Indium Corporation Blogs

The environmental push of companies toward halogen-free is driven by environmental organizations such a Greenpeace providing examples of poor recycling conditions in 3rd world countries. One such example is a report by Greenpeace in which they assess the e-waste being burned in Ghana.

The report addresses a serious problem of dangerous recycling conditions and child labor that is occuring in Ghana. The issue that I have is they are focusing on the elimination of hazardous materials as the key solution to the problem. Regardless of whether or not the materials being burned are hazardous, having children working around open fire pits will never be safe. In addition, smoke inhilation can be a health problem even without PVC and brominated flame retardants.

The large electronics companies (Philips is being targeted hare by Greenpeace), are not the ones actually shipping the e-waste to Ghana. I would like to see someone trace the e-waste backward and find out the companies that are profiting by shipping the waste here. What about targeting people/companies who are buying the reclaimed metal from these people in Ghana?

I think that if you want to stop countries like Ghana from using bad practices to recycle and reclaim metals, then you need to target those profiting by shipping waste to them in the first place and those saving money by purchasing low cost metals from these scrap yards.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Thermometer.jpg

Operational temperature

Metallizations
Flux usage
Reflow method
Temperature limitations
Special conditions

Whether the market is communications, automotive, energy, military, medical or aerospace, choosing the correct solder is essential to making a quality product. A solder joint plays a very important role in an electrical or mechanical assembly. How this solder is selected for this joint is extremely important to the application, so following a guideline will insure that this is accomplished.

Before choosing a solder for an application, the operational or service temperature must be known; i.e. the minimum and maximum temperatures the assembly will see, during testing and in service. Continuous operational temperatures above 125°C will require the use of precious metal solders or hard solders such as Au/Sn, Au/Ge, or Au/Si.

Generally, it is best with soft solders to choose one that will melt at least 50°C higher than the expected service temperature of the assembly. (This includes temperature cycling during test and burn-in). If the difference in temperature (Delta T) between operational and the solidus temperature of the solder is too small, this could result in excessive scavenging, leaching and intermetallic growth. These unwanted conditions could lead to problems and eventual joint failure. 

After the correct temperature range for the solder is determined, consideration needs to be given to what metallizations in the joint will interact with the solder.

Metallizations will be addressed next in our series of steps to consider when designing a trouble-free solder joint.

A Chinese child sits amongst a pile of wires and e-waste. Children can often be found dismantling e-waste containing many hazardous chemicals known to be potentially very damaging to children's health.

同事Kelly Huang与大家分享了一则关于电子废弃产品的有毒物质相关消息，引人深思；特别是看见那个可怜的中国孩子图片时。

"The world is consuming more and more electronic products every year. This has caused a dangerous explosion in electronic scrap (e-waste) containing toxic chemicals and heavy metals that cannot be disposed of or recycled safely. But this problem can be avoided. We are pressing leading electronic companies to change; to turn back the toxic tide of e-waste.

无论是以前的无铅(Pb-free)还是现在的无卤素(Halogen-free)，Indium 公司一向提供前沿的技术和环保的产品，协助我们的客户们become "green", 让大家都成为一个更加有社会责任感的企业(Corporate Social Responsibility)!

Pic and story source: www.greenpeace.org

Last year Amanda Whittemore and I had the pleasure of attending a 2 day seminar “IC Fab East” in Albany, NY.  Ernest Levine (the instructor) combines his industry experience with insider information to teach the background of semiconductor fabrication and cutting edge trends.  As I thought about that seminar recently, it became clear that I should have the man himself shed some light on a couple issues upstream that could have an impact on wafer bumping and semiconductor packaging:

Jim: What defects in FEOL or BEOL could show up during packaging?

Ernest: First and foremost, cracking of the chip from too much stress during packaging.  Need to assess plastic molding and its resistance to avoiding stress cracking of the chip.  Witness recent game maker that reported thermal loads cracked chip.  Dicing before packaging can damage the chip and cause failure during packaging.  Besides that, when one packages and subjects to burn-in, any defect in front or back end can manifest itself as a fail as usually one exercises circuits never exercised before.  Thus near opens, shorts, BEOL voids etc. can all propagate to failure.  Stress from wire bonding can crack the low-k chip whose modulus is far below quartz. 

Jim: Are there any chemicals that could remain on the wafer surface and hinder wire bonding, bumping or wafer-level packaging?

Ernest: Sure, drying residue will hinder wire bonding.  Here I assume that we are bonding to Al bonding pads.  Stains of any kind will not allow a bond to occur.

Jim: I noticed a large cross-section of engineers attending your class, are there any notably interesting attendees you’ve hosted?

