Researchers air ideas on eliminating solder

September 2, 2010 – 7:58 am

By nature, research projects are surrounded by an air of uncertainty, many of them never progress outside the laboratory. But over time, many of them bear fruit and move into the mainstream.
If two projects announced last month gain market acceptance and becomes a success story, they will a have significant impact on board fabrication and assembly. Semiconductor Research Corp. and Georgia Tech are working on techniques that replace solder with copper, as well as one that uses air as a dielectric. SRC, a 28-year old consortium made of universities and chipmakers, has already been granted 326 patents, so the $1.3 billion total investment has had some payoff. Georgia Tech also has a solid reputation.
The researchers are attempting to find ways to improve high frequency performance by reducing the amount of energy it takes to move a bit from one piece of silicon to another. They’re looking at new processes that make air the dielectric, while also looking at differential pair conductors and multi-layer structures that use two or more layers of air-clad interconnect to further reduce energy loss.
The other aspect of the project is to eliminate solder, which is only non-copper element in chips and boards. Solder limits both the density and performance of flip-chip connections between chips and boards. Replacing solder with all-copper connections such as shielded or co-axial shapes that enable higher densities and offer better performance than current solder materials.
It’s pretty early to see how these programs might work in high volume production runs. But any time someone’s looking into technologies that make yours obsolete, it’s something that bears watching.

By Terry Costlow | Posted in Assembly | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment

Changes to U.S. Export Controls are Good News for the Electronics Industry

August 31, 2010 – 3:17 pm

Today, the White House announced plans to reform the U.S. export control system by updating and modifying export control lists, licensing policies, and export enforcement. U.S. export controls include the laws and regulations managing the sale or transfer of sensitive goods and technology, services, and expertise to non-U.S. citizens. The changes in export controls are intended to create narrower and more consistent export rules that will enable U.S. companies to increase their exports while better protecting national security. Changes in U.S. export controls should make electronics companies more globally competitive.

The current outmoded U.S. export control system impedes U.S. competitiveness. The export control system operates under two different control lists, the U.S. Munitions List (UMSL) and the Commerce Control List (CCL), which controls items such as software, technology, printed boards, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information. The bureaucracy also maintains three different primary agencies each applying their own export licensing policies. A U.S. company wishing to export must navigate a cumbersome and lengthy export licensing process, ultimately slowing down its ability to keep up with global competitors that are not subject to U.S. export controls.

The changes in export controls will update and modify export control lists, licensing policies, and export enforcement. The government will apply new criteria for determining what items need to be controlled. According to the administration, the new criteria will split the existing export control lists into three tiers. Items in the highest tier provide a critical military or intelligence advantage and are available almost exclusively from the U.S. Items in the middle tier provide a substantial military advantage and are available from “multilateral partners,” while items in the lowest tier are available more broadly.

New export licensing policies will be stricter for items that have direct warfare applications and looser for less-military sensitive products. “A [export] license will generally be required for items in the highest tier to all destinations. Many of the items in the second tier will be authorized for export to multilateral partners and Allies under license exemptions or general authorizations.” (Whitehouse.gov)

The President also announced an executive order establishing an Export Enforcement Coordination Center that will coordinate, strengthen, and eliminate gaps and duplication across the government. Federal agencies will focus and strengthen their enforcement efforts around the most sensitive items.

Electronics companies will be affected by these changes. The government’s preliminary estimate is that about 32 percent of the total items currently controlled by U.S. export controls may be decontrolled altogether. Electronics companies should pay close attention to changes, particularly in regulations controlling the export of dual use items, i.e. items that can be used for both commercial and military purposes.

For more details about the effect of U.S. export controls on electronics companies please visit www.ipc.org/export-controls or contact Ron Chamrin, IPC manager of government relations, at ronchamrin@ipc.org or +1 703-522-3964.

By Ron Chamrin | Posted in Assembly, Boards, Compliance, Government Relations, Regulations, Suppliers, electronics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Causes and Solutions for Solder Ball Defects

August 31, 2010 – 8:11 am

Industry expert Bob Willis explains the impact of flux and solder mask on solder ball defects in this video based on the  National Physical Laboratory Defect Database.

The defect database allows engineers to search through a range of defects covering components, printed circuit boards, solder joints and assembly problems. The aim is to add more defects each month to complement the online submissions with further support from the industry to make this a global resource to industry. It is available at no charge to allow engineers to submit defects online with full details and solutions to current problems.

Additional defect videos and more are available on the IPC YouTube Channel.

