As consumers become more reliant on their handheld electronic devices and take them into new environments,devices are increasingly exposed to situations that can cause failure. In response,the electronics industry is making these devices more resistant to environmental exposures. Printed circuit board assemblies,handheld devices and wearables can benefit from a protective conformal coating to minimize device failures by providing a barrier to environmental exposure and contamination. Traditional conformal coatings can be applied very thick and often require thermal or UV curing steps that add extra cost and processing time compared to alternative technologies. These coatings,due to their thickness,commonly require time and effort to mask connectors in order to permit electrical conductivity. Ultra-thin fluorochemical coatings,however,can provide excellent protection,are thin enough to not necessarily require component masking and do not necessarily require curing. In this work,ultra-thin fluoropolymer coatings were tested by internal and industry approved test methods,such as IEC (ingress protection),IPC (conformal coating qualification),and ASTM (flowers-of-sulfur exposure),to determine whether this level of protection and process ease was possible. The fluoropolymer coatings chosen for this test were created in a range of coating solids and application thicknesses (100 nm to 30 µm). Being a solution,these coatings were easy to apply by either vertical dip or atomized spray methods. In this study,it was found that both the application method and the thickness of the fluoropolymer coating played a significant role in the level of corrosion resistance and water/vapor repellency results. The data generated demonstrates a general correlation of how thick an ultra-thin fluoropolymer coating must be in order to achieve certain levels of protection.

Conformal Coatings are often used to increase the reliability of electronic assemblies operating in harsh or corrosive environments where the product would otherwise fail prematurely. Conformal coatings are often qualified to international standards,intended to enable users to better differentiate between suitable conformal coating chemistries,but always on a flat test coupon,which is not representative of real world use conditions. In order to better correlate international standards with real world-use conditions,three-dimensional Surface Insulation Resistance (SIR) test boards have been manufactured with dummy components representative of those commonly used on printed circuit assemblies. A variety of commercially available,internationally qualified,conformal coatings have been applied to these coupons by a variety of common methodologies including dip,spray and selective-spray,at a variety of thicknesses. The applied conformal coatings were cured in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations. The conformal coating thickness and coverage over critical areas was assessed by non-invasive optical methods. The coated samples were then subjected to 1000 thermal shock cycles (-65°C to + 125°C) and salt-mist cycles to represent typical end use qualification testing. Voltage was applied to the SIR boards during the salt-spray test regime to better correlate to real use conditions. The corrosion evident on assemblies was visually assessed by optical microscopy under 4-40X magnification and compared with the measured SIR to assess corrosion resistance of the various process combinations. Lead-free solder was used exclusively for this test,and water-washable,cleanable ‘no-clean’ and no-clean flux samples were included,to investigate the effect of cleaning on the overall reliability of the coated system. Conformal coating thickness and coverage were assessed for the various coating techniques. The results of the thermal shock and powered salt-spray test results are correlated back to the application method,coating thickness,flux,cleaning and coating chemistry to determine the best overall process and material combinations for high reliability applications.

In this investigation a test matrix was completed utilizing 900 electrodes (small circuit board with parallel copper traces on FR-4 with LPI soldermask at 6,10 and 50 mil spacing): 12 ionic contaminants were applied in five concentrations to three different spaced electrodes with five replicas each(three different bare copper trace spacing / five replications of each with five levels of ionic concentration). The investigation was to assess the electrical response under controlled heat and humidity conditions of the known applied contamination to electrodes,using the IPC SIR (surface insulation resistance) J-STD 001 limits and determine at what level of contamination and spacing the ionic / organic residue has a failing effect on SIR.

The iNEMI technical subcommittee on creep corrosion is developing a flowers-of-sulfur (FOS) based qualification test for creep corrosion on printed-circuit boards (PCBs). In phase 1 of the project,the performances of FOS chambers of two designs were evaluated by measuring the corrosion rates of copper and silver foils. This paper deals with the phase 2A of the project in which PCBs with immersion silver (ImAg) and lead-free hot-air-surface-level (HASL) finishes soldered with rosin and organic acid fluxes were tested. The test variables were chamber temperature,type of saturated salt solution determining the relative humidity,chamber setup and particulate contamination. The results of test runs conducted at 4 laboratories involved in the round robin testing are very promising. The ImAg PCBs soldered with organic acid flux suffered the most creep corrosion in agreement with the generally agreed to field experience. There were fewer instances of creep corrosion on test PCBs with ImAg finish soldered with rosin flux and on test PCBs with lead-free HASL finish. Creep corrosion was generally associated with plated through holes (PTHs). Contaminating the test PCBs with ammonium salts contributed to more creep corrosion but made the test somewhat less discriminatory in that even test PCBs with HASL finish soldered with rosin flux suffered some creep corrosion.

Head-In-Pillow (HIP) defects,in which the BGA solder balls and paste deposit come in contact but do not coalesce,have proven to be a major problem since transitioning to RoHS soldering. Component warp can contribute significantly to HIP defects. While process engineers can make changes,such as reflow profile adjustment,to reduce the number of defects,component warp is generally dictated by component design. However,it is possible to counter the component warp by adjusting the stencil design. This paper outlines a method of refining the stencil design process to achieve the best results.

