MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The winner of the Rich Freiberger Best of Conference Award for SMTA International 2014, as selected by conference attendees, is Chrys Shea, Shea Engineering, for her presentation "The Effects of Stencil Alloy, Tension and Cut Quality on Solder Paste Print Performance," coauthored by Ray Whittier, Vicor.

Paul Vianco, PhD, from Sandia National Labs won the Best of Proceedings category for "Sensitivity of Copper Dissolution to the Flow Behavior of Molten Sn-Pb Solder." Coauthors included JA Rejent, AC Kilgo, and SE Garrett, Sandia National Laboratories.

Polina Snugovsky, PhD, Celestica, and Stephan Meschter, PhD, BAE Systems, won the Best International Paper category for "Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Tin Whisker Testing and Modeling: Tin Whisker Growth on SAC 305 Assemblies." Coauthors included Jeff Kennedy, Zohreh Bagheri, and Eva Kosiba, Celestica. This award and the Best of Proceedings are selected by the SMTA International Technical Committee.

A new award category, Best Student Presentation, was awarded to Jie Gong, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, for his paper “Non-Destructive Evaluation of Solder Bump Quality Under Mechanical Bending Using Laser Ultrasonic Technique.” Coauthors included Charles Ume, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, Kola Akinade, PhD, Bryan Rogers, Cherif Guirguis, David Chan, and Cesar Escobar, Cisco Systems.

$1,000 awards and plaques were given for the Best of Conference Presentation, Best of Proceedings Paper, and the Best International Paper.