Avoid the Void® Common Causes of Voiding in Electronics Assembly

Phil Zarrow: This video is for anyone interested in the causes and effects of voiding in solder paste. 

 

Indium Corporation has come out with Indium10.1 and Indium8.9HF. How do these work to basically reduce voiding?

 

Glen Thomas: Well, I categorize three fundamental causes for voiding. One, the circuit board, or more specifically, the surface finish on the circuit board. Two, the process equipment and the process settings. Then finally, the solder paste. Those are the three areas that I look for that are the main causes for voiding. These materials were designed from the start to eliminate the causes of voiding from a chemistry standpoint.

 

Phil Zarrow: At the circuit board component interface, why is voiding a problem?

 

Glen Thomas: Voiding is a problem because it interferes with the three fundamental reasons that we have circuits in place, which are an electrical connection, a mechanical connection, or a thermal path. In this case here, we're interfering with the thermal path. What that means is, you may have a component that will operate at a different temperature than it's supposed to. You may end up with a thermal runaway, which can actually end up causing a reliability issue. It can be catastrophic depending on what the component is.

 

Phil Zarrow: What is Avoid the Void™?

 

Glen Thomas: Indium would like to assist our customers with making them more successful, and one of the ways we can do that is to help them to eliminate or reduce the amount of voiding they have substantially. We're making our resources available to our customers so that if they call upon us, we're ready, willing, and able to assist them to increase their yields, reduce their voiding, and make them and their customers happy.

 

Phil Zarrow: Where can we find more information?

 

Glen Thomas: As always, you can go to our website, at www.indium.com or if you prefer, you can send us an email directly at AskUs@indium.com.

 

Phil Zarrow: Glen, thank you very much. Very interesting.

 

Glen Thomas: Thank you. It was good talking to you, as always, Phil.