The oxide layers are known as wetting inhibitors in component and PCB metallizations. The oxide acts as barrier that prevent the tin diffusion from happening. Besides,in corrosion studies,the role of salt residues -with Cl ion-on some metals is known as being promoters of oxidation or corrosion. On the other hand,most of corrosion studies with tin metallization are focused mainly on the corrosion resistance of tin alloys,but little has been done respecting to the influence of salts on tin metallization wetting. In this paper,a series of experiments was carried over to know the influence of specifically NaCl on BGA wetting given Head in Pillow (HiP) as result. The aging of components was done following the procedure of J-STD 002C in which the components are exposed to a low amount of steam water for several hours. As a procedure modification,NaCl was added to the water that forms steam in several concentrations. The results show the more time of steam exposition,the more HiPs are obtained. Additionally,the higher concentration of NaCl in the water,the more HiPs are formed. As a conclusion,NaCl presence could inhibit tin wetting when the proper conditions of energy and environment exist. One interesting fact is during the analysis of BGAs with SEM/EDX; the presence of NaCl was not detected on the solder/BGA ball interface but was found on its edges. This finding would be explained because solder flux tries to remove the contaminants of the interface putting them around the Ball/solder interface. Besides,the oxygen concentration on BGA balls analyzed by SEM increased little or none at all showing the oxide increase cannot be detected by this type of analysis. Because of that,TOF SIMS analysis was carried over showing an increase of oxide on tin surface.

For many years,manufacturing has sought to increase competitiveness by moving off-shore to countries with lower labour costs. Electronic manufacturing services (EMS) companies provided an essential element to make off-shore transfer happen more quickly,offering further cost reduction opportunities from load balancing. Fierce arguments were put forward to protect the loss of local jobs,although the result was,in almost all cases,inevitable. Today,however,the whole market of PCB-based electronics products has changed significantly. The “pros” of off-shoring are no longer what they once were,and the “cons” are becoming more significant because off-shore manufacturing can no longer satisfy the needs of the market. Is reshoring really commercially viable,or are government incentives trying to push water uphill? Market demand patterns continue to change and evolve. As technology-based products become fashionable,the demand from customers becomes more volatile,and they are more heavily influenced by endorsements and trends. Getting the latest products into the market ahead of competitors,with a range of options to match people’s individual tastes,is essential. The trend of direct shipping of products,driven by Internet shopping and direct B2B ordering,brings these variations in demand directly to the factory door. The key for success in today’s market is being able to provide flexibility and agility without losing productivity. Off-shore manufacturing has inescapable issues of delivery time and cost,as well as price depreciation and long response times while carrying some significant risks. Whereas,in theory,reshoring allows rapid time to market,the opportunity to meet customer needs,and eliminates many hidden costs of doing business. In this paper,we expose the real costs of off-shore manufacturing,and put labour cost differentials into perspective. We demonstrate how practically,using existing technologies,re-shored manufacturing can yield better business return,either for an OEM,or through EMS providers.

The old tactic of outsourcing to a low cost geography simply to deliver lowest cost direct and indirect labor was never a panacea supply chain solution. In fact,when evaluating solutions for lower volume and higher mix products typically found in the medical,industrial and public safety segments of the OEM market,IL & DL costs are only one subset of the total cost to land the product and service the ultimate customer. In this paper,there will be examination of what actual cost components should be included in a landed cost analysis,the soft costs that an OEM should consider to deliver outstanding performance in quality,logistics and delivery management of the supply chain solution. A detailed comparison using a “case study” will be presented to demonstrate a total landed cost option versus one that is focused on IL/DL cost. In addition,near-shoring options have developed over recent years initially for consumer oriented products such as cellular phones and printers with the goal of optimization of landed cost in the end use market. There will be shared a few case studies which demonstrate an optimum approach for total landed cost,ease of communication and avoidance of the typical issues that make an outsourcing only approach problematic. These include: different language and culture,long distances and different time zones,investing time and effort on establishing trust and the complexity these elements contribute to the development of long term relationships between an OEM and EMS partner. In summary,Near-shoring,when developed in partnership between the OEM and EMS provider can be a marketing differentiator for those clients who wish to set themselves apart by servicing their customers in the market close to “home”.

The electronic industry is currently very interested in low temperature soldering processes such as using Sn/Bi alloy to improve process yield,eliminate the head-in-pillow effect,and enhance rework yield. However,Sn/Bi alloy is not strong enough to replace lead-free (SAC) and eutectic Sn/Pb alloys in most applications. In order to improve the strength of Sn/Bi solder joints,enhance mechanical performance,and improve reliability properties such as thermal cycling performance of soldered electronic devices,the company has developed a low temperature solder joint encapsulant for Sn/Bi soldering applications. This low temperature solder joint encapsulant can be dipped,dispensed,or printed. After reflow with Sn/Bi solder paste or alloy,solder joint encapsulant encapsulates the solder joint. As a result,the strength of solder joints is enhanced by several times,and thermal cycling performance is significantly improved. All details will be discussed in this paper.

Underfilling is a long-standing process issued from the micro-electronics that can enhance the robustness and the reliability of first or second-level interconnects for a variety of electronic applications. Its usage is currently spreading across the industry fueled by the decreasing reliability margins induced by the miniaturization and interconnect pitch reduction. While material and processing aspects keep pace with the fast technology evolutions,the control of the quality and the integrity of under filled assemblies remains challenging in some cases,especially when considering non-destructive inspection techniques and board-level underfilling. In particular,Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (SAM) which is routinely used for the control of under filled flip-chips turns out to be almost ineffective for usual BGA devices due to the presence of the component PCB substrate. This paper will address the control of surface mount under filled assemblies,focusing on applicable inspection techniques and possible options to overcome their limitations.