FEATURES

• Materials Declaration
  Full Disclosure
  What are your parts made out of? It's not so easy to know.
  Michael Kirschner

• Pb-Free Printing Parameters
  Understanding Pb-Free Stencil Requirements
  This study of what happens when the process window is intentionally violated finds engineers should worry more about the effects of stencil geometries than a centered Pb-free print process.
  Clive Ashmore

• Technology Innovations
  Integrating AOI and Selective Soldering
  A breakthrough machine for PTH mass soldering combines AOI and selective soldering in a single inline unit. How it works, and the business case behind it.
  Mark Cannon, Bob Klenke and Phil Zarrow

• EMS RoHS Models
  Outsourcing RoHS-Compliant Production at a Distance
  How Beyonics tackled the Pb-free transition, and auditing advice for overseas customers.
  Eric Liew, Fadzol Zaman and Sivakumar Thanupillai

• Supply Chain Solutions
  The Supply Excellence Project at Ericsson and Solectron
  Blending Lean and Agile concepts cut lead times by 75% on a complex, custom telecom product.
  Ylva Andersson, Jan Melin, Rolf Broström, Lindsay Ballantyne, Dave Cooper and Lennart Ivarsson

• Procurement
  The Future of PCB Procurement
  The battle for supply-chain ownership pits distributors vs. EMS firms.
  Mike Buetow

• Solder Joint Reliability
  Crack Growth Rate Measurement and Analysis for WLCSP SnAgCu Solder Joints
  Using FEM, cracking is correlated with average inelastic strain and strain energy density.
  Paresh Limaye, Bart Vandevelde, Dirk Vandepitte and Bert Verlinden

• Pb-Free Wave Soldering
  Dynamics in Pb-Free Wave Soldering
  A five-phase study of fluxes and convection preheating related to three Pb-free alloys revealed a few unexpected twists.
  R.A. Szymanowski, D. Casati, E. Saglia, P. Lotosky, K. Howell and G. Hueste

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  Cookson gets reworked.
  Mike Buetow

• Talking Heads
  Valor's Chuck Feingold and David Bengal.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Focus on Business
  Sustaining profitability through services.
  Dr. Jonathon Linton

• Global Sourcing
  How to kill business by not even trying.
  Greg Papandrew

TECH TALK

• On the Forefront
  The "magic mix."
  Dr. Ken Gilleo

• Screen Printing
  Z-axis support options.
  Joe Belmonte

• Better Manufacturing
  When profiling is a good thing.
  Phil Zarrow

• Soldering Tips
  A primer on x-ray fluorescence.
  American Competitiveness Institute

• Wave Soldering
  Mitigating common Pb-free defects.
  Gerjan Diepstraten

• Countdown to Pb-Free
  Don't bank on an RoHS extension.
  Steven Andrews

• Process Doctor
  Are your cleaning processes in control?
  Terry Munson

• Equipment Advances
  Juki's selective soldering series.

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Assembly Insider
Ad Index
Product Spotlight

On the cover: The influence of aperture designs on Pb-free assembly. (Cover photo courtesy of DEK. Inset courtesy of ERSA.)