Indium Corporation Blogs

Folks,

When the industry was preparing to transition to lead-free solders almost ten years ago (can it have been that long), tin-bismuth solders were serious candidates. Their low melting point, of about 138C, made these solders interesting candidates to replace tin-lead solder. However, if contaminated with lead, tin-bismuth solders can produce a eutectic phase that melts at 96C. In such situations the resulting solder joint exhibits poor performance in thermal cycle testing. Since early in the transition to lead-free solders it was expected that there would be numerous components and PWBs with lead-based surface finishes, this property made tin-bismuth solders unacceptable.

Another aspect of tin-bismuth solders is that they expand on cooling. This phenomenon can result in fillet lift in through-hole solder joints.

However, as we are now well into 2011, almost no components or PWBs have lead-containing finishes and many portable electronic devices have no through-hole components, so it may be time to reconsider tin-bismuth for some applications.

Some years ago, Hewlett Packard (HP) had performed work to show that adding 1% silver to tin-bismuth solder enabled this alloy to outperform eutectic tin-lead solder in 0 to 100C thermal cycle testing. Even at these low reflow temperatures, HP demonstrated solder joint strength with SAC BGA solder balls that was 65% that of tin-lead solder. Expanding on this work, Indium Corporation's Ed Briggs and Brook Sandy performed stencil printing and reflow experiments consistent with the requirements of current miniaturized components using this 57Bi-42Sn-1Ag solder. All of their results were promising. Ed presented a paper at SMTA Toronto,summarized the Hewlett Packard work, and reviewed the results of this new work.

So for applications consistent with 0-100C thermal cycling, 57Bi-42Sn-1Ag solder may be something to consider if the high temperature of SAC solder paste is an issue to components or PWBs in a product

Cheers,

Dr. Ron 

PS: Read my follow-on posting about bismuth.

The image is of a bismuth crystal with an iridescent oxide surface from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wismut_Kristall_und_1cm3_Wuerfel.jpg

从去年年中到现在，由于国际原油价格的连续上涨，带动了大宗商品包括金属价格的飙升。近期的利比亚动乱，使情况进一步“恶化”。

我们常有的锡铅SnPb63/37焊锡膏，和无铅锡银铜SAC305焊膏，都含有锡，SAC305还含有3%的银。根据下面的图片，不难看出锡的价格比去年年中涨了近两倍，银的价格更是涨了两倍多。这都使焊锡膏Solder Paste的金属成本上升了。随着原油和大宗商品的价格上升带来各国一定的“通货膨胀(inflation)”, 大家也应该发现，生活中各种商品的价格也有攀升。同理，焊接材料(solder materials)的运输成本，包装成本，劳动力成本，企业运营经费等都跟着上涨。





虽然Indium Corporation的主营焊接材料现在面临一定的成本挑战，但是我们还是采取积极的方法, 在保证品质和服务不变的情况下，给客户们提供物美价优的有竞争力的产品！

Cheers!

Pic:
1. www.lme.com
2&3. www.kitco.com

PS:国内的亲友们都“抱怨”物价的狂涨，美国这里又何尝不是呢。

Folks,

Many people have been infatuated by the price of gold in recent months, but the price of silver has also skyrocketed. In 2000 silver was about $3.00 per troy oz. In the eight years that followed, its price grew to $15/oz. Today it is trading at over $41/oz! This price is almost an all time high, except for the time when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market in 1980. The aberration of their efforts jolted the silver price to just short of $50/oz, but it settled down to $11 or so after the Hunts came under margin call and other pressures.

Unfortunately, the dramatic price increase today, does not appear to be an aberration. Although we may hope that it will soon drop to more historic levels, we may not have reason to expect that it will.

Although not as dramatic, tin and copper have experienced significant prices increases as well. The price of tin has doubled in the last year to $15/pound and copper has increased from about $3/lb to $4.50.  These metals are obviously key ingredients in critical electronic materials such as solder pastes, solder bar, and solder preforms.

In addition, oil, which is used for most organic electronic materials such as PWB resins, flip chip underfill, and epoxy fluxes, has increased to $110/bbl - approaching its all time high of $145/bbl.

