MINNEAPOLIS – IBM engineer Matt Kelly has been awarded the SMTA International 2013 Rich Freiberger Best of Conference for his presentation titled "Plasma Stencil Treatments: A Statistical Evaluation." The award was selected by attendees of the October conference.

Babak Arfaei, Ph.D., from Universal Instruments, won the Best of Proceedings category for the paper "Effect of Sn Grain Morphology on Failure Mechanisms and Reliability of Lead-Free Solder Joints in Thermal Cycling Tests." You Chye How, Texas Instruments Malaysia, won the Best International Paper award for "Reliability Improvement of Array QFN Package." The latter awards were selected by the SMTA International Technical Committee.

The winners received $1,000 awards and plaques.