SOLAR

This blog has been in existence for a little over two years now, and we would like to thank our readers for the feedback and inquiries you have provided. I welcome your comments on what you would like from us. Leave a comment below, or email me at jhisert@indium.com.

And now a look back on past topics of interest:
 

Grid Ink, Silver Ink, Conductive Ink

Bismuth/Tin Tabbing Ribbon, A Low Temperature Pb-Free Alternative

Plated Metallization for C-Si Solar Cells

Increase Packing Density for Evaporation Crucibles

Photon’s 5th PV Tech Show 2010 USA

IPC Solar Standards Update

Solder Shelf Life as Explained by Eric Bastow

Tips to Speed Your Solder and Flux Selection

What's Happening in the Technical Service Department 

A Day in the Life of a Tech Guy

A Clean Laboratory

CIGS for Beginners

3rd Renewable Energy Expo 2009 in New Delhi, India

Solar Products and Representatives

Kleenex®, Google™, FedX®, CIGs?

Indium Solar Products Reunited

Trade Show Visitors Love the Ground Floor

Solar Product Data Sheets

Intersolar 2009 – What Barrier to CIGS Technology?

Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems - Will they reach 50% Efficiency?

Standards for Solar Panel Manufacturing

Solar Panel Certification: “Barrier and Benefit” Reviewed by Eric Bastow

Low Temperature Metallization Paste

What Will Your Interest Be At InterSolar? Meet the Bloggers And Let Us Know.

Share Your Solar Images

SAC vs. Sn/Ag for Solar Soldering

Solder Thickness for PV Interconnect

What is Bus Ribbon?

Standard PV Interconnect Ribbon Sizes

No-Clean Flux

Photovoltaics in EMS Sector

PV Interconnect Products

Eric Bastow - East Coast Technical Support

Mario Scalzo - West Coast Technical Support

Au/Sn Sputtering Targets

SMT Goes Solar

A Trip Down Memory Lane 

More Information About Metallization Paste

A year in the Life of a Solar Blog

CIG Target

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition

TCO choices for CIGS manufacturing 

CIGS Absorber Layer Electroplating

No Slump Metallization Paste

Meet the Bloggers

CIGS - Can sputtering make a breakthrough?

Fluxes for Soldering Tabbing Ribbon

Computer Brain vs. Solar Photovoltaic

Beam it down from space

Selection of the Optimum Lead-Free Solder for Solar Tabbing Ribbon

Record Makes Thin-Film Solar Cell Competitive with Silicon Efficiency

Why Thin-Film Solar Cells are Here to Stay

Hot Rooftops to Flashy Digital Cameras

Synchronize Your Solar Cell

Solar Conversion Efficiencies  

Government Support is the Key

It's Just a Beginning ...

Whatever you call it, low temperature metallization paste is the silver- (Ag) filled material used to electrically connect thin film solar cells. So why does it go by so many names? Perhaps because it is a relatively new product with no industry standards referencing it. (Feel free to leave a comment if a standard is added…) For a very short period of time, silver ink was planned to be included in the upcoming IPC solar standards: ‘IPC PV Module Technical Standards Committee’.  It was recently decided that the standards would initially focus on C-Si module assembly – thin film assembly may be included in later revisions.

So who is right? Honestly, we are quite accustomed to calling it ‘metallization paste’, but we know what you are talking about if you use the other terms or describe what you are looking for. I think that in future blog posts you will notice Indium Corporation using the terms ‘grid ink’, ‘silver ink’, and ‘conductive ink’ much more to describe the material, since all those terms are correct. What term do you think best describes this material?

Okay, I have a confession to make: I’ve always had a grudge against bismuth, ever since I started recommending thermal interface materials. It is the polar opposite of my favorite element (indium) – well, as much as a metal can be. These 2 elements (indium or bismuth) are added to almost every solder with a lower solidus temperature than Sn/Pb. The choice for most thermal interface applications that I have dealt with was indium or an indium alloy, but now I am starting to become very fond of my new friend bismuth for solar applications.

Bi/Sn and Bi/Sn/Ag are now available as a solderable coating for our Tabbing and Bus Ribbon. After getting a feel for this material, I must say I find it pretty nice to work with. Both alloys melt at 138-139degC, with the Bi/Sn/Ag having a greater tensile strength (which is not necessarily a good thing for tabbing ribbon). With a little bit of lab time I have isolated an existing flux that works very well with these alloys. So far GS-5454 has formed good solder bonds down to 160degC. This is great news, because it allows you to minimize the reflow temperature (and stresses) of your C-Si/tabbing ribbon interface. 