All of these price increases have a significant impact on the electronic materials supply chain. Although we are used to price decreases in the cost of our mobile phones and PCs, at this point in time, the price of the materials that go into these devices will be increasing.

As one materials supply chain executive commented at APEX, “It’s not like we can be clever and somehow work around the price increase of silver and these other materials, we have to pass it on to our customer, or go out of business.”

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Folks,

I thought I would take a stab at listing the minuses, pluses, and “it’s a wash” aspects of assembling with lead-free (LF) solder. Here are my first thoughts. Please tell me what I missed or disagree.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Minuses

1.    Pb-Free requires higher reflow temperatures
The Tm for LF solders, in the 217-229C range, has created numerous challenges:

a.      PWB warpage and damage

b.      Component damage

c.      New defect modes such as graping and head-in-pillow defects (although concurrent reduction in solder paste deposit sizes for 0201 and 01005 passives and 0.3 mm CSPs also exacerbate these defects)

d.      Defects related to increased oxidation

e.      Increases in voiding

f.       Increases in tombstoning

2.      The higher cost of LF solder, mostly for wave soldering

a.      It’s not just the silver, tin is much more expensive than lead

3.      Poorer wetting of LF solders, creating the most significant challenges in wave soldering

4.      More rapid copper pad dissolution on PWBs in wave soldering

5.      LF solder attack of wave solder machine components

6.      LF reliability in harsh thermal cycle testing appears poorer than tin-lead solders

7.      Tin Whiskers

 

It’s a Wash

1.      Short-term reliability in consumer product-type environments

2.      Protection of the environment if discarded products are improperly disposed of

a.      Lead in electronics has never been shown to cause a problem in land fills

3.      Since July 2006, about $3 trillion of products have been manufactured with LF solder, with no “the sky is falling”-type of problems

 

Pluses

1.      LF solder's poor wetting enables finer lead spacings (see photo Courtesy of Motorola)

a.      It may be argued that some modern electronic products (e.g. smartphones) could not be made with tin-lead solder

2.      It is safer to recycle LF solders, especially if performed in a non-controlled environment

OK - your turn. Please comment.

Although most scientists today feel that alchemy has been widely discredited, and I have been taught to agree, the idea of it is whimsical and exhilarating.  Of course, I don’t have a hope of changing the makeup of bismuth or transforming it into another metal, but in a modern way, it’s very interesting how bismuth can be used to change the properties of other metals significantly - through alloying. In my last post on bismuth, I outlined its physical properties, some of which I find rather unusual. The main reason I originally researched bismuth was because of its viability for use as a low temperature Pb-free alloy.

BACKGROUND:
I'm not an alchemist like Newton, I can't transmute bismuth to gold like Seaborg, but I can use bismuth and metallurgy to transform an alloy.

I just read a fascinating article about Sir Isaac Newton titled, “Moonlighting as a Conjurer of Chemicals”. Newton is widely regarded as one of the most important people in the history of science, and he was very devoted to his work. The revelation in this article about the depth of his interest in alchemy left me somewhat awestruck. In my previous reading about Newton, I remember perhaps a mention of his interest in alchemy, but I guess I figured it was because science and alchemy, at that time, were fairly closely related. As scholars are starting to translate more of his diaries, they are discovering that his passion was alchemy and he saw it as the path to complete control over the natural world.  

I suppose if it was still socially acceptable to be an alchemist that is what I would have wanted to be; it just never seemed to be a viable option. What I have chosen to do now kind of makes sense considering chemistry/metallurgy is about as close as you can get nowadays. 

Reading this article reminded me of some interesting information I had come across while researching bismuth a couple months ago; namely that, although bismuth wasn’t one of the seven central metals in alchemy, it has an "alchemical" symbol (#52 in the image to the left) and was frequently used, although it’s not known for what purpose. I also came across this bit of information:

“In 1980, a scientist named Glenn T. Seaborg was able to transmute a minute quantity of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, via nuclear collisions.” 

Seaborg is a fascinating scientist in his own right and discussion about him could fill quite a number of blog posts. Is it possible that alchemists underestimated bismuth and should have focused more on turning it into gold?