Ernest: They are all interesting.  They are from user companies like Microsoft and Cisco and from Vendors such as LAM and KLA.  My pleasure is in getting people so they really understand the material.

Ernest has another class coming up October 6^th and 7^th.  If you are interested in the IC Fabrication and Yield course, you can contact Ernest at ELevine@uamail.albany.edu

1. I never made plans to get the Singapore video to my US-based post-production team. So, on the fly, I tried hooking both sides together. FTP address here, a different FTP address there. Format issues, file compressing problems, no familiarity with each other, and you guessed it: it is taking FOREVER to get the video into the hands of my post-production team. I finally resorted to having the video guy put it onto a DVD and mail it to the USA. How archaic!!! This story is still not done yet.
2. Being semi-burned (at that point I didn't know things were going to get worse) by the portion of this nightmare that was unfolding while still on the road, I took the actual raw video tape, in hand, from Vietnam to home. I personally handed it to my post-production team. They emailed me and said, this is in PAL! We need to get it converted to NTSC. No big deal, but we are now searching for someone locally who can do this for us. Geez!

So, I've made a B2B Marcom mess of things. Nothing that I can't dig my way out of, but time is the critical element in most transactions - and these projects are lasting about 4x longer than they should - a disaster!!! And I know better!

The moral of the story, sometimes it LOOKS easy, but that is when a well-oiled machine swings into action. When we are throwing things together on the fly, or using new/unfamiliar talent, or when we cross technology borders, we need to slow down and think harder, plan better. I didn't do that well-enough and I am now paying the humiliating price. Aaarrgghhhh!!!

Every project manager, marketing specialist, and tech support leader is walking around with at least a handful of potential B2B Marcom projects in their head.

Before any of them get any further, I'd like to ask them to stop. In fact, I did just that in a meeting today. I had Indium Corporation's blogging team in a pizza frenzy while we were reviewing our blogs, other peoples' blogs, and the state of the blog art.

Our blog team consists of some really plugged in and knowledgable people. They are the ones who devise, create, and finalize many of our pieces of literature and communications projects. After a brief discussion of how and where our target audiences look for answers and info, we all agreed that the answer is the internet. It seems preposterous to imagine an engineer waiting for his copy of Circuits Assembly Magazine to arrive in the mail, hoping it might contain an answer to a burning question. People turn to the web for fast help. We want to be that help.

So, we are officially charged with directing ALL our B2B Marcom thoughts regarding literature, brochures, exhibits, etc. to the digital format first. We'll let the hardcopy stuff come later. This is a flip of the old way of business. Frankly, it is a bit overdue.

Web first, hardcopy second.

PS:
I am not down on, or against, print media. It has its place and is very valuable. Specifically, I really value Circuits Assembly Magazine. What I am changing is the mindset at project onset. We have to dream and create for the web (primary audience) and let the hard copy follow.

It seems that the topic of Halogen-Free Solder Paste has grown by another leap and bound. The big confusion is what are the definitions of Halogen-Free Solder Paste. I mean, who decides what techniques to use for the determination of Halogen-Free Solder Paste. The different testing and procedures come from many sources, including the IPC and individual Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's). So, lets take a few minutes and discuss not the techniques used for testing Halogen-Free, but the procedures and reporting specifications. For procedure references, please check original post, Halogen-Free Solder Paste. The first specification that comes my mind, is the IPC's "J-Standards" or J-STD. The section of the J-STD that covers the halogen and halide specifications is J-STD-004. The current revision "a" states that the halogen and halide content is tested on the reflowed solder paste, by Ion Chromatography. Here is the IPC's test method IPC-TM-650 2.3.28.1. As we have discussed in the past, Ion Chromatography is good for testing ionic halides, but may miss the covalent halogens, and of course any volatiles that contain halogens and halides. It is by this method, that some solder paste that are indeed halogen containing, can still advertise themselves as halide-free per J-STD-004. I'm not going into details about the procedure, but it involves a molten solder pot, a Petri dish, and a plastic bag. Sound very scientific to you? Me neither; more like a 9th grade science fair project. By the way, the IPC's definition of Halide-Free is <0.05% (500ppm) total halides. No mention of halogen-free. Another specification that is preferred by some OEM's states that a test board be printed with solder paste, then reflowed and tested by Ion Chromatography. At least this is board-level testing, but the definition of halogen-free versus halide-free remains, as well as their definition of halide-free, <0.09% (900ppm). I have personally tested pastes to this specification, and on one test, knowing that there is >0.5% (5000ppm) total halogens in the sample of the raw flux, have it come back on this test as <0.001% (10ppm). Knowing this is not bad, if only based on the fact that the halide-containing activators may have burned away. Lets get into the big-ticket topic; "no intentionally added halogens". One of the only test methods of determining total halogen content is Parr Oxygen Bomb, then ion chromatography of the ash, on the raw solder paste or flux. This will give you both the halogen and halide content of the flux vehicle. It is no secret that some OEM's looking into truly halogen-free solder pastes, after testing that has showed that their "halide-free" per J-STD-004) pastes that they are using now, is failing due to corrosion or dendritic growth. The statement "no intentionally added halogens" sums it all up, where in reality, only the naturally halogen-containing compounds would be detected, such as the rosin. Even on the post-reflow flux residue, ion chromatography may still miss the covalently bonded halogens, but not oxygen bomb testing. More information may be found at our Online Help: Indium Knowledge Base.