~Jim

The latest issue of Circuitree Magazine came to me the other day and it was clear that this issue had a solar assembly focus. The cover story “Photovoltaics, The Great Illumination” was admittedly a very generic title, I didn’t expect much more than some ‘bright future of solar’ marketing outlook – I’m so glad I kept reading.

The article (written by Don Cullen of MacDermid) was a well-written introduction to Nickel, Copper, Silver plated conductors as a replacement for the traditional Ag/glass frit material and process. This metallization offers various benefits as outlined in the article, but why am I so excited? The same reason you should be, this should be an easier and more reliable surface for soldering tabbing ribbon. Instead of the partial Ag surface, the plated conductors offer a 100% solderable surface.  

This is an image of a nickel seed layer on monocrystalline silicon 'pyramids'.  The first step in building this metallization.
 

Don had this to say about plated metallizations: "The standard method for conductor formation on silicon solar cells is too wasteful, too expensive, and too restrictive for really widespread deployment of solar cells on the world's rooftops.  We need to make the same leaps in technology that the circuit board and semiconductor industry have made time and time again.  We need the elegant design of plated metal conductors.  The superior contact, improved adhesion, predictable soldering, and excellent conductivity of a nickel, copper, silver conductor will allow the strong, consistent, cost-effective cells that will change our planet's thinking about energy."

In an evaporative deposition process, source material is evaporated and then condensed onto a substrate which is being coated. One of the common uses that our solar team encounters is the deposition of indium (provided as shot) for CIG thin film technology.

It’s an easy concept: if you can fit more indium shot in a given crucible, the evaporation process can run for a longer period of time before material needs to be added. The traditional form of solder shot is a teardrop shape, which is easy to produce as a bulk form of solder. 

A newer version of shot is now available without the tail, we call this ‘round’ or ‘tailless’ shot. This material is similar to solder spheres, but not as precisely spherical. Compared to traditional shot, round shot offers a packing density increase of 15% - 20%. This means you can fit more source material in a given crucible, which can keep your evaporation process running longer, more efficiently, and more profitably.

After returning from San Francisco, I’ve had a chance to think about the Photon PV Technology show. This show was hosted at the Moscone Center, which also hosts the rapidly expanding Intersolar show each summer. Other than location and industry, these two shows have little in common.

With only 6 active aisles, the Photon show was easy for most visitors to cover in only half of a day. Since many exhibitors chose not to bring equipment, there wasn’t really a lot to see either. The silver lining to all of this to a visitor – you could spend a good amount of time at almost any booth you wanted without feeling rushed or distracted by a crowd of people. It was a good atmosphere to discuss technology.

I like to see other versions of the products I work with, so it was a let down to only see one booth with tabbing ribbon at the bottom of a display, and no solar sputtering targets (there was 1 target there, but it was aluminum – used to show equipment utilization.) 

The price to just attend the show was almost nothing ($29) although that doesn’t cover the exciting part the technical conference. It’s common to charge extra for admission to the tech sessions at shows, but over $600 per day for 3 days (if my memory serves me correctly) is a huge burden on an engineer that needs to justify that cost to his boss. In my opinion the conference attendance was crippled by this cost.

Will this show survive? After discussing this question with others at the show, the idea of combining the Photon USA and APEX shows began to sound very logical. The point was made during discussion, that APEX is starting to have a small solar focus and the Photon attendance seems to fill that need. Another good argument for the combination is that some of the OEM engineers and material suppliers go to APEX anyway, this is a good way to eliminate one costly trip.

Last week some familiar (and some new) faces from the electronics industry met in San Francisco to set standards for the assembly of solar modules. This group, the “IPC PV Module Technical Standards Committee”, is comprised of module assemblers/OEMs, consultants, equipment makers, and materials suppliers. We aim to remove non-value-added processes and provide a common set of terms and practices, including acceptance criteria for different aspects of both incoming materials and finished product.

