Knowledge Hub

Your Gateway to Technical Knowledge Exchange for the Global Electronics Community

Explore our database of industry knowledge that fuels innovation, learning, and professional growth. Knowledge Hub is a collection of conference technical papers, webinars, presentations, on-demand video and more. You can search by author, title, keyword and type of content. You can also search for keywords and topics in the Tag field. Access to Knowledge Hub is reserved for members.

Display

Economic and Technical Advantages of Chemical Dross Elimination and Prevention

Dross generation has always been a costly issue for the electronics assembly industry. At least half,and in many cases,more than half of the metal (solder) purchased for electronic manufacture .. read more

Effects of an Appropriate PCB Layout and Soldering Nozzle Design on Quality and Cost Structure in Selective Soldering Processes

The globalization of markets results in stronger competition with clearly noticeably cost pressure. For companies producing electronic equipment it is therefore of existential importance to red .. read more

The Study of the Nitrogen Effect for Wave Soldering Process

Recently,with significant increasing of solder manufacturing cost due to raw materials,electronics makers are also faced with the same difficulty. And they are finding solutions that save cost .. read more

Selective Soldering for Interconnection Technology Used in Enterprise Communication Apparatuses

At times,wave soldering or reflow involving the entire assembly are not applicable for soldering of components. Selective soldering techniques vary widely in their ability to produce high quali .. read more

3 Steps to Successful Solder Paste Selection

Choosing a solder paste can make or break an assembly process. By choosing the right solder paste for the application,you will achieve the highest process consistency and solder joint quality. .. read more

Step Stencil design when 01005 and 0.3mm pitch uBGA’s coexist with RF Shields

Some of the new handheld communication devices offer real challenges to the paste printing process. Normally,there are very small devices like 01005 chip components as well as 0.3 mm pitch uBGA .. read more

Broadband Printing: The New SMT Challenge

The Surface Mount Technology (SMT) industry has overcome many challenges in the last 30 years,since its introduction in the 1980’s. One recent challenge has been the lead-free assembly. People .. read more

Establishing a Precision Stencil Printing Process for Miniaturized Electronics Assembly

The advent of miniaturized electronics for mobile phones and other portable devices has required the assembly of smaller and smaller components. Currently 01005 passives and 0.3 mm CSPs are som .. read more

Effect of Plasma Surface Treatment for Peel Strength of Metallization Based on Polyimide

The purpose of this study is to investigate the optimum plasma processing as a pre-treatment for the surface of Polyimide (PI) in order to increase adhesion strength of electroless copper (Cu) .. read more

New Technology to Improve Etching Performance using Shiny Side Surface Treatment for HDI

This paper discusses a new technology to improve etching performance using shiny side surface treatment on copper foil. Until now,a lot of electro-deposited copper foils (ED foil) with very low .. read more

When Precision is not good enough

As PCB designs become ever more complex with more sequential build up layers,tighter annular ring designs and broader range of advanced materials,understanding the effect of material distortion .. read more

Top Doing More With Less

A new technology for MLB pressing has been developed by MBT and industry partners,called TOP,Temperature Optimised Process. The goal was to reduce energy consumption and to improve product qual .. read more

An Analytical Approach for the Design of Buried Capacitance PCBs

There are presently several techniques for forming a buried capacitor in the core of a multilayer board. For purposes of this discussion,attention will be directed toward a sheet capacitor; alt .. read more

Embedded Passives Become Mainstream Technology,Finally!

Embedded passives,especially embedded resistors and capacitors have been a hot topic since the mid-to-late 1990s. It is easy to understand why they have generated so much interest. Technology c .. read more

RoHS War Stories

The following article is a series of “from the trenches” stories,taken both from the perspective of an electronics manufacturer and an environmental compliance consultancy. The accounts below p .. read more

Laboratory 101: A Guide to Understanding your Testing Laboratory

Within today’s Consumer Electronics Industry,a laboratory report listing elemental content is standard protocol. Understanding the information listed within a lab report can be difficult and un .. read more

Hot Air Solder Leveling in the Lead-free Era

Although the advantages of Hot Air Solder Leveling (HASL) in providing the most robust solderable finish for printed circuit boards are well recognized,in the years leading up to the implementa .. read more

Creep Corrosion of PWB Final Finishes: Its Cause and Prevention

As the electronic industry moves to lead-free assembly and finer-pitch circuits,widely used printed wiring board (PWB) finish,SnPb HASL,has been replaced with lead-free and coplanar PWB finishe .. read more

Collaborative Cleaning Process Innovations from Managing Experience and Learning Curves

Moore’s Law infers that the number of transistors on a chip doubles approximately every two years. Consistent with Moore’s Law,high reliability electronic devices build faster processing speed .. read more

