Research Presentation on High-Reliability Alloys at SMTA Philadelphia Chapter Meeting

Jason Fullerton, Customer Technical Support Engineer at MacDermid Alpha, is one of two featured speakers at this event. Fullerton will present Advances in Lead-free Solder Technologies for High Reliability Applications. This paper will explore lead-free alloy development, enhancements in solder paste performance, and processing differences between these alloys and typical SAC and tin-lead alloys. “Environmental regulations have driven the electronics industry to adopt lead-free solders. However, high reliability applications continue to use legacy tin-lead solder alloys,” said Fullerton. “We’ll discuss how evolving designs, service environments, and reliability requirements have driven development of new types of solder alloys.”

The second speaker will be Greg Smith, Manager of Stencil Technology at BlueRing Stencils. Smith will present Root Cause Stencil Design for SMT Components Thermal Lands. This paper will explore recent studies on stencil design to minimize voiding on quad flat no-lead (QFN) thermal lands and the effect of the window pane design on void area percentage after reflow for surface mount technology (SMT) component thermal pads without introducing float to the component. Areas of focus will be specific window pane gap sizes, total area printed, and the distance of the outer pane edges to the copper thermal land edge will be varied to determine guidelines for thermal pad stencil design.

The Chapter Meeting will begin at 5:15 pm with dinner and networking, followed by the presentations which begin at 6:15 pm. This is the first meeting organized by newly appointed Chapter President, Anna Lifton, Research and Development Manager at MacDermid Alpha. Event sponsors are StenTech and Argo/Zeta with Lutron Electronics hosting the evening’s event.

The event is open to SMTA members and non-members. Those interested can register at the Philadelphia Chapter page on the SMTA website.