Much of the work done in this meeting was identifying and specifying defects throughout the module assembly process. This is where a diverse group of engineers really makes a difference. The group, having seen the module assembly process from many angles, worked together to fill in the gaps that would have been otherwise gaping if any one of us had tried to tackle this task by ourselves.  One attendee may know almost everything there is to know about lamination materials, or tabbing ribbon, or cell specifications, or the assembly procedure, but there is sure to be someone that knows more about the other topics.  This group had all those areas of expertise covered.

Pivotry Consulting had this to say about the event:

”The IPC Technical Standards Committee Meeting for Solar PV Modules was held February 1, 2010 in San Francisco.  This new committee is focused on supporting the PV panel manufacturers by providing baseline standards for manufacturing process defects from solar cells, cell assembly/stringing, substrate glass, deposited films, lamination, framing and assembly, junction box, and final panel assembly.  Contributing panel manufacturers at this meeting included Q-Cells, SoloPower and Trina Solar.  Many companies in the value chain included Burkle, Celestica, Jabil, Flextronics, Indium Corporation, Christopher Associates, 2BG Solar, and Atlas Materials Testing Solutions.  An initial and partial defect dataset was also provided by CEP Solar.  This was just the third meeting of the Committee.  The meeting minutes will be provided on the IPC website.  With the recent explosion of panel manufacturers entering the market in the past couple of years (total over 400 worldwide), this manufacturing industry is racing to capture opportunities…and the adoption of Standards as developed from such committees as this one will undoubtedly help these manufacturers be even more successful by reducing costs.”

I feel that this meeting really warmed up quickly, and the new members had a great deal of input. There really aren’t that many events where a new member can step into a group of professionals and feel this comfortable and empowered. We all learned from our peers, and everyone had a lot to offer to the group.

~Jim

I caught up with Alan Rae after a recent IWLPC committee meeting, where he jokingly asked me to, “Stop asking important questions” - LOL! He was kind enough to give me a few moments of his time to share his wit and wisdom, and answer some technology questions that, yes, I thought were kind of important…

[Andy Mackie] You’re increasingly being seen as “Dr Nano” by the electronics industry – how did you arrive as the focus of so much of this technology?

[Alan Rae] At the start of my career I was in the structural ceramics business. In the days of “ceramic fever” in the 1980’s the mantra was sub-micron and monosize (monodisperse) for lower temperature processing and better properties. It worked. Then at TAM Ceramics we made “sub-micron” barium titanate and other ceramic materials but we didn’t call it nano then. When I was at Cookson Electronics in the early 2000’s we started to see nanotechnology emerging from the woodwork with people saying the same about nanomaterials for the electronics industry. Then I joined NanoDynamics in 2004 and realized the scope and potential, ranging from semiconductors to touch screens to printable electronics, to LED lighting, to solar power, to materials such as nano solders, dielectrics, conductors…the list is growing but the leitmotiv is the same – small, monosize, tightly-controlled. 

[Andy Mackie] OK, so Nanotechnology has been a buzzword for quite a while – is there a clear definition yet, and what current uses are there for nanotechnologies that may not be immediately obvious?

[Alan Rae] Well, the definition has been really tough to derive – ISO TC 229 “Nanotechnologies” came up with a definition that one dimension of a particle, needle or plate should be less than 100nm but it’s really tough to define…should all particles be less than 100 nm? 50%? Any? And should it be exactly 100nm? There are a lot of opinions. The Woodrow Wilson Institute lists over 800 consumer products containing nanomaterials on the market now – industrially the products range from semiconductors, to fillers in packaging materials and underfills, to antimicrobial and self-cleaning coatings for phones. Solar panels, especially thin film ones, depend on nanomaterials in their manufacture.

[Andy Mackie] What is in the pipeline for nanotech electronics and semiconductor interconnect materials? I know that nanosolders are starting to gain ground in some areas – what else is upcoming?

[Alan Rae] Much of the work in nano metals is being done by universities and small companies – for example my small company is working with Purdue and the Air Force to develop a novel solder technology – but commercialization will come by partnering with established companies like Indium Corporation, who have the distribution and technical support so that customers will be comfortable with a new material. Cost and reliability are king. Indium is already in the reactive nano foil business; there are existing and near-term applications for silver, silver-coated copper, alumina coated boron nitride and their combinations in adhesives, shielding materials and thermal interface materials.

[Andy Mackie] Several years ago, quantum dots were being promulgated for tunable band-gap detectors and quantum computers. How close are quantum dots to seeing real uses, and what else is on the horizon?