An article I just read caught my attention (To see the article which stimulated this entry, click here.).

It outlined the need for reliability in consumer electronics. As a recent purchaser of the X-Box 360 who cried when I saw the "red ring of death", I'm glad that others in the industry are emphasizing the importance of thoroughly testing electronics before releasing them to the public.

For too long, designers have relied on the people who are so intent on purchasing the latest products to market that they are buying products even when they have known reliability issues. This cannot continue because even getting burned once will be enough to turn most consumers to another brand the next time they go to buy.

A particular sticking point for me working on thermal solutions for consumer electronics is that the thermal solution is an afterthought in many designs. Lots of energy is placed at the design stage for the semiconductor and the board layout, but it isn't until all decisions are finalized that thermal needs are considered.

Hopefully this is turning around though. Recently I have seen a lot of inquiries on thermal interface materials for burn-in applications. This is one of the most important reliability tests for electronics. It puts designs through accelerated-lifetime tests for the best performance under worst-case conditions—high temperature and humidity.

Many applications, primarily those for burn-in, require that a single thermal interface material survive multiple insertions. In response to this demand, one focus in our thermal lab has been testing many different materials in these applications. The outcome has been that we have proven our metal interface materials capable of withstanding thousands of insertions. The best thermal interface materials we have found for these applications were those leaving little to no residue and those which were inherently stiff. These materials were the most robust due to their low resistance and stiffness. Soft interfaces such as pure indium provided the best thermal performance between intertions 50-500, but were not as reliable as others long-term because of its malleability. Indium will retain its compressed image even after it has been removed from the chip it was compressed on.

image courtesy of affordablebeds.com

Folks,

A few days ago, I promised more from Tim Jensen on Halide-free soldering. Here it is:

DR: There is a significant push in the electronics industry toward
halogen-free. How does that affect solder suppliers?

Tim: There is a strong environmental push to produce "halogen-free
electronics" and take the brominated flame retardants out of the PCB.
Halogenated flame retardants tend to create a toxic smoke when burned.
Although the halogen-free push was based on the flame retardants in the
circuit boards, the halides in fluxes also came under this same scrutiny.
In fact, halide-bearing fluxes don't produce the same toxic gas as the flame
retardants do.

With respect to solders and fluxes, halides (halogenated compounds,
typically bromides or chlorides, found in fluxes) have been used for years
to reduce oxides. In the past, there was concern that ionic halide residues
left on the PCB could cause corrosion or dendritic growth in the solder
joint, so the solder industry began using covalently bonded halides, which
are very stable.

Halide-free fluxes are available, but there is a significant
misunderstanding surrounding them. First, halide-free fluxes may not be
more reliable than halide-bearing fluxes. A halide-free activator is not as
effective at oxide removal. Therefore, to obtain good wetting with
halide-free fluxes, more total activator is needed (no halides, but
chemically aggressive). Any activators, halide or halide-free, have the
potential to produce corrosion if not processed properly. The more
activator present in the flux, the greater the risk. Since halide-free
fluxes typically have more activator, the reliability risk is greater.

The second important point regards measuring the halides in fluxes. The
standard test methods currently in use, titration and ion chromatography,
are effective at detecting only ionic, not covalently bonded, halides.
Therefore, the statement, "halide-free by titration" simply means that there
are no ionic halides. If you encounter this claim, remember, the flux might
contain a high quantity of covalently bonded halides. The best method for
true halide detection is an oxygen bomb test followed by ion chromatography.
The oxygen bomb burns off all organic content, breaks the halide bonds, and
leaves behind an ash consisting of the halides and other inorganic content.
Testing this ash gives the true halide content of the flux.

