Global Electronics Association Knowledge Hub

The trend towards increasingly complex designs with smaller physical sizes has been translated into ever-increasing pressure on system developers to pack more functions and options into a given .. read more

For decades the manufacturers of electronic components have furnished products that were most compatible with soldering processes that employed a eutectic alloy composition that contained tin a .. read more

This paper discusses the results of several independent experiments designed to address the many aspects of successful PoP integration. Assembly through the use of in-line stacking and pre-stac .. read more

Though the electronics industry is nearing the 3-year anniversary marking the ban of lead from electronics products,several challenges still remain with existing lead-free materials for certain .. read more

Reliability testing of printed wire boards (PWBs) by thermal cycling offers the ability to compare relative survivability through assembly and reliability in the end use environment. This artic .. read more

European legislation has meant that lead-free solders now dominate mainstream electronics manufacturing. These replacement solders are all high tin alloys with significantly higher melting poin .. read more

The plated thru hole has changed considerably in 50 years of electronic packaging,but in its many forms remains the most common interconnection in 1st and 2nd level electronic packaging,and is .. read more

This paper presents a novel electrolytic copper panel plate system incorporating equipment and specially developed electrolyte which enables filling of blind micro vias with a minimum of surfac .. read more

The use of electrodeposited copper for filling blind microvias has grown rapidly to become an essential and widely adopted process used by various Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and package substr .. read more

Copper plating is widely used in the electronic industry for fabrication of electronic devices. It is particularly useful for fabrication of printed circuit boards and semiconductors. Copper is .. read more

Since the beginning of Surface Mount Technology over 40 years ago solder paste has been an integral element in electronics assembly. Historically solder paste design and development has been,in .. read more

Thermo-gravimetric Analysis (TGA) measures weight changes in a material as a function of temperature (or time) under a controlled atmosphere. This technique is currently used in the design phas .. read more

Stencil printing is a critical first step in surface mount assembly. It is often cited that the solder paste printing operation causes about 50%-80% of the defects found in the assembly of PCBs .. read more

The Quad Flat Pack No Leads (QFN) type of leadless package,also known as Land Grid Array (LGA),is rapidly increasing in use for wireless,automotive,telecom and many other areas because of its l .. read more

Prediction of accurate values for insertion loss (S21) on printed circuit boards has become ever more critical to SI modeling as signal speeds required for next-generation networking equipment .. read more

Ideas,manufacturing processes,materials and components that were in the realm of science fiction a few years ago are now being adopted into mainstream PCB products. Devices are getting smaller, .. read more

Great efforts are expended by researchers to develop new and better thermal interface materials. In contrast,optimization of the performance of a given material is usually left to more empirica .. read more

As more power is driven through active devices,the integrity of materials used to make the electrically conductive interfaces is becoming ever more critical to the performance of RF radar syste .. read more

As the requirements for controlled depth micro-vias become ever increasing in today’s market place the best feasible solution appears to be laser drilling. However laser drilling can be problem .. read more

The transition to lead-free solders has presented significant challenges for the electronics industry. One of the challenges is that typical lead-free soldering temperatures are much higher tha .. read more

The interaction of the drill entry material and the drill tool are critical to producing accurately aligned connections between the different layers in a printed circuit board. The trend toward .. read more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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