[Alan Rae] Quantum dots are unique and have great potential in medical imaging and as frequency shifters for LEDs. The markets haven’t developed yet because of the cost and because some of the best dots are cadmium (toxic metal) based. I’m working with a group at University of Buffalo which has a silicon quantum dot process that looks like a promising alternative. Quantum dots will have their time…but not just yet. In terms of new developments – they range from core shell and modulated structures for thermoelectric to replacing indium tin oxide with carbon nanotubes or graphene. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative tracked $1.6 billion in Government spending (check out www.nano.gov) in the last year at Universities and small businesses and NSF has set up centers of excellence at Cornell and other great universities that are really working hard to translate science into technology so we can make practical products.

=======

Alan, many thanks for your time, and for sharing your insights with us.

Cheers!  Andy

Living in NY (or anywhere on the East Coast of the United States) and working with the solar industry usually means traveling to California. We don’t have as much sun, and we certainly don’t have as many solar customers, conferences, or venues to learn about solar technology.  Luckily, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, SUNY at Albany (NY) is hosting a 2 day photovoltaic technology course April 20th and 21^st. Ernest Levine is teaching this course, you may know him from his IC Fab training that he provides a few times a year. I haven’t been to his solar training yet, but I know that he covers IC fab in a way that everyone can understand – plus he has the background to answer those tough questions that veterans throw at him. (You know, that one guy in the back that is just dying to stump the professor…)

According to Ernest: “This PhotoVoltaic Technology course covers this subject starting at the atomic level and building up to an atomic understanding of the inner workings of a photovoltaic cell.  Using a comprehensive in part animated slide presentation we will see how the charged particles move as well as cover details of the governing equation and how it came about and important controlling factors in efficiency and manufacturing of both thin films and crystalline Si. This includes amorphous Si, CdTe and CIGS as well as GaAs and concentrated and tandem cells. All you need to bring to class is a desire to learn and I will teach you.”

For more detailed information send him an email at elevine@uamail.albany.edu  or call him at (518) 437-8623.

7:40am

Just got in, fired up the laptop, and made some hot chocolate. This is the best time to get a jump on the day. I clear out my spam that rolled in overnight and prioritize the emails in my inbox. The first tasks that I cleared were:

-         Connected a new potential solar materials rep with the right people at Indium Corporation

-         Recommended the optimal reflow profile for Indium9.88HF PoP solder paste

-         Activated an online Vapor Deposition course

-         Helped specify tabbing ribbon and solder wire for a college student working on a lunar rover project

-         Planned underfill testing for today.

10:00am

After rounding up materials, components, and equipment, Brandon Judd and I assembled some BGAs on a customer's test board. Later today we’ll underfill, and rework some of the components to demonstrate the yield of a reworkable underfill. Each board had 18 components of 2 types. One of them is a very large, coarse pitch BGA. The other one (you guessed it) is exactly the opposite, a small, fine pitch BGA.

Noon

Took a drive and ate lunch.

1:00pm

When I returned to my desk, I noticed a few emails that needed attention. One was regarding the PoP solder paste reflow profile I mentioned earlier. It looks like that will work for the particular application. Another email regarded a barcode design that I am working on for a customer.

1:30pm

Took a call regarding solder sphere attachment. WS3622 was recommended to ease flux cleaning in place of an older tacky flux.

2:00pm

Answered an interesting call regarding thermal management for a cavity CPV assembly. The coolest part – he found my contact information on this blog.   

2:45pm

Worked on editing an interview for Global Solar Technology magazine. I had a chance to discuss many of our solar products in detail, while explaining the advantages of each.

3:00pm

The schedule for the day shifted, so we will reconvene the underfill testing early next week.  This gives me some time to begin the Interfacial Engineering course mentioned earlier. Looks pretty interesting so far.  Spent some time going through the course material and learning some new things.

