Assembly Products for Medical Devices and Electronics
Introduction
- New technologies and longer life spans are driving the growing medical device and medical electronic manufacturing markets around the world.
- Supplier flexibility, design support and expertise, and prototype quantities are key to getting your designs off the drawing board and ready for production.
- Product quality and reliability, quantity flexibility, and on-time delivery need to be part of your solder specification to assure efficient time-to-market.
Try our new Nitinol Soldering Research Kit
Medical Device Assembly
The assembly of medical devices (such as catheters, guide wires, Nitinol stents, etc.) uses a wide variety of alternative soldering processes that require non-standard soldering products.
Catheter and Feed-Through Assemblies
- The assembly of diagnostic and therapeutic catheters, micro-catheters and feed-throughs requires precision solder products that are made to tight tolerances and high quality standards.
Optics
- Sealing optics into devices such as endoscopes requires the use of a fluxless process and materials.
Hermetic Sealing
- A hermetic seal is often required to assure that delicate components are not exposed to harsh environments.
- Gold-tin, because of its reliability and resistance to metallic oxide formation, makes it ideal for a fluxless process.
- Indium can be used for hermetic, vacuum and cryogenic seals because it is malleable and ductile, even at extremely low temperatures.
Implantable Devices Including Sensors
- Temperature sensitive devices may need low melting alloys to prevent thermal stress during assembly.
Soldering to Medical Alloys
- Soldering to some of the most widely used metals in the medical market, including Nitinol and stainless steel can be challenging.
- Removal of the tenacious surface metal oxides must be achieved before soldering can take place.
Connector Manufacture
- Maximum signal integrity is required to allow for the optimum flow of data and images.
Electronics Assembly
From diagnostic and imaging equipment to hand-held monitoring devices, printed circuit boards are in almost all of the equipment used by doctors, hospitals and clinics.
- Smaller components in smaller devices require solder materials that provide good electrical contacts with no bridging, excellent wetting and good throughput.
- In order to achieve maximum functionality in increasingly smaller spaces, the use of flexible circuit boards is increasing, providing new challenges for electronic assembly.
- Connectors need to be securely soldered to the circuit board to withstand constant use.
Product Characteristics
Paste
- Spherical, low-oxide powder available in various mesh sizes
- Pb-free, Pb-containing, AuSn and indium-containing alloys
- No-clean, water or solvent cleanable flux vehicles
- Flexible packaging and quantities to support manufacturing requirements
Wire
- Diameters available in SnAg and AuSn down to 0.001"
- Pb-free, Pb-containing, AuSn and indium-containing alloys
- Solid core and flux core
Fluxes
- Flux #2 and #3 for removing tenacious oxides from metals such as Nitinol and stainless steel
- No-clean and water soluble Tacflux
Preforms
- A large die library of washers, squares, discs, frames and special shapes
- InTEGRATED™ Preforms used for fast placement of multiple washers at once
- Pb-free, Pb-containing, AuSn and indium-containing alloys
- Flux coatings
- Small sizes, variable thicknesses to achieve optimum volume
- Flexible packaging and quantities to support manufacturing requirements
Spheres
- Alloys: SAC and Pb-contained alloys as well as indium-contained
- Standard sizes are 300 to 1270 microns. Other sizes may be available on request.
- Tolerances as tight as ±5 microns for uniform alignment
| Soldering Process | Description | Challenges | Our Recommended Products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface Mount Reflow | Standard process for PCB assembly | Flexible circuits and smaller boards and components require no bridging and excellent wetting |
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| Laser Soldering | Non-contact; highly controlled heating | Identifying the proper power and timing to reduce voiding and flux spatter and optimize wetting |
|
| IR Soldering | Can be used for smaller packages such as chip resistors, capacitors and SOICs and high temperature soldering | Larger components may impede heating of smaller components due to shadowing effect |
|
| Induction Soldering | Localized, uniform heating | Requires proper set up and design with a repeatable process to introduce the parts being soldered |
|
| Vacuum Soldering | Reduction in pressure allows voids in solder to escape prior to reflow, creating much lower voiding in finished solder joint | Batch process may be too slow for high volume manufacturing. Requires proper set up, design and material selection |
|
| Vapor Phase Soldering | Vapor chamber allows for uniform heating across the entire assembly | Fast wetting forces may cause tombstoning with common chip and resistors, which can be minimized with preheat |
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| Manual Soldering | Using a heat gun, soldering iron or other hand-held heat source to reflow the solder | Operator-to-operator solder volume variance |
|
To discuss your specific application needs, contact us at medical@indium.com.
Related Markets and Applications
Assembly Products for Medical Devices and Electronics Technical Documents
Whitepapers
Application Notes
Product Data Sheets
Material Safety Data Sheets
Assembly Products for Medical Device and Electronics Blog Posts
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