Dry Film Lamination: Preparation, Placement and Process Control Dry film lamination is the step that bonds a photosensitive resist to the copper surface, and it silently sets the limit on what the imaging line can produce. Every fine line that later fails to develop, every trace that lifts in the…

Test Probe Cleaning: Preparation, Placement and Process Control Test probe cleaning is the maintenance step that keeps an in-circuit test fixture reading the same board the same way, shift after shift. Probes collect flux, solder dust and plating debris, and the film they build up adds resistance to every measurement…

Nozzle Wear: 7 Checks on a Placement Head Nozzle wear is the slow loss of the tip geometry that a vacuum nozzle needs to seal against a component. The tip faces thousands of contacts a day with ceramic, metal and plastic bodies, and every contact removes a little material. The…

Solder Pot Analysis: 6 Tests for Wave Solder Health Solder pot analysis is the laboratory check on the alloy sitting in a wave soldering bath. The pot is not a fixed material: it dissolves copper from boards, picks up iron and zinc from plating and tooling, and concentrates whatever the…

Cleanroom Class: 7 Choices for PCB Assembly A cleanroom class is a limit on how many particles of a given size may exist in a cubic metre of air, and it is written as an ISO 14644 number. Class 8 is roughly the old Class 100,000, class 7 is ten…

Test Probe Cleaning: 5 Rules for Stable Yields Test probe cleaning is the maintenance step that keeps an in-circuit test fixture reading the same board the same way, shift after shift. Probes collect flux, solder dust and plating debris, and the film they build up adds resistance to every measurement…

Dry Film Lamination: 6 Parameters That Decide Yield Dry film lamination is the step that bonds a photosensitive resist to the copper surface, and it silently sets the limit on what the imaging line can produce. Every fine line that later fails to develop, every trace that lifts in the…

Fixture Probe Care: 6 Rules for ICT Reliability A fixture probe is the only electrical interface between the test system and the board, and every measurement made by an in-circuit tester passes through it. The contact lasts a limited number of touchdowns, and its condition drifts long before it fails…

Steam Aging: 5 Rules for a Solderability Test Steam aging is a preconditioning step used before a solderability test. It exposes the pads on a coupon to hot saturated vapour for a fixed time, so the surface reaches a state similar to a board that has been stored for months.…

Nozzle Vacuum: Preparation, Placement and Process Control Nozzle vacuum is the pressure difference that holds a component on the tip of the placement head between the feeder and the board. It is produced by a venturi or a pump, measured by a sensor in the head, and it has to…