4:30pm

Posted this blog entry. After looking at the things I’ve mentioned here, I noticed I could tweet all the little parts of my day. If you’re interested, check: http://twitter.com/SolderNinja

Environmental initiatives coupled with the recent run-up when oil achieved $150 per barrell has put alternative energy back on the table. Solar energy was readily considered given its very "clean" and available nature. However, how can the average person, in their day to day life, take advantage of solar energy. Visions of roofs covered with (expensive and perhaps unattractive) solar panels and apparatus come to mind.
Well, an article in Photonics Media called "Painting the roof with solar ink" by Anne Fischer puts an interesting twist on capturing the suns rays for the sake of generating electricity. A company in the San Francisco Bay area, Innovalight, manufactures a solar ink comprised of silicon nanoparticles that can be suspended in a liquid. The "ink" can then be applied to flexible or rigid surfaces by means of "spray painting". Therefore, rendering virtually any surface that is exposed to the sun, a solar collector. Efficiency is said to be on the order of 18% currently. A company in China, JA Solar, has plans to commercialize this technology.
One of the founders of Innovalight, Brian Korgel, is trying to apply this approach to CIGS. Work done at the University of Texas has achieved 1% efficiency. The goal is 10% before going commercial and is anticpated to take 3 to 5 years

For a interesting and very technical introduction to CIGS (copper indium gallium selenium) technology, check out the 3^rd quarter 2009 edition of Photovoltaics International Magazine – page 112.  This article by ZSW is a good primer to get you up to speed with this thin-film technology.  (This blows the Wikipedia "CIGS solar" description out of the water!)

The article is a good read for those of you looking into CIGS technology because it goes well beyond the overview of what CIGS is with discussion of chemical and structural analysis of thin-film cells. 

Why 8 random things? Because that’s the number of random things I’ve got listed below, that’s why – do I look like Letterman?

OK, so I spent this week closing some business in California, and also 3 days at the very well-attended and immaculately-organized IWLPC show, which is starting to mutate into the WLP and MEMS show, in the same way that Semicon West budded into the Semicon West plus Solar Wild-West show in 2008 and 2009. I will say a big thank you to Lee Smith of Amkor and Dan Baldwin of Engent for their excellent and worthwhile training programs - they have a lot to teach us. Here’s some other stuff I learned: 

1. From Dr Rao Tummala’s Keynote Speech: Moore’s Law may be leading the smaller and smaller revolution, and Packaging is severly lagging behind (no surprise to anyone who’s been watching the ITRS for the last five years), but the real surprise is how the overall system that the silicon chip and the package are housed in is similarly dragging its feet. See 7. (below) for some insight into the "why" here.

2. If you are chairing a session, you really will need a good 30minutes start on the session, to ensure everything is in apple pie order. Corollary: Just because the projector is working, doesn’t mean it is connected to your laptop, and my apologies to Dr Raj Gupta of Volant Technologies for slowing him down. He did take the slight delay to starting his presentation in his stride, however, which shows what a gentleman he is!

3. WL-CSP for high-end, fine pitch processors with ULK dielectric layers may never get off the ground, and the competition is cheap, inorganic interposer technologies that have CTE’s close to silicon. Getting low pitch, high I/O conductive holes in glass, however, is no picnic. And would all those muttering about “Flip-Chip on CBGA?!” please keep their comments to themselves: what’s old is new again.

4. If you ask the same question of experts from 3 different marketing research companies, you will get three radically different answers, each within a certain range of “correct” depending on how they view the market. A summary of all of the answers will be very helpful in determining a course of action, and you will learn a lot about the extent to which each organization is blind-sided in their market view.

5. The phrases “killer app” and “smaller, cheaper, faster” have died the death. Yay! I don’t mourn the latter, but I really didn’t get a good feel for what actual DEVICE market need is driving WLP and 3D integration. Yes: Toshiba camera modules in 2007. 8 stack DRAM modules in 2008…but the sensor / logic / RF / NAND / DRAM / MEMS / bacon / lettuce / tomato stack up envisioned for 2013 may be way off base: beaten back by simple throughput, KGD and heat-dissipation issues.

Corollary: Speed of technology change is fine in and of itself, but what concerns me is the VELOCITY of change. As you’ll recall, velocity is a vector quantity, necessitating that you state the direction of motion. Going fast down a dark alley is never a good idea. Speaking of which...

6. DARPA does the freakiest things! Dr Alan Rae (one of the presenters at the Plenary MEMS session I chaired) shared one of the ways the US government is planning on spending our tax dollars. Radio-controlled flies. No Halloween joke. The basis of this project proposal is to put a chip into an insect (e.g. your regular Musca Domestica: the common house fly), and use the energy (motion/heat/electrochemical) generated by a baby fly… OK, a maggot (thank you, John Fowles)… to power the device, which will have nanowires embedded in the insect’s nervous system. These microwires will interface with the fly’s nerves as they grow, allowing you robotic control over the fly, so it goes wherever you want it to.