By Kim Sterling | Posted in Assembly, Technical | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment

Salaries inch up during lackluster year

August 26, 2010 – 11:46 pm

Engineering salaries are holding steady or even growing. That’s been one of the few positive news items amongst glum economic announcements of recent weeks.
The IEEE-USA announced its 2009 figures last month, though it cautioned that its survey was based on data gathered way back in 2008. Back then, 8 percent unemployment was considered outlandishly high.
IEEE-USA members were making strong progress then. Total income went from $110,610 in the 2007 tax year to $116,000 in 2008. That 4.9 percent increase more than doubled the 2.4 percent rise from the previous survey.
Those in components, packaging and manufacturing technology, the category that most typifies IPC members, was $124,590. That’s above the $117,000 earned by those working on lasers and electro-optics, but below the $135,000 earned by solid state circuit developers.
Another new survey, from Design News magazine, found that an average design engineer’s salary of $89,597 was unchanged from spring of 2009 to spring this year. That was augmented by a jump of nearly 50 percent in bonuses, which rose to $9,025.
The two surveys largely mirror the IPC survey released at the start of this year. IPC’s 2008–2009 wage and salary study saw raises of just under 2 percent for EMS employees. That’s not a huge percentage, but in this climate, most of the people getting those raises probably welcome the increase.

By Terry Costlow | Posted in Executive Management | Tagged | Leave a Comment

Director of DoD Industrial Policy announced as keynote speaker for upcoming IPC conference

August 26, 2010 – 1:33 pm

Brett B. Lambert, Director of Industrial Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming IPC Conference for the North American EMS Industry: What it Takes to Supply the Military. Mr. Lambert serves as the principle advisor on all matters relating to the defense industrial base, including industrial capabilities and assessments; defense industry mergers, acquisitions and consolidation; preservation of essential industries and technologies; and other related matters.

The mission of Department of Defense (DoD) Industrial Policy Office is to sustain an environment that ensures the industrial base on which the DoD depends is reliable, cost-effective, and sufficient to meet DoD requirements. Specifically, Industrial Policy is responsible to ensure that DoD policies, procedures, and actions: (1) stimulate and support vigorous competition and innovation in the industrial base supporting defense; and (2) establish and sustain cost-effective industrial and technological capabilities that assure military readiness and superiority.

The IPC Conference for the North American EMS Industry: What It Takes to Supply the Military, will be held on September 15, 2010, at the Embassy Suites Washington D.C. – Convention Center. Designed for decision makers in the EMS industry as well as representatives from OEMs, PCB fabricators and suppliers, the conference will offer essential, up-to-date information from noted experts to help EMS companies understand what the military needs from them, the important steps they need to take to comply with government restrictions, and how to obtain proper certifications to become an in-demand supplier. Presentations will include insights from the military; strategies for controlling counterfeit parts; ways to best navigate the complexities of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR) compliance; an overview of a military roadmap for the electronics assembly industry; and discussion about the IPC Intellectual Property Standard.

By Ron Chamrin | Posted in Assembly, Government Relations, OEM, electronics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Productivity and solder voids

August 11, 2010 – 8:52 am

The news about the first decline in U.S. productivity came at an interesting time for me. The afternoon before the government announced a 0.9 percent drop in productivity, I had an interesting discussion with David Hillman of Rockwell Collins.

Hillman was discussing the difficulties he faced while researching solder voids in BGAs. He and his team were trying to see how large voids could be before they created problems, so they set out to produce a run of boards that had solder voids.

Production people initially thought he was a bit off his rocker to want solder voids, but they finally understood the project’s goals and gave it their best effort. Unfortunately, I guess, they couldn’t make boards that had faults in the solder connections. “In a run of 229,000 solder joints, we only got 10 voids,” said Hillman, who will be discussing solder voids during IPC Electronics Midwest in Rosemont, Ill., Sept. 28-30.

That seemed to provide intriguing insight into the productivity decline announced by the Labor Dept. Productivity gains have been so steady that failures are difficult to find. Companies with one or two part per million defect levels for high volume parts like semiconductors are running manufacturing lines at near perfection.

When workers can’t figure out how to produce a void, it’s obvious that they’re not spending a lot of time trying to prevent that defect. That’s a good sign for reliability and quality control.

There are undoubtedly a lot of fields where there’s still plenty of room for improvement, particularly some of the service industries I’ve recently interacted with. But here in electronics, improvements are becoming hard to come by. That’s the good news, unless of course you’re trying to do research on potential problem areas like voids.

By Terry Costlow | Posted in Assembly, Technical | Tagged , | Comments (2)

Enclosure standard addresses meaty issues

August 10, 2010 – 1:41 pm

Creating a sandwich in my house is pretty straightforward, any available meat goes on bread or a reasonable facsimile thereof. But creating a full meal involves all kinds of options, from spices to vegetables to drinks, and each option has plenty of choices.

Moving upward in the food chain is equally challenging as IPC enters a new area with what’s generally called the Box Build document. IPC-A-630, “Requirements and Acceptance for Enclosures, High Performance Applications” addresses the many variables that come when circuit boards are put into boxes used in military and aerospace applications.

Choices include connectors, the materials used for boxes, the choice of fasteners and the amount of torque used to tighten them. Then there are colors.