Pockets of Contamination That Are Causing Field Failures and How to Avoid Them

The areas of entrapment on cleaned and no-clean assemblies are showing higher levels of contamination around BGA’s,in microvias and particularly under components like the QFN. Flux residues tra .. read more

Virtual Access Technique Extends Test Coverage on PCB Assemblies

With greater time to market and time to volume pressures,manufacturers of populated printed circuit boards have traditionally relied upon un-powered vectorless testing to quickly and reliably i .. read more

RFS Handler Cone Chuck Simplification for Effective Handling Performance

In today’s manufacturing world,higher equipment utilization and lower operating cost is the way forward. Newer machineries are usually well equipped to get the job done as they are manufactured .. read more

Flexible LED Arrays made by all screen printing Process

Many flat panel display technologies were developed and commercialized since 1980s. Today,liquid crystal display panels (LCD) and plasma display panels (PDP) have the lion’s share of the large .. read more

Fine Line Thick Film Circuits with High Conductivity Built on Flexible Substrates are Capable of Soldering

Previously,the general understanding about polymer-base thick film flexible circuits consisted of low density with low electrical conductivity because of the organic matrix in the conductor mat .. read more

Design for Low-Halogen Green Electronics

Green Design has recently gained significant interest in the electronics industry all over the world and will remain one of the hottest topics for the upcoming years. Besides reduction of consu .. read more

Liquid Photoresist and Soldermask Processing The Real Environmental Impact

Since the early days of PWBs,liquid photoresists and soldermasks have played indispensable roles in the manufacturing process. From the introduction of the original Kodak Photo Resist (KPR) and .. read more

Challenges toward Implementing a Halogen-Free PCB Assembly Process

The electronics industry continues to strive to provide more environmentally friendly products. This movement is partly due to legislation from various countries,partly due to public outcry fro .. read more

Root Cause of Corrosion on Aluminum Bond Pads

During the process from wafer fabrication to completing the final plastic package there are a number of upstream processes that negatively impact subsequent operations. Problems at wirebond can .. read more

Selective Electroless Nickel and Gold Plating of Individual Integrated Circuits for Thermocompression Gold Stud Bump Flip-Chip Attachment

Flip chip bonding is the most desirable direct chip attachment approach for minimizing electronic assembly size as well as improving device performance. For most prototyping applications it is .. read more

FEA Study of Solder Hole Fill Impact on the Reliability of PTH Solder Joints

This paper is focused on the impact of solder hole fill on the reliability of the plated-through-hole (PTH) solder joints with different board thicknesses. Finite element analysis (FEA) is empl .. read more

Economic and Technical Advantages of Chemical Dross Elimination and Prevention

Dross generation has always been a costly issue for the electronics assembly industry. At least half,and in many cases,more than half of the metal (solder) purchased for electronic manufacture .. read more

Effects of an Appropriate PCB Layout and Soldering Nozzle Design on Quality and Cost Structure in Selective Soldering Processes

The globalization of markets results in stronger competition with clearly noticeably cost pressure. For companies producing electronic equipment it is therefore of existential importance to red .. read more

The Study of the Nitrogen Effect for Wave Soldering Process

Recently,with significant increasing of solder manufacturing cost due to raw materials,electronics makers are also faced with the same difficulty. And they are finding solutions that save cost .. read more

Selective Soldering for Interconnection Technology Used in Enterprise Communication Apparatuses

At times,wave soldering or reflow involving the entire assembly are not applicable for soldering of components. Selective soldering techniques vary widely in their ability to produce high quali .. read more

3 Steps to Successful Solder Paste Selection

Choosing a solder paste can make or break an assembly process. By choosing the right solder paste for the application,you will achieve the highest process consistency and solder joint quality. .. read more

Step Stencil design when 01005 and 0.3mm pitch uBGA’s coexist with RF Shields

Some of the new handheld communication devices offer real challenges to the paste printing process. Normally,there are very small devices like 01005 chip components as well as 0.3 mm pitch uBGA .. read more

Broadband Printing: The New SMT Challenge

The Surface Mount Technology (SMT) industry has overcome many challenges in the last 30 years,since its introduction in the 1980’s. One recent challenge has been the lead-free assembly. People .. read more

Establishing a Precision Stencil Printing Process for Miniaturized Electronics Assembly

The advent of miniaturized electronics for mobile phones and other portable devices has required the assembly of smaller and smaller components. Currently 01005 passives and 0.3 mm CSPs are som .. read more

Effect of Plasma Surface Treatment for Peel Strength of Metallization Based on Polyimide

The purpose of this study is to investigate the optimum plasma processing as a pre-treatment for the surface of Polyimide (PI) in order to increase adhesion strength of electroless copper (Cu) .. read more

