SMT Reflow Oven Conveyor Maintenance: Keeping the Board Moving Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article…

Corrective Action in PCB Manufacturing What Corrective Action Is For Corrective action is the structured response to a problem that has already occurred. Its purpose is not to repair the affected units, which is containment, but to find out why the problem happened and to change the process so that…

PCB Underfill for BGA: Glue That Shares the Stress Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article…

Traceability in PCB Assembly What Traceability Means Traceability is the ability to connect a finished assembly back to the materials, the processes, and the conditions that produced it. In its simplest form it is a record that a board was built on a certain date, from a certain lot of…

Low Temperature Soldering Processes Why Lower Temperatures Are Attractive A lower soldering temperature reduces the thermal stress on everything on the board. Components with limited temperature ratings, large electrolytic capacitors, optical devices, and parts with internal adhesives all benefit when the peak temperature falls. The board itself is also stressed…

Solder Alloy Selection for Assemblies Why Alloy Choice Matters The alloy sets the temperature the process has to reach, the strength and ductility of the joint, and the behaviour of the solder under thermal cycling. Changing the alloy changes the profile, the flux compatibility, the stencil, and sometimes the components…

Solder Paste Dry Out and Print Defects What Dry Out Is Solder paste is a suspension of alloy powder in a flux vehicle that contains solvents. While the paste is in a sealed jar, the solvent stays in the mixture and the rheology is stable. Once the paste is on…

PCB Pad Cratering: When the Pad Tears From the Board Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB pad cratering from the perspective of a PCBA factory…

Reflow Profiling Methods and Thermocouples Why the Profile Must Be Measured The oven setpoints describe what the machine is trying to do; the profile describes what the board actually experiences. A board passing through the same oven at the same settings can see very different temperatures depending on its thickness,…

LGA Assembly Without Solder Balls What an LGA Package Is A land grid array package has a grid of flat pads on its underside instead of solder balls. The connection is formed entirely by the paste printed on the board, which melts, wets the package pads, and forms the joint.…