Authored By:
Francisco Fernandez, Eddie Tang, Feng Lu, Ph.D.
Shenzhen Kaifa Technology Co. Ltd.
Summary
Selective soldering is not a new process. It is already exists and used 30 years ago for through-hole component by different industries for automotive and medical products. Now most manufacturing industries are moving forward on SMD's miniaturization to reduce PCB complexity and balance component density on the board to ensure a good assembling process. By this concept, why selective soldering still utilized and used? Does it because of component reliability, uniqueness or complexity having this in mind next question will be which platform will best fit for the product.
This paper describes the evaluation process of selecting technology for selective soldering. Low-cost and High cost platform are classified in this paper as Platform A and B respectively. It is expected to magnify the essential difference of each platform through comparative analysis and simulations during the study. Consider both platforms are built in same concept but different performance which influences productivity. Understanding selective soldering is very important to avoid cost of quality and throughput deficiency during production.
In the study, design consideration showed that parts and functions influence the solderability during soldering process. Actual simulations on fluxer, pre-heat, solder bath and side by side analysis between nozzle materials will be evaluated. Also, cost of capital investment of each platform is taking into consideration.
This paper aims to provide information for selecting a selective soldering platform and serves as reference for manufacturing company having same process and application that might need in their operations.
Conclusions
Platforms design and material consideration are the most important factors to consider in selecting the best fit platforms for your product or application. The design will determine on how the platform can achieve the rest of parameter needed for the product. Reliability of samples that soldered on each platform reflects that either platform can able to meet good solderability.
Mass production data proves that platform B deliver more output because the soldering performance is consistent and stable compared to platform A which experience more stoppages during the evaluation.
Initially Published in the SMTA Proceedings
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