Although the amount of halide allowed in "halogen-free" is still up for
debate, it will probably end up somewhere between 300-900ppm. To show the
insignificance of fluxes on these criteria, assume that a circuit board
weighs 300g. On that board, about 1g of solder paste is printed, of which
only 50% is the flux. Therefore, the board has 0.5g of flux. A
halide-contained flux must have less than 5,000ppm of halide, which, even at
its maximum, would be about 0.0025g of halide. This results in a halide
contribution of about 8.3ppm to the 300g PCB (below the detection level of
most equipment).

Despite this kind of analysis, the industry still appears to be moving
toward totally halide-free flux usage. I expect the interest in this topic
will continue to grow.

PS; The Photo is of Tim at the Great Wall in China

For my first entry, I'd like to say a word about the differences between Halogen-Free and Halide-Free, for both fluxes and solder pastes. The halogens are the group 7a elements on the periodic table. Common halogens are Chlorine and Iodine, both of which are used in our daily lives. The others are Fluorine, Bromine and Astatine. (Astatine, per Wikipedia is a halogen, but is a highly radioactive element has a half-life of 125 nanoseconds to 8.3 hours, depending on the isotope. It is the rarest naturally occurring element with less than one ounce available in the earth's crust at any given time. I don't think you will find this halide or halogen in solder paste paste.) What makes halogens so special is that in their ionic forms (halides), they are all missing a single electron, which it wants REALLY BAD. Making them very active, chemically. But, they form 2 types of compounds, covalently-bonded halogen and ionic-bonded halides. So, solder pastes that my be described as "halide-free" may not be completely devoid of Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine. But, only free of ionically bonded halides. The other side of the coin, is Halogen-Free solder pastes and flux. These are "truly" halide-free, and halogen-free. Which means, that under chemical testing, there is NO Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine or Astatine. Of course there are different ways to test for each, halide-free and halogen-free solder paste and flux, which include Titration, Ion Chromatography, and Oxygen (Parr) Bomb/Ion Chromatography. Here are some details about each (Thank you to Indium's Advanced Assembly Materials Product Manager, Tim Jensen for the details): Titration: Titration can be an effective method for assessing ionic halides within a flux. However, if a solder paste manufacturer decides to use halide activators, they will typically use a covalently bonded halides (which are better for SIR and long term reliability) for no cleans which are not detected through titration. Therefore, a statement such as "halide-free by titration" simply means that there are no ionic halides. In addition, there are many chemicals used in fluxes that can interfere with the test to cause a false positive (i.e. appear as if they are a halide). Ion Chromatography (IC): This is the currently recommended test method used by the IPC J-STD-004. However, it suffers similar challenges to titration in that it is only good at detecting ionic halides. Ion chromatography is also prone to interference, which can cause false positives. Oxygen Bomb / IC: This test method actually burns off all of the organics and Hydrogen parts of the flux. The halides remain in the ash. This ash is dissolved and run through ion chromatography. This method breaks the covalent bonds and minimizes any potential interference to allow IC to give you a true halide reading. This is Indium Corporation's standard method for testing halide-free and halogen-free content. More information may be found at our Online Help: Indium Knowledge Base.

Video, video, video!!! We're hearing this word several times per day lately.

Who can deny that compelling video really tells a story (just ask anyone who is glued to a screen)? But who can honestly say that most B2B Marcom video is compelling? I walked a trade show (Semicon West 2007, in which we exhibited) and started counting flat panel displays. I stopped when I got to 100 (didn't take too long) and I noted how many had an audience. After I saw 100 screens, I noted only two that had even a single person watching them!

It is my goal to meaningfully engage my audience and draw them in. Video offers an enhanced ability to do so (especially when compared to static posters/graphics). But producing a true and compelling video can be very expensive. For my first experimental foray into exhibition video, I wanted to keep the costs low. I turned to some trusted partners and arrived at a solution: motion graphics.

Motion graphics proved to be a low cost (nearly the same cost as posters) approximation of video. So, we used existing artwork, the "Ken Burns Effect", and some fancy intros/outros, and produced Indium's first exhibit "video", which was unveiled at IPC Midwest (Schaumburg, IL) last week and at SMTAI this week (Orlando, FL).

At the SMTAI show I asked my cynical Sales and Product Management teams to tell me their opinions of the new "videos". They loved them. They said that our exhibit looked more interesting and alluring than ever. Additionally, they used the graphics to depict certain products and properties to our customers.

Consider motion graphics as a first step into exhibit video if you want to be cautious and spend money carefully, or if you don't have a video-worthy subject.

I want to thank Alen Smajic and Claude Schuyler of The Paige Group for creating the motion graphics you see on ths page, which we used at the shows.

