The flux management system for a reflow oven is highly critical to the quality, cost, and yield of a reflow process. Flux accumulation and dripping inside the…

The use of high velocity, heated air to remove residual water has become the predominant method for drying printed circuit boards in the in-line aqueous…

With the growing demand of Semiconductor Advanced Packaging and miniaturization in electronic assembly industry, a much more controlled and automated process…

Assemblers surveyed report that cleaning misprinted circuit assemblies is a production gap that has not been adequately addressed. Traditionally, the industry…

The popular tin (Sn) rich lead free solders are causing severe corrosion to many of the materials used in today’s Wave Solder systems. Users are experiencing…

Paste-in-Hole (PIH) printing, a.k.a. through-hole printing, pin-in-paste, intrusive reflow, etc., has always been a way to accommodate traditional through-hole…

No-clean pastes have specific physical properties, which directly impact industry standard electronic assembly cleaning processes. This paper sets out to…

Miniaturization continues in all kind of electronic assemblies and thus also in the different soldering processes. Not only consumer electronic assemblies…

Selective soldering, along with pin-in-paste reflow and press fit, is the primary assembly method for through-hole components. The reflow process is limited by…

Cleaning electronic assemblies, or PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards), has been essential for many years. As PCB board density has increased and standoff height has…

As the electronics industry moves toward the implementation of Pb-free soldering, the impact on the assembly process must be considered. One process that is…

Flux is one of the most critical parameters in the selective soldering process. Flux deposition on the board needs to be carefully controlled. It should have…

Increasingly fine pitch component patterns on PCBs, and ever-smaller passive components such as 03015’s continue to narrow the process window for PCB assemblers…

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…

Stencil printing technology has come a long way since the early 80’s when SMT process gained importance in the electronics packaging industry. In those early…

Fine pitch/fine feature solder paste printing in PCB assembly has become increasingly difficult as board geometries have become ever more compact. The printing…

Stencil printing today requires a higher degree of printer accuracy than ever before. Printer accuracy becomes increasingly difficult to maintain as demands for…

Process traceability and verification has become increasingly important as electronics assembly has moved to higher throughputs and volume requirements with…

A new process has been developed for RF shielding on compact electronic communications devices using automated solder paste dispensing. The process is known as…

Increasingly complex printed circuit assemblies with ever-smaller components continue to present fluids dispensing challenges to the manufacturing engineer.…

Automated dispensing of electronic materials in fluidic form is employed across the full range of electronics manufacturing, from board-level assembly to…

Today’s automated dispensing for electronics manufacturing is a complex and precise process in order to meet the challenges posed by ever more demanding…

The increasing use of lead-free solder has introduced a new set of process parameters when setting up wave solder equipment for effective soldering. Determining…

Lead-free wave soldering requires tighter process control than soldering with lead based alloys. A key area of the machine that impacts the ability to solder…

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…

Most board assemblers strive to optimize their cleaning process to provide the best cleaning performance over a broad range of board assemblies. 

This…

In PCB circuit assemblies the trend is moving to more SMD components with finer pitch connections. The majority of the assemblies still have a small amount of…

Three ingredients are required to make a good solder joint: solder, clean metal surfaces to connect and heat. In a selective soldering process all three have a…

Selective soldering is a process with more than one hundred different parameters that may impact soldering performance. Some conditions change over time, e.g.…

The drive towards fine pitch technology also affects the soldering processes. Selective soldering is a reliable soldering process for THT (through hole)…

Although reflow ovens may not have been dramatically changed during the last decade the reflow process changes step by step. With the introduction of lead-free…

One of the major trends in circuit board assembly is the drive to smaller components and pitches. Where the focus is on SMD (Surface Mount Devices) and also THT…

The number of through-hole components on printed circuit boards (PCB) has declined significantly over the last decade. Miniaturization in electronics has…

Assemblers surveyed report that cleaning misprinted circuit assemblies is a production gap that has not been adequately addressed. Traditionally, the industry…

Although the number of Through Hole (THT) connections the electronics assemblies is decreasing due to miniaturization, selective soldering is still a growing…

An inert atmosphere opens the reflow process window. Reflow ovens that have a Nitrogen environment may have better yields because of the lack of oxidation…

In simplest terms, a faster printer logically means higher throughput. Overall speed, however, is dependent upon a number of factors including the individual…

The techniques described have proven to be robust and particularly well suited for detecting troublesome bridge and bridge-like features that span the gap…

This paper will focus on the application requirements of solder printing small aperture designs, concentrating on 008004 (inch) / 0201 (metric) size components…

Under stencil wiping is the first defense against defects. Matching the wiper profile and frequency to the individual boards, where one size does not fit all.…

Today’s unique assembly challenges are comprised of complex PCB panelization, involving identical PCBs with a goal towards increased production capability, due…

The number of components and functionality on a printed circuit board increases continuously. SMD components become smaller, pitch dimensions shrink, but there…