RTW IPC APEX EXPO 2019: Reducing Voiding in Reflow Soldering

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In this interview, Chris Nash, product manager for PCB assembly solder paste at Indium Corporation, speaks with Kelly Dack and highlights Indium’s take on three important aspects of reliability: thermal, mechanical, and electrical.

Chris explains the challenges of all three aspects, which include solder voiding, and how Indium helps the industry address these issues through its solder paste formulations.

07/22/2019 | Keith Sweatman, Nihon Superior Co. Ltd

In this article, Keith Sweatman explains how the volume of low-melting-point alloy paste—which delivers the optimum proportion of retained ball alloy for a particular reflow temperature—can be determined by reference to the phase diagrams of the ball and paste alloys.

07/16/2019 | Adam Murling, Miloš Lazić, and Don Wood, Indium Corporation; and Martin Anselm, Rochester Institute of Technology

Since 2006 and the implementation of the RoHS directive, the interest in bismuth-tin solder alloys—whose melting point around 140°C is very desirable because it allows for the use of lower temperature laminate materials and reduces thermal stress on sensitive components—has only increased as the industry has searched for Pb-free alternatives to the chosen standard, SAC305, which melts at considerably higher temperatures than the incumbent tin-lead alloys.

07/15/2019 | Divyakant Kadiwala, Averatek Corporation

An increasingly popular method to meet the need for lower cost circuitry is the use of aluminum on polyester (Al-PET) substrates. This material is gaining popularity and has found wide use in RFID tags, low-cost LED lighting, and other single-layer circuits. However, both aluminum and PET have their own constraints and require special processing to make finished circuits.