Square vs. Circular Apertures and the Five Ball Rule Revisited
Folks, I recently posted that circular apertures deliver much less solder past than square apertures. One of the obvious reasons is that a circle of d...
Solder Stencils
Optimized QFN Printing Tips
Beware of offset die, i.e. a thermal slug not centered in the device body but offset to the side. and too little solder paste deposited on thermal slu...
Interview with Intern Emily Dean
Folks, One of the great advantages of being a professor at Dartmouth College is working with the world’s best young students. However, Emily Dea...
AVOID THE VOID®: Large Ground Plane Voiding in Electronics Assembly: Stencil Design
We can minimize large ground plane solder voiding in electronics assembly by modifying stencil design. ...
Handbook of Electronic Assembly Now Available
Folks, It is hard to imagine, but it has been just a little short of 13 years ago that Jim Hall, Phil Zarrow and I approached SMTA’s JoAnn Strom...
What is an Intern to Do?
The Indium Corporation has many summer interns this year. The technical support group was fortunate enough to hire Sarah Bjornland (pictured). She is ...
Electronics Assembly Process Optimization Using AuditCoach™
Let’s check in on Patty: Mike Madigan was not used to feeling intimidated. After all, as the CEO of ACME, a multi-billion US dollar...
The Largest Trade-off in Printing UltraFine Solder Pastes is in Reflow
In a six-part SMT assembly series, we discussed the advantages of using fine powder solder pastes to improve process yields for stencil printing, espe...
A Look Inside SMTA Certification with Tim Hults
Indium Corporation’s newest Global Accounts technical service engineer, Tim Hults, recently earned his SMTA Process Certification. Indium Corpor...
To the Windy City and Back Again
This is an account of my trip to Indium’s Chicago facility. If you didn’t get a chance to read my previous post, the link is right he...
A 10 Sigma Solder Paste Printing Process?
Folks, Let’s check in on Patty as she is about to wrestle with claims of a 10 Sigma Solder Paste Printing Process involving the world’s sm...
SMT Optimization For Success - Part 6: The Effect of Solder Particle Size on Printing Using Ultrafine Stencil Apertures
SMT Optimization for Success Part 6: Solder Paste Particle Size and Its Effect on Stencil Printing Ultra-fine Solder Paste Deposits This final post...