Tag Archives: soldering

Putting the ‘United’ in United States

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Dr. Ron

In Ken Burns‘s excellent miniseries The Civil War, Shelby Foote states that the Civil War  made us a country by uniting North and South.  He argues that before the War, its citizens might say the United States are a good place … Continue reading →

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Musings on Metals: Copper

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Dr. Ron

It could be argued that civilization began with the smelting of copper.  Although thousands of years before, humans fired clay to make figurines and containers, smelting required several non-obvious steps.  After all, the firing of clay, at some level, can … Continue reading →

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Service Life

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Dr. Ron

A reader writes: My company makes an electronic product that requires a 40- year shelf life. We assemble with tin-lead solder on FR-4 PWBs. The product is to replace older technology (i.e. 1960-70s), but has some newer components such as BGAs, SOICs, … Continue reading →

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Revelations at ACI

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Dr. Ron

Folks, I’m taking a few moments from Wassail Weekend, held annually in my village, Woodstock, VT (“The prettiest small town in America”), to write a post about the recent workshops at ACI. Indium colleague Ed Briggs and I gave a … Continue reading →

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Via Shifting

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Duane

Here’s an example of what via in pad can do for a small passive component. Other things can happen too, like tombstoning or twisting. But take a close look at this photo. In doing so, you’ll note that both sides … Continue reading →

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The Cost of Misunderstanding Standards

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Mike

An article in the latest issue of Assembly magazine asserts that use of standards, specifically IPC-A-610 and J-STD-001, raises the cost for US manufacturers and has led to the widespread offshoring of assembly. The premise of the article, authored by … Continue reading →

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Tin Din

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Dr. Ron

Folks, Many people responded to my recent post on tin whiskers. A few pointed out that the recent NASA report on the Toyota Unintended Acceleration Issue discussed numerous tin whiskers that were found, one implicated in a failure. The tin whiskers were emanating from tin plating. … Continue reading →

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BGA Woes

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Duane

Quite a few of the new chips I see coming out stick to the BGA or QFN form-factor. Sometimes they’ll be referred to as WSP (wafer scale package) or CSP (chip scale package), but those are still just little BGAs. … Continue reading →

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Hand to Machine

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Duane

It’s getting very difficult to hand solder many parts these days. Some people give it a try, but in general, if you’re dealing with the really tiny parts or leadless parts, it’s just not possible, or at least not  practical. … Continue reading →

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Follow the BGA

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Duane

At the Embedded Systems Conference in September, I had a number of folks ask me about mixing leaded and lead-free components on a PCB. It’s a difficult situation for some people — especially when using old and very new BGA … Continue reading →

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