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FEATURES

• Cover Story
  The Plexus Rx
  The best-performing publicly held EMS company is not Jabil, Benchmark nor Flextronics, but a quiet Midwestern entity with a primarily North American footprint and “too many” engineers. Why Plexus is our 2008 EMS Company of the Year.
  By Mike Buetow

• Retrospective
  In Memoriam
  Circuits Assembly recalls friends and industry colleagues who won’t see 2009.

• Solder Joint Reliability
  HIP Defects in BGAs
  Solder joints afflicted with head-in-pillow lack strength, and the components may fail under minimal mechanical or thermal stress. HIP is now known to be caused by certain process variables, including the BGA ball alloy, reflow process type, reflow profile and solder paste chemistry. The role each of these variables plays, and certain mitigation techniques, are identified in this study.
  By Karl Seelig

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  Foxconn goes south of the border.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Global Sourcing
  Relationship ruiners.
  Jennifer Read

TECH TALK

• Screen Printing
  Post-print inspection.
  Clive Ashmore

• Better Manufacturing
  What I don’t like about you.
  Dr. H.J. Zapfardt III

• Tech Tips
  Solder wetting tests.
  American Competitiveness Institute

• Test and Inspection
  In support of DfT.
  Stacy Kalisz Johnson

• Wave Soldering
  Drop-ins are out.
  Ursula Marquez de Tino

• Process Doctor
  Analyzing SEM and EDX.
  Terry Munson

• Pb-Free Lessons Learned
  The HIP epidemic proliferates.
  Chrys Shea

• The Defects Database
  Paste residue and solvent incompatibilities.
  Dr. Davide Di Maio

• Standards
  All marked up.
  John Perry

• Getting Lean
  Predicting outcomes.
  Robert Hemmant

• Eastern Advances (410KB PDF)
  Soldering terminations, part 2.
  Sanqiang Cai

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Product Spotlight
Ad Index
Assembly Insider

On the cover: Plexus has perfected the art of the workcell. (Photo courtesy of Plexus Corp.)