“There are hundreds of shades of black, once you pick one you need to start talking about gloss levels,” said Dave Torp, IPC vice president of standards & technology, who’s shepherding the creation of a handbook. “There are a lot more options in enclosures than when you put a chip on a circuit board.”

That handbook, which will probably run over 700 pages, is making steady progress as it nears its first anniversary. The approximately 40 people on the committee represent companies ranging from plane makers like Boeing to enclosure suppliers like Elma. IPC-A-630 Requirements for Structural Enclosure Task Group (7-31j) is co-chaired by two representatives of two large suppliers: Richard Rumas of Honeywell Canada and Eddie Hofer of Rockwell Collins.

A year into the effort, the group guesses it’s nearing the halfway point. Torp predicts that IPC-A-630 will be ready for publication in about 18 months. Even so, that’s pretty quick for the development of a best practices guidebook in an area where there are no guidelines.

The 7-31j task group will meet on Monday, September 27, at 1:30 pm at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill.

By Terry Costlow | Posted in Assembly, OEM, Standards | Tagged , | Leave a Comment

Joint Industry Guide Material Composition Declaration for Electrotechnical Products Available for Free Download

August 4, 2010 – 1:36 pm

The Joint Industry Guide Material Composition Declaration for Electrotechnical Products, an industry materials declaration guide that facilitates reporting of material content information across the global electrotechnical supply chain is now available for free download. This document sets minimum requirements for a material declaration. The document (also called JIG-101 Ed. 3.0) now addresses the most updated regulatory requirements that require supply chain disclosure of material content in electrotechnical products. In addition, the criteria for substances to be declared have been changed, now requiring broader industry consensus and allowing companies to act proactively. 45 pages. Released March 2010.

Download it through this link. Click “Add to Cart.”

By Kim Sterling | Posted in Compliance, Environment, Health and Safety | Tagged | Leave a Comment

Trade shows and black holes

July 29, 2010 – 12:33 pm

Signs at one of the nation’s top trade show locations, the Las Vegas, are pointing up. Convention attendance rose 3.1% in May, marking the third consecutive month of increased traffic. In April, IPC’s APEX EXPO was a noticeable part of those increases, showing solid 10 percent growth over last year.

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research anticipates slow growth throughout 2010. However, even when attendance is down, leads generated at shows can lead to significant business opportunities. If they’re followed up.

The Institute for Study of Business Markets researched the life cycle of a sales lead after it’s generated by a marketing department. Many of them come from trade shows. According to their findings, nearly 70% of leads fall into the “black hole” where they’re simply not pursued by the sales force at all.

That’s a stunning figure. Many sales leads probably aren’t worth much investment in time. But if three out of four go into a black hole, gathering them isn’t worth much investment either. Trade shows are a great way to reach new people, but reaching out to the right ones afterwards should be as much a part of planning as creating a booth or figuring out who goes to the show.

By Terry Costlow | Posted in Executive Management, Trade Show | Comments (4)

China RoHS Update Up for Public Consultation until August 19

July 26, 2010 – 8:48 am

On July 16, 2010, the Chinese government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a proposed update to the “Draft Measures for the Pollution Control of Electrical and Electronic Product,” the so-called “China RoHS,” for public consultation until August 19, 2010.

One key feature is that they have changed “Electronic Information Products” to “Electronic and Electrical Products.” They have not defined the new scope yet. Could this be an indication of a desire to more closely align the scope with EU RoHS? Hard to know.

The proposed updates would change the coverage of products by modifying the definition from “Electronic Information Product” to “Electrical and Electronic Product.” The new definition of “Electrical and Electronic Product” is defined in Article 3, as “equipment or its accessories which work with a voltage rating not exceeding 1500 volts for direct current and 1,000 volts for alternating current.”

If the new definition of EEP is adopted, all EEP would be immediately subject to China RoHS because no product categories would be defined. The current China RoHS identifies covered products in a Catalogue. The new definition of EEP is an even broader coverage of regulated products than that which is currently discussed in the EU Recast proposal.

The proposed updates to China RoHS would not change or add to the list of hazardous substances. The six hazardous substances would remain the same, i.e., lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE.

The proposed updates to China RoHS would change the title of the Catalogue from “Key Management Catalogue for the Control of Pollution by Electronic Information Product” to “Standard Product Catalogue for the Pollution Control of Electrical and Electronic Product.” This would require some changes to the draft First List of Controlled Electronic Information Products that was released on September 29, 2009. If an electrical and electronic product is listed in the Catalogue, the product is immediately subject to certification, stricter customs clearance and non-use of hazardous substances with some transitional time.

The proposed changes to China RoHS would provide a clear set of requirements for the design, production, packaging and labeling of electrical and electronic products. However, if the Chinese regulatory authorities themselves are not aware of what products could be covered by the new definition of “Electrical and Electronic Product,” the proposed updates to China RoHS would have a significant disruptive impact on industries.

By Stephanie Castorina | Posted in Compliance | Tagged , | Comments (1)