness directly affects SIR results....

Publisher: Indium Corporation

Going Lead Free With Vapor Phase Soldering - Lead Free Is Still a Challenge For Major Industries.

Jan 30, 2014 | Andreas Thumm

As of today, the electronic industry is aware of the requirements for their products to be lead free. All components are typically available in lead free quality. This comprises packages like BGAs with BGA solder balls to PCB board finishes like HASL. The suppliers are providing everything that is needed. It is harder to get the old tin leaded (SnPb) components for new applications today, than lead free ones.

So why has not everybody changed over fully yet and how can the challenges be overcome?

A big concern in this transition process is reflow soldering. The process temperatures for lead free applications became much higher. Related with this is more stress for all the components. It affects the quality and reliability of the electronic units and products......

Publisher: IBL - Löttechnik GmbH

Testing Intermetallic Fragility on Enig upon Addition of Limitless Cu

Jan 23, 2014 | Martin K. Anselm, Ph.D. and Brian Roggeman Universal Instruments Corp.

As reliability requirements increase, especially for defense and aerospace applications, the need to characterize components used in electronic assembly also increases. OEM and EMS companies look to perform characterizations as early as possible in the process to be able to limit quality related issues and improve both assembly yields and ultimate device reliability. In terms of BGA devices, higher stress conditions, RoHS compatible materials and increased package densities tend to cause premature failures in intermetallic layers. Therefore it is necessary to have a quantitative and qualitative test methodology to address these interfaces....

Publisher: Universal Instruments Corporation

Advanced Rework Technology and Processes for Next Generation Large Area Arrays, 01005, PoP and QFN Devices.

Jan 16, 2014 | Brian Czaplicki, Director, Technical Marketing Programs, Air Vac Engineering Co., Inc.

BGA Rework is now largely mature, although new supplemental processes that provide improved process control such as Solder Paste Dipping and Non-Contact Site Cleaning can now be integrated into existing processes if the rework technology that is used allows. So what are the next set of challenges that will need to be addressed in regard to Area Array and SMT Rework? The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative or iNEMI has recently published its 2013 Technology Roadmap for the global electronics industry which includes a section dedicated specifically to rework and repair. Of particular interest and importance is iNEMI’s gap analysis which identifies future specific gaps and challenges that will result from such factors as government regulations, disruptive technologies and new product requirements....

Publisher: Air-Vac Engineering Co., Inc.

Embedded Passive Technology

Jan 09, 2014 | Hikmat Chammas

Embedded Passive Technology is a viable technology that has been reliably used in the defense and aerospace industry for over 20 years. Embedded Passive (Resistors and Capacitors) Technology have a great potential for high frequency and high density applications. It also provides better signal performance, reduced parasitic and cross talk. This paper summarizes the selection of resistor embedded materials, evaluations of resistive material (Phase 1) and duplication of a complex digital design (Phase 2). Phase 1 –resistive materials (Foil 25Ω/sq NiCr and 1kΩ/sq CrSiO) and resistive-Ply materials (25Ω/sq and 250Ω/sq NiP) were chosen for evaluation....

Publisher: Honeywell International

Thermal Shock and Drop Test Performance of Lead-free Assemblies with No-Underfill and Corner-Underfill

Jan 02, 2014 | Bankeem Chheda and S. Manian Ramkumar, Ph.D.; Rochester Institute of Technology-CEMA, Reza Ghaffarian; Ph.D. Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

With ROHS compliance the transition to lead-free is inevitable. Several lead-free alloys are available in the market and its reliability has been the main concern. The results from this experimental research aims at making a comparison of different lead-free alloy combinations. Thermal shock and drop tests are a part of this experimental study....

Publisher: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Addressing the Challenge of Head-In-Pillow Defects in Electronics Assembly

Dec 27, 2013 | Mario Scalzo Senior Technical Support Engineer CSMTPE, Six-Sigma Black Belt

The head-in-pillow defect has become a relatively common failure mode in the industry since the implementation of Pb-free technologies, generating much concern. A head-in-pillow defect is the incomplete wetting of the entire solder joint of a Ball-Grid Array (BGA), Chip-Scale Package (CSP), or even a Package-On-Package (PoP) and is characterized as a process anomaly, where the solder paste and BGA ball both reflow but do not coalesce. When looking at a cross-section, it actually looks like a head has pressed into a soft pillow. There are two main sources of head-in-pillow defects: poor wetting and PWB or package warpage. Poor wetting can result from a variety of sources, such as solder ball oxidation, an inappropriate thermal reflow profile or poor fluxing action. This paper addresses the three sources or contributing issues (supply, process & material) of the head-in-pillow defects. It will thoroughly review these three issues and how they relate to result in head-in pillow defects. In addition, a head-in-pillow elimination plan will be presented with real life examples will be to illustrate these head-in-pillow solutions....

Publisher: Indium Corporation

Mixed Metals Impact on Reliability

Dec 19, 2013 | Rick Gunn, Vice President of Engineering / Chief Technology Officer, Nextek Incorporated.

With the adoption of RoHS and implementation of Lead Free solders a major concern is how this will impact reliability. Both commercial and military hardware are impacted by this change even though military hardware is considered exempt from the requirements of RoHS. As the supply chain has moved to the new lead free alloys both markets are being forced to understand these impacts and form risk mitigation strategies to deal with the change. This paper documents the effect of mixing Leaded and Lead Free alloys on BGA devices and how this impacts reliability. Three of the most common pitch BGA packages are included in the study to determine if the risk is the same as pitches decrease...