New Technology to Improve Etching Performance using Shiny Side Surface Treatment for HDI

This paper discusses a new technology to improve etching performance using shiny side surface treatment on copper foil. Until now,a lot of electro-deposited copper foils (ED foil) with very low .. read more

When Precision is not good enough

As PCB designs become ever more complex with more sequential build up layers,tighter annular ring designs and broader range of advanced materials,understanding the effect of material distortion .. read more

Top Doing More With Less

A new technology for MLB pressing has been developed by MBT and industry partners,called TOP,Temperature Optimised Process. The goal was to reduce energy consumption and to improve product qual .. read more

An Analytical Approach for the Design of Buried Capacitance PCBs

There are presently several techniques for forming a buried capacitor in the core of a multilayer board. For purposes of this discussion,attention will be directed toward a sheet capacitor; alt .. read more

Embedded Passives Become Mainstream Technology,Finally!

Embedded passives,especially embedded resistors and capacitors have been a hot topic since the mid-to-late 1990s. It is easy to understand why they have generated so much interest. Technology c .. read more

RoHS War Stories

The following article is a series of “from the trenches” stories,taken both from the perspective of an electronics manufacturer and an environmental compliance consultancy. The accounts below p .. read more

Laboratory 101: A Guide to Understanding your Testing Laboratory

Within today’s Consumer Electronics Industry,a laboratory report listing elemental content is standard protocol. Understanding the information listed within a lab report can be difficult and un .. read more

Hot Air Solder Leveling in the Lead-free Era

Although the advantages of Hot Air Solder Leveling (HASL) in providing the most robust solderable finish for printed circuit boards are well recognized,in the years leading up to the implementa .. read more

Creep Corrosion of PWB Final Finishes: Its Cause and Prevention

As the electronic industry moves to lead-free assembly and finer-pitch circuits,widely used printed wiring board (PWB) finish,SnPb HASL,has been replaced with lead-free and coplanar PWB finishe .. read more

Collaborative Cleaning Process Innovations from Managing Experience and Learning Curves

Moore’s Law infers that the number of transistors on a chip doubles approximately every two years. Consistent with Moore’s Law,high reliability electronic devices build faster processing speed .. read more

Pockets of Contamination That Are Causing Field Failures and How to Avoid Them

The areas of entrapment on cleaned and no-clean assemblies are showing higher levels of contamination around BGA’s,in microvias and particularly under components like the QFN. Flux residues tra .. read more

Virtual Access Technique Extends Test Coverage on PCB Assemblies

With greater time to market and time to volume pressures,manufacturers of populated printed circuit boards have traditionally relied upon un-powered vectorless testing to quickly and reliably i .. read more

RFS Handler Cone Chuck Simplification for Effective Handling Performance

In today’s manufacturing world,higher equipment utilization and lower operating cost is the way forward. Newer machineries are usually well equipped to get the job done as they are manufactured .. read more

Flexible LED Arrays made by all screen printing Process

Many flat panel display technologies were developed and commercialized since 1980s. Today,liquid crystal display panels (LCD) and plasma display panels (PDP) have the lion’s share of the large .. read more

Fine Line Thick Film Circuits with High Conductivity Built on Flexible Substrates are Capable of Soldering

Previously,the general understanding about polymer-base thick film flexible circuits consisted of low density with low electrical conductivity because of the organic matrix in the conductor mat .. read more

Design for Low-Halogen Green Electronics

Green Design has recently gained significant interest in the electronics industry all over the world and will remain one of the hottest topics for the upcoming years. Besides reduction of consu .. read more

Liquid Photoresist and Soldermask Processing The Real Environmental Impact

Since the early days of PWBs,liquid photoresists and soldermasks have played indispensable roles in the manufacturing process. From the introduction of the original Kodak Photo Resist (KPR) and .. read more

Challenges toward Implementing a Halogen-Free PCB Assembly Process

The electronics industry continues to strive to provide more environmentally friendly products. This movement is partly due to legislation from various countries,partly due to public outcry fro .. read more

Root Cause of Corrosion on Aluminum Bond Pads

During the process from wafer fabrication to completing the final plastic package there are a number of upstream processes that negatively impact subsequent operations. Problems at wirebond can .. read more

Selective Electroless Nickel and Gold Plating of Individual Integrated Circuits for Thermocompression Gold Stud Bump Flip-Chip Attachment

Flip chip bonding is the most desirable direct chip attachment approach for minimizing electronic assembly size as well as improving device performance. For most prototyping applications it is .. read more

FEA Study of Solder Hole Fill Impact on the Reliability of PTH Solder Joints

This paper is focused on the impact of solder hole fill on the reliability of the plated-through-hole (PTH) solder joints with different board thicknesses. Finite element analysis (FEA) is empl .. read more