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Etching Indium to Remove Oxides

With regard to soldering or wetting (coating) with indium, we are often asked to comment on the oxide formation of indium and how to remove it. We are also asked how long will it take for the oxide

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Soldering to Stainless Steel

We are often asked if it is possible to solder to stainless steel and, if so, what is the best procedure.As you may already know, stainless steel is not easy to solder but it can be done with a

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Soldering to Aluminum

We are frequently asked if it is possible to solder to aluminum.The answer is yes, if the following guidelines are followed: FLUXES: Because it is difficult to solder to aluminum, Indium Corporation

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Patty Cost Analyzes an MRI scan

Folks, Let’s see how Patty is doing with the latest crisis…… Upon hearing Claire Perkins inform her that Rob was in the hospital, Patty froze and her face looked ashen.She quickly

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Switching from High Lead Solders to Eutectic AuSn

Two categories of solder are available to choose from when the in-service environment for a device reaches above 125°C either in continuous operation or thermal cycling accelerated life

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Patty Pitches NMAC/I/O

Folks, Patty arrived at work an hour early to prepare for her meeting with ACME CEO Mike Madigan.Nineteen days ago, he had asked her to develop an electronics assembly metric that would correlate

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Indium-Copper Intermetallics in Soldering

Indium and indium-containing alloys see wide use in a multitude of soldering applications. Indium has many attractive properties such as remaining ductile at cryogenic temperatures, compatibility

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Void Reduction in Solder Joints

It is often said that a chain is only as strong as it weakest link, the same can be true for a series of solder joints on a component. When one is bad, the rest are useless. Quite often, voiding is

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Cold Welding Indium Metal

Indium metal has the unique ability to cold weld (bond) to itself at room temperature. Though this is, technically, not soldering, this property makes it especially useful for low-temperature bonding

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Tombstoning: The Death of a PCBA

Tombstoning (also known as the Manhattan effect, drawbridge effect, or Stonehenge effect) is described (in the simplest, and most common, sense) as occurring when one end of a passive device, such as

Archive

Patty Seeks the Ultimate Electronics Assembly Productivity Metric

Folks, Let's look in on Patty…… Patty was just finishing a report on work that she and Pete had performed with a team of her ACME colleagues on reducing the Head-in-Pillow (HIP)

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Hand Soldering Recommendations for Solar Module Assembly

Here is a list of tricks to help you overcome the issues that can arise while hand soldering silicon-based solar cells (and other applications as

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Statistics: How Unusual is the New Orleans 0-11 Coin Toss Loss?

Folks, In addition to electronics assembly productivity, solder paste and solder preform applications, and other electronics assembly concerns, many of you know that I teach statistics and have been

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Solder Paste Expiration / Shelf Life

Solder paste is comprised of powdered solder alloy suspended in a flux vehicle. There is a group of flux ingredients that is generically identified as

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Solder Paste and Flux Dip Depth: II

Following on from our discussions of last time… As you will recall from the previous post on this topic, My friend and colleague Chris Nash and I were discussing some puzzling results for low

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Intermetallics In Soldering

Intermetallics are a necessary evil in the metal-to-metal bonding world, which definitely includes soldering. There are two basic ways that metal will "chemically"bond to another metal: 1)

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Solder Paste and Flux Dip Depth: I

My friend and colleague Chris Nash and I were recently discussing some puzzling results for low dip height found during testing of package-on-package (PoP) materials. The findings will be of interest

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Recycling Solder Dross

Anyone who has used wave soldering to assemble PCBs knows about that chunky layer of metal that collects on the smooth surface of the molten solder.This is solder dross; it is composed of oxidized

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Solving the QFN Voiding Problem With Solder Preforms

Folks, Rob heads to Guadalajara to solve the QFNvoiding problem…… As Rob sat on the airplane, he was excited to go to GDL (Guadalajara, Mexico) to help solve the voiding

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QFN Reliability in SMT Electronics Assembly

Folks, Let's look in on Rob: Rob looked at the new photo of Patty and their twin sons Peter and Michael.What a handful those two 18 month-olds were.Just like their mother!Rob was still pinching

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Solder Powder: IPC “Type” and Surface Area

Solder powder particle size and shape impacts the functionality of solder paste in many ways: printing/dispensing/dipping; solderballing; graping; voiding; tack and so

At Indium we research, develop, and manufacture advanced electronics assembly materials solutions to the challenges of today, tomorrow, and the future.