Publisher: Nextek

Using Physics of Failure to Predict System Level Reliability for Avionic Electronics

Dec 11, 2013 | Greg Caswell, Sr. Member of the Technical Staff, DfR Solutions

Today's analyses of electronics reliability at the system level typically use a "black box approach", with relatively poor understanding of the behaviors and performances of such "black boxes" and how they physically and electrically interact (...) The incorporation of more rigorous and more informative approaches and techniques needs to better understand (...) Understanding the Physics of Failure (PoF) is imperative. It is a formalized and structured approach to Failure Analysis/Forensics Engineering that focuses on total learning and not only fixing a particular current problem (...) In this paper we will present an explanation of various physical models that could be deployed through this method, namely, wire bond failures; thermo-mechanical fatigue; and vibration....

Publisher: DfR Solutions (acquired by ANSYS Inc)

Impact of FPC Fabrication Process on SMT Reliability

Dec 05, 2013 | Susie Krzmarzick, John Dzarnoski, Yangjun Xing.

The functionality of electronic devices continues to increase at an extraordinary rate. Simultaneously consumers are expecting even more and in ever smaller packages. One enabler for shrinking electronics has been the flexible circuit board that allows the circuit board to fit a wide variety of shapes. Flexible printed circuits (FPC) have the capability to be very thin and can have unpackaged components directly attached using surface mount technology (SMT) and flip chip on flex technologies. Bare die can also be thinned and attached very close to the circuit board. However one caveat of high density flexible circuit boards with thin die is that they can be very fragile. The use of back side films and underfill can protect the die making circuits more robust. For underfill to work well it requires good adhesion to the circuit board which can mean that flux residues under the die normally must be removed prior to underfilling. ...

Publisher: Starkey Hearing Technologies

Improving Density in Microwave Multilayer Printed Circuit Boards for Space Applications

Nov 27, 2013 | Olivier Vendier, Jean-Louis Cazaux, Jean-Luc Lortal; Thales Alenia Space.

The need in complexity for microwave space products such as active BFNs (Beam Forming Networks) is increasing, with a significantly growing number of amplitude / phase control points (number of beams * numbers of radiating elements). As a consequence, the RF component’s package topology is evolving (larger number of I/Os, interconnections densification ...) which directly affect the routing and architecture of the multilayer boards they are mounted on. It then becomes necessary to improve the density of these boards (...) This paper will present the work performed to achieve LCP-based high density multilayer structures, describing the different electrical and technological breadboards manufactured and tested and presenting the results obtained....

Publisher: THALES

Fine Tuning The Stencil Manufacturing Process and Other Stencil Printing Experiments

Nov 21, 2013 | Chrys Shea, Shea Engineering Services; Ray Whittier, Vicor Corporation

Previous experimentation on a highly miniaturized and densely populated SMT assembly revealed the optimum stencil alloy and flux-repellent coating for its stencil printing process. Production implementation of the materials that were identified in the study resulted in approximately 5% print yield improvement across all assemblies throughout the operation, validating the results of the initial tests. A new set of studies was launched to focus on the materials themselves, with the purpose of optimizing their performance on the assembly line (...) Results of the prior tests are reviewed, and the new test vehicle, experimental setup and results are presented and discussed....

Publisher: Shea Engineering Services

Making Sense of Accuracy, Repeatability and Specification for Automated Fluid Dispensing Systems

Nov 14, 2013 | Nordson Asymtek

Understanding accuracy and repeatability is an important step to analyze fluid dispensing system performance. They can also be prone to misinterpretation when reviewing a product specification. A dispensing motion system can be made to perform better or worse under different operating conditions. This article will explain accuracy and repeatability, and how they can be applied to different specifications. It will also discuss key considerations when interpreting accuracy and repeatability for decision making....

Publisher: ASYMTEK Products | Nordson Electronics Solutions

Keeping Pace With Constantly Changing Electronics World.

Nov 07, 2013 | Jorge Maornla.

Today’s customers are more enlightened and aware demanding quality and compact electronics products at competitive prices. Today when a single word spreads out so quickly, no company can afford to put their reputation at stake by manufacturing substandard products....

Publisher: American Progressive Circuits,Inc,

Setting Up a Conformal Coating Facility

Nov 06, 2013 | Dr Lee Hitchens

The set up of a turnkey conformal coating production line or facility, whether it is a batch or inline process, has many similar characteristics. Whether the coating application is based around a high volume selective coating robot, a batch dip coating system or a spray booth, the process requirements tend to be the same. This bulletin reviews the potential needs of the facility, including the process controls, environmental needs and health and safety issues and provides some starting points for a new facility....

Publisher: SCH Technologies

High Performance Multilayer PCBs Design and Manufacturability

Oct 31, 2013 | Judy Warner, Chris Savalia; Transline Technology, Michael Ingham; Spectrum Integrity

Multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs) that utilize high performance materials are inherently far more challenging for a fabricator to build, due to significant material property differences over standard epoxy glass FR4. These unique material characteristics often require higher processing temperatures, special surface treatments (to aid in hole and surface plating), they possess different expansion properties, making layer-to-layer registration more difficult to control, and require many other unique considerations....

Publisher: Spectrum Integrity, Inc.