BACK TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY:
The eutectic alloy of 58Bi/42Sn has been used since the Pb-free transition as a low temperature (138°C liquidus) option for soldering products used at ambient temperatures - such as consumer electronics.  Note the low melting temperature of this alloy, despite the individual melting temperatures of bismuth and tin, 271°C and 232°C, respectively. Although bismuth is typically known to be quite brittle, this alloy has been shown to perform similarly to the SnPb eutectic solder (in response to a comment on my last post, for further data-based information, please feel free to contact me directly). In cases where more ductility is desirable, 1% silver can be added, further improving thermal shock and fatigue resistance. Perhaps the similarity in performance makes sense because of bismuth’s proximity (right next to) lead on the periodic table, although they differ in several other qualities such as toxicity.

The more I learn about bismuth, the more interested I become. Now if only I could find some in-depth alchemical information about it from Sir Isaac Newton.

Folks,

I was at SMTAI (Surface Mount Technology Association International) from September 24 and 27, 2010.   As I mentioned, I chaired a session on Alternative Alloys from 2:00-3:30PM on Tuesday 26^th.

At this session, Greg Henshall presented a paper on the Low Silver BGA Sphere Metallurgy Project. This paper was a collaborative effort of six companies. In addition, Richard Coyle presented an overview of the work of three companies entitled The Effect of Silver Content on the Solder Joint Reliability of a Pb-free PBGA Package. Both of these projects evaluated lead-free thermal cycle reliability as a function of silver content and compared the results to tin-lead reliability.

 

Both papers concluded that as far as thermal cycle reliability is concerned SnPb<SAC105<SAC305< SAC405. Coyle’s paper summed it up the best:

 

Each of the SAC alloys outperformed the SnPb eutectic alloy in every test including the long, 60 minute dwell time test. This tends to diminish the argument that SAC is less reliable than SnPb. (See Coyle’s figure. Data curves to the right are more reliable.)

Henshall’s paper also showed that the addition of dopants, to improve shock resistance, in SAC105 does not reduce thermal cycle life.

 

So, it appears, at this time, that, from a thermal cycle and drop shock perspective, it is looking more and more like SAC based solders out perform tin-lead solders in these two reliability arenas.

 

At the end of the session a noted lead-free curmudgeon came over to introduce himself.  We have had a jovial disagreement on several blogs etc. in the past re: lead-free status and issues, but had not met in person.   I should mention that this person is a college graduate, a former technical leader at several influential technological companies, and he owns a PE license. I asked him what he now thought about lead-free reliability after hearing the talks. He claimed that he is a little less likely to think that lead-free reliability is a disaster. He still refuses to purchase any lead-free products. He buys old units (pre-2006) on eBay.

 

I mentioned that over $2 trillion of electronics has been placed in the field since 2006 with no unusual reliability issues.   I then went on to say that a RoHS-compliant product is much more likely to fail due to a non-RoHS related issue. He did not disagree. So then I asked him why he won’t use RoHS compliant electronics. His answer: “I just don’t trust them.”

 

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Lately I have been researching a bunch of things, one of my favorite topics being soldering alloys. For a long time most solder (nearly all) was comprised of tin-lead eutectic alloy. Everyone was very comfortable using this alloy until RoHS and other changes in regulations started to tip the scales in favor lead-free alloys, requiring a new approach to soldering materials and processes. The industry, since then, has tended toward using tin-silver-copper (SAC) alloys of various compositions; however none have lived up to all of the properties tin-lead solder offered. In fact, one of the most disruptive characteristics of SAC alloys has been the increased temperature required for reflow, therefore the increased temperature requirements for components and boards.

To achieve enhanced properties, and fill niches that SAC fails to satisfy, research is being done on the addition of dopants to SAC solders. This is where I started to become intrigued with bismuth. The more I read, it seemed, the more I was running across this odd metal that I didn’t know too much about (remember, I’m new to the realm of solder). This prompted a small search that yielded some fascinating facts:

·         Bismuth is a brittle metal, often displaying a pinkish hue due to its surface oxide

·         Bismuth has a low melting temperature (271°C)

·         Bismuth expands upon solidification, kind of like water

·         Bismuth is the heaviest non-radioactive (perhaps considered slightly radioactive), naturally occurring metal on the periodic table

