Blog

Nitinol (a nickel titanium alloy) has become a very important material, especially in the medical world. It is often necessary to "attach" Nitinol to another piece of Nitinol or some other

Folks, In a recent post, I shared my perspective on the pluses, minuses and neutral aspects of lead-free solder assembly.In the minus category, I listed tin whiskers.A few people commented that tin

ITO is one of the materials that makes the magic of flat panel displays (monitors, TVs, etc.) possible. When sputtered on in a thin layer, it acts as a transparent conductive film. However, the

I was asked this week to contribute to the upcoming IPC handbook (IPC-CH-65 HDBK) on the section on contamination and its effects on printed wiring assemblies (PWA’s). There is a clear crossover of

Conformal coating compatibility with no-clean flux residues has been a major topic for years – becoming even more popular recently with companies looking to cut manufacturing costs and

This week a customer in Asia asked why one of our new epoxy fluxes was not allowing the package-on-package (PoP) device to be picked up from the dipping tray. Obviously, the vacuum nozzle must have

Folks, Patty had been working with engineering on a new product that needed a very precise and controlled volume of the stencil printed “brick” of solder paste on the PWB pads. The product had

Folks, Let’s assume you are trying to improve the productivity of your SMT assembly lines. You work at a facility that manufactures high volume products with a high mix. The first aspect of your

Folks, The conclusion of the Bob and Fred break saga…… Phil stared, “The uptime on AXI’s four SMT production lines is…….” Fred and Bob were waiting for the good news of

(continued from previous post) “Fred break, Bob break?” Phil asked. Folks, The "Fred and Bob Breaks"saga continues, “Fred is the tech responsible for the stencil printer

Folks, Dr. Phil James, a former student of “The Professor”, gets a phone call, let’s listen in…… Phil James was staring out the window of his office in Exeter, NH.Fall

I just visited a customer that was converting from water soluble solder paste to no-clean. Not exactly a slam dunk transition as this customer found out. During my visit, solder balls and solder

Although most scientists today feel that alchemy has been widely discredited, and I have been taught to agree, the idea of it is whimsical and

Lately I have been researching a bunch of things, one of my favorite topics being soldering alloys. For a long time most solder (nearly all) was comprised of tin-lead eutectic

I have previously discussed various reasons why thermal considerations in a device cannot be an afterthought.There are various methods for handling the thermal needs of a device before it becomes a

I’ve received numerous questions about using gallium liquid metal alloys, so thought I’d present some of my answers for all. The customerquestions are in black, and my responses in red.

… and we’re back on the question of “how small a solder powder particle do I need, to achieve a certain bump height or bump

This week’s topic is both wafer bumping and substrate bumping with solder paste, and the issue of powder

Solder paste is made to be reflowed in the SMT process. Exactly HOW that is done is critical to your success. Included in the Product Data Sheet, among other things, are parameters which guide the

The Northeast USA (as well as other parts of the country) have been experiencing quite a warm summer. And, if walking out into the humidity wasn't clue enough, I would just have to test the fit

Folks, The adventures of Patty and Rob continue……. Rob bolted upright in bed. He had that terrible feeling that he had overslept for an important appointment. His eyes quickly found the