Over a glass of wine, Alan and I saw some issues here: most particularly as said fly will also have some degree of freewill. One can envision the vexed fly oscillating in some metastable state: torn between the radio-control chip telling it to continue spying on a terrorist cell, and its innate instincts telling it to commence chowing down in the terrorists’ outhouse. “HELP MEEEE!”

7. There is no attempt made yet to shrink the human finger or the human eyeball, so input and output devices will remain severe limitations. Witness a recent text message to my boss on “Fkuxes” this week. Ross Berntson responds immediately “Fkuxes is a new product line for us ;)…” Yeah, LOL! But you see the problem: Blackberry keys and human thumbs…

After chatting to my favorite futurist, Dr Ken Gilleo (pictured right with Leslee Johns) this week, I think we’re safe in assuming that, based on all the above, the next step by 2020 will be DIS. Device in Skull. Bluetooth for the central nervous system: it will look like telepathy. Nanowires will communicate with visual, vocal and aural nerves, and the whole thing could be placed in a sinus or some other pretty vacant bio-real-estate. You can use a microturbine to harvest the energy from breathing. Again, shunting (not merely tapping into, but SHUNTING) and switching the nerves from DIS to brain will present problems, but I’m sure we will see some biotech answers to this – binuclear Schwann cells or some such. An idea not to be sneezed at. Not that sneezing would be a good idea anyway, come to think of it. Which reminds me....

8. Extremely important: Do not make a funny comment to Alan Rae when he just took a bite of dessert. Particularly during the keynote speech. Sorry, Alan. Was funny, though, right?

Cheers! Andy

A big ‘thank you’ to InterPV Magazine for printing our recent article “Tabbing and Bus Ribbon for Solar Assembly”.  They do an AWESOME job of publishing a magazine that is visually stunning.  I swear – it’s like reading a tech guy's version of National Geographic! 

This article was unique because it's actually a collection of blog posts about tabbing ribbon.  They all seem to fit well together, so it was fairly natural.  In that respect, the hard work was done ahead of time.

Here’s a thought: Flash ahead 20 years and imagine you have solar panels on your house.  The energy you produce is used to feed the power grid in your area – along with the other houses on your street, in your town, in your county.  All this power is redistributed back to you, along with energy from other types of renewable and traditional energy sources.  The point is: part of this energy is solar.

You drive home from work each day, pull into the garage, and plug your car into the outlet.  The energy you are transmitting is energy from the grid, a partially solar grid.  With this in mind, do you own a solar car? 

To take it one step further – imagine you live off-grid, in a house 100% powered by solar energy.  Would an electric car be a solar powered car if you charge it from a solar powered residence?

On a related topic:














This is a picture of a solar powered parking meter – not a recharge station.  It did get me thinking though…  Paying for parking wouldn’t be as bad if it gave you something in return.  Maybe in the future the parking meters will also “fill up” your car with energy as you leave your car parked.
 

A reader of this blog recently mentioned: "I am interested in what products could be sold by manufacturer's representatives."  That is a large question, considering the evolution that we have come to expect in the solar industry.  To answer that question involves first breaking up the industry into 2 separate sections, front and back end solar assembly.  Front end assembly involves the process of making the solar cell.  Back end involves connecting cells together and assembling them to create a useable device.

Both front and back end products are going to be geared to the customer's technology.  For instance, if I was purchasing materials for a large thin-film manufacturing company and someone boldly offered me glass filled high-temperature metallization paste, I would tell them to come back when they know what they are talking about.  (In reality, I'd be nice – even though it's an incredibly ignorant mistake.)  With that in mind, let's focus on what back end products a representative might be offering for crystalline and thin film solar customers – assuming that back end begins after metallization:

• Outsourced Solar Cells
• Tabbing Ribbon
• Bus Ribbon
• Tabbing Flux
• Solder Paste
• Preforms
• Solder Wire
• Tacky-type Fluxes
• Tabbing Equipment
• Rework Equipment
• Test Equipment/Services
• Packaging Materials
• Junction Boxes
• Laminate Materials
• Silicone/Sealing Materials
• Passive Components
• Ovens
• Frames
• Gloves / Lab Coats / Safety Equipment

I probably left out as many possible line items as I included, but I hope you get the idea.  Feel free to add the ones I forgot in the comment section below.

~Jim