·         Bismuth is not usually mined by itself, rather a bi-product of lead, tin, silver, and other metals

·         Bismuth is the most diamagnetic of all metals

·         Bismuth has the lowest thermal conductivity of all metals other than mercury

·         Bismuth crystals exhibit a reflective rainbow of colors because of the varying thickness of oxide on the surface

·         Bismuth subsalicylate, which is the active ingredient in Pepto Bismol, is outlawed in France (due to outdated concerns about it causing encephalopathy)

The most interesting attribute of bismuth, from an electronics materials perspective, is that, when alloyed with other metals, it creates low-melting temperature alloys. In particular, when alloyed with tin at the eutectic composition, the alloy melts at 138°C and displays properties comparable to the tin-lead eutectic. The brittleness of bismuth is the main concern when using it for soldering; however, this effect can be mitigated by the addition of more malleable metals to the alloy, such as silver. Many of the popular bismuth-containing alloys contain a high percentage of bismuth, but work is being done with lower concentrations, yielding different properties. Although the melting temperature will not be lowered as dramatically, bismuth at lower concentrations has the potential to enhance performance in drop testing and thermal shock.

Given rising concerns over the cost of metals, bismuth may become more of a contender in the search for alternative solder alloys. I’ve come to think of bismuth as my new friend, because I think that it offers a different avenue for exploration and seems promising for enhanced low-temperature alloys.

Folks,

Answers to the quiz of a few weeks back......

Phil and Rob had agreed to ask the GM if it was OK to ask the tech and engineers at some of their subcontractors to take the test anonymously. Over a period of two months Phil and Rob got 52 people to agree, almost all of them after Phil or Rob agreed to take them to lunch. They asked Patty to grade the “exams.” Today Patty would reveal the results.

“Phil, this is one of the best bets I have ever made,” teased Rob.

Everyone at the lunch table chuckled, but the look on Phil’s face said he expected to lose. Rob has said that he thought the average score would be less than 70%, Phil insisted that it would be greater than 85%. In asking the different folks to take the test, invariably Phil started asking questions not on the test. He was surprised that no one knew what tin pest was. He even asked how to time balance a chip shooter and flexible placer, only one in twenty knew.

As Patty approached the lunch table, the ensemble held their breath.

“OK, Patty, tell us the bad news,” Phil said in a resigned tone.

“Rob wins, the average score was 58%,” Patty said getting to the point. “Here are the answers and percentages on each problem,” she went on:

1.    What is the composition of SAC305?
96.5% tin, 3.0% silver, 0.5% copper. 60% got this right.

2.     What are tin whiskers?
Tin whiskers are metal whiskers that can “grow” from tin plating on component leads. They are mitigated by 2% bismuth in the tin, a nickel overplate of the lead copper, a matte tin finish, and a few other mitigation approaches. 40%.

3.     In a stencil aperture, what is the area ratio?
The ratio of the area of the aperture opening divided by the area of the side walls. This ratio is typically used for circular and square apertures. It is equal to D/4t, where D is the diameter of square side and t is the stencil thickness. 40%

4.    What is an approximate peak temperature for a reflow oven in lead-free assembly?
Any answer 235 to 250C accepted. 90%

5.     A board is inspected after wave soldering and one lead is not soldered to the board. The board is run through the wave solder machine again and has the same defect on the same lead. What is the most likely cause of the defect?

a.       The solder temperature is too low.

b.      The pad on the board is oxidized.

c.       The preheat temperature is too high.
b 70%

6.     What are local fiducials on a PWB for?
Local fiducials are located near the pads of a component with fine lead spacings to assure accurate placement. 70%

7.     What does "thixotropic" mean in regard to solder pastes?
The viscosity decreases with increasing shear stress. Hence, during printing the viscosity drops as the paste is forced through the aperture, aiding good aperture fill. It increases as the printed deposit rests, minimizing slump. 20%

8.     A chip shooter places passives at a rate of 36,000 per hour. It is placing 300 passives on a PWB, how many seconds will the chipshooter take to place the passives on one board?
300/36000 = 1/120 hr = 30 seconds. 90%

9.     A reflow oven belt speed is 100 cm/min. The PWB is 40 cm long. What is the minimum cycle time that the oven can support?
The amount of time that the belt needs to cover 40 cm is 40/100 = 0.4 minutes = 24 seconds. This is the minimum cycle time the oven can support. 40%

10.   What is "tombstoning"?
Tombstoning is observed when a passive component's terminations experience unequal wetting forces which are strong enough to lift one end of the passive so that it looks like a tombstone. 60%

Overall average score 58%.