Amanda and I recently spoke at the last IMAPS workshop in San Jose last week. The event was a great success. I did however take away one thing especially from a young man that presented at the IMAPS about over clocking. The crowd kind of chuckled at this young engineer about the fact that these guys can burn out a processor in a month. Instantly I wondered if a better thermal interface material would help make a difference. In this particular case this young man presented data on a number of thermal interface materials but did not focus at all on 100% metal or fully metallic thermal interface materials. The range of materials was mostly thermal greases that were tested on an AMD lidded processor. I have since given my card to this young gentleman and I hope that he responds to me about testing some of our metallic thermal interface materials.

It was disappointing to me that some of his experiments seemed too radical to some of the participants, and I can understand why. But I must say that the work that some of these guys are doing is a great way to test interface materials and thermal set-ups in general. My opinion was, this guy has his own thermal test vehicle in his dorm. I think there is something to learn from this group.

Suggestions

1) Know your assembly
You'd be amazed by the things engineers don't know about the project they are working on. Depending on the method of attachment, key criteria may include clamping pressure, die curvature, lid surface variation, alignment tolerance, burn-in temperature and time, as well as x and y dimensions of the interface. Do you know the junction temperature your device maintains during operation? A better question may be 'Do you know the junction temperature your device maintains after 2 years of operation?'

2) Know your alloy
Although indium and Au/Sn aren't throw-away materials, I advise getting to know the alloy you'll be working with. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a reflow is worth at least two thousand. Before you even start setting up a new solder process, it is a good idea to find a hotplate, some various surface finishes, and whatever flux/alloy system that will be used. It might sound non-productive, but I assure you that you will learn valuable traits of your materials if you just take some time and play.

3) Know your options
Even if you are planning on running the same assembly process for the next 5 years, you should be aware of the other possible processes. You may be able to take a couple assembly tricks from a different process to improve your existing process. Not all processes for thermal assembly require new materials, it's very possible to decrease your thermal resistance and reduce the amount of steps in assembly while not increasing material cost. I know that sounds a little vague – but that's what Technical Support is for. Let us help you improve your application!

Just read a very cool blog posting by Shelley Ryan on Marketing Profs Daily Fix . Read it to see how a great advertising/positioning/branding idea got even better.

Think empowered and passionate people on a burning mission.

Check it out.

Vlogs (video blogs) are the simple combination of everything bloggy with video. Sounds easy, but it can be pretty rough.

On top of The 4 Ps of Blogging you will require some other resources. But first, a review of the "4 Ps of Blogging":

• POINT: if your blog doesn't have a specific point (purpose), then don't even start. "Being pointless" can be your point (that's been argued). But I don't think that "muse" will last too long.

• PASSION: if you don't have a burning passion about the topic, then don't bother.

• PERSONALITY: if you don't have the personality for blogging, then find something else to do with your time.

• PERSEVERANCE: if you won't be able to stick with it once the blogging becomes routine, after you've battled with writer's block, after numerous distractions beckon, then find a new hobby.

Moving on from there, to become a vlogger, a blogger will need to (to varying degrees):

1)account for any editing they may want to do prior to uploading (skills, software, patience, etc.).

2)obtain extra time to do this work.

3) master a new suite of software and hardware

4)provide the muse, the topic of your vlogging inspiration.

5)hone their artistic skills. After all, the lighting, camera angle, audio, and timing don't frequently fall into place for us, do they?

Don't be deterred, but don't launch into vlogging ill-prepared. You want your first experiences to be rewarding.

Dr. Ron Lasky and I presented at the American Marketing Association's blogging seminar in Boston, MA today (image is of Dana VanDen Heuvel, myself, Toby Bloomberg, and Dr. Lasky). While there I spoke with IBM's Sher Taton (corporate HQ, Armonk, NY). She shared that she had been mentally developing "the 4Ps of Blogging" (four Ps, four P's, 4 P's), but that she was stuck. We discussed our views on exactly what was important and I was able to add the elusive 4th "P". We agreed that the collaboration was one of many great things to arise from this great seminar.

So, what are the 4 Ps of blogging?:

*point: if your blog doesn't have a specific point (purpose), then don't even start

*passion: if you don't have a burning passion about the topic, then don't bother

*personality: if you don't have the personality for blogging, then find something else to do with your time

*perseverance: if you won't be able to stick with it once the blogging becomes routine, after you've battled with writer's block, after numerous distractions beckon, then find a new hobby

There will be much more on this later, but I wanted to capture this awesome development on the very same day that it occurred. Yes! I have the passion.

Thanks Sher - what a great concept.