“Wait a minute Patty, your answers are too demanding,” Phil shouted.

“Calm down Phil, I gave full credit for anything close,” Patty responded.

In unison, almost everyone at the table sighed “Yikes.”

Patty interjected, “One person who received a 70% commented after completing problem 9, ‘I didn’t think I would need a PhD in math to do this quiz.’ “

All agreed that organizations like the SMTA and IPC were more needed than ever.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Folks,

Ken writes:

Dr. Ron, Thanks for your helpful post. I get close (-1.1%) with your formulas for an alloy I am working with. I think the crystal lattice packing factor for some of the individual elements is throwing off the result since it is different than the alloy. I tried to take this into account, but I get an error on the opposite side (+1.6%) of the actual. Any thoughts on if your formula can be made more accurate by taking element and alloy crystal lattice packing factors into account?


The solder alloy calculation assumes that the metals mix with no interaction, much as miscible liquids, of different densities would.  There are numerous phenomena that could cause errors, they include:

1. Metals can come form different crystal systems. Lead, silver and copper are face-centered-cubic, whereas tin, the base metal for most solders, is of the tetragonal system.

2. Some metals form intermetallics with tin, such as copper and silver.  These intermetallics have different densities than the metals or the resulting alloy.

3.  Grain boundaries can leave some (probably small) empty space.

So I think Ken's 1% accuracy is very good.  The biggest mistake one can make however, is the most common......assuming that the density is simply given as the sum of the metal mass fractions times the metal densities.  To many, it seems logical, but it is wrong. 

My original posting on how to derive the formula for solder alloy density is below. 

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Wandering through the references to indium metal on the internet, I sometimes see it referred to as, "that 'rare' metal."  But is it really so rare?  I recently talked to my colleague, Claire Miko, Director, Metals and Chemicals for Indium Corporation and asked if the reports of the rarity of the metal (like the death of Mark Twain) were greatly exaggerated.

 
 

Question:  The element indium is widely used today in many electronic (glass coating, low temperature solder, hermetic sealing and thermal interface material) and solar applications (CIG solar panels), but very little is known about it.  Can you tell us where indium metal comes from?

Claire:  Indium is a by-product of several base metals such as zinc, lead, copper, tin and other poly metallic ores. It is very abundant on the crust of the earth (much more than silver for example and the annual silver production is at least 40 times bigger than the annual indium production). Geographically indium is abundant in South America, Canada, Australia, China and the CIS, i.e. the reserves are widely spread.

 
Question:     Does indium have to be refined after it is mined?

Claire:    Indium is present in the base metal ores at ppm levels. It first needs to be separated from the base ore and concentrated. This is done at the base metal smelter (for example during the refining of zinc, lead, copper, tin etc). It is then further refined and purified at indium refineries.

Question:  Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is the one of largest indium-containing products today.  How much of the indium mined goes to making ITO?

Claire:   About 50% of the indium refined is used for making ITO. A larger percentage is needed to start the ITO target productions but the sputtering process used (when putting the ITO layer onto the glass) is inefficient and generates a large quantity of indium which is reclaimed and is then recycled and put back into circulation.

Question:     Is there enough indium available to meet the current and future needs of the marketplace?

Claire:   The indium production has always expanded to meet growing demand. Indium production grew from 70MT (metric tonnes/year to over 500MT/year over the last 20 years. At the moment only one-third of the indium mined yearly is being refined in indium metal, another third accumulates in residues that are more expensive to treat but they remain available for future processing, and the last third is currently lost because it does not reach a base metal smelter which has the equipment to separate it from the base metal ore. Investments at these smelters would enable the extraction and refining of these quantities if the need arose.

Question:    Are there recycling programs in place to recover unused ITO from the targets used to deposit it onto the glass surfaces where it is used?  What is the rate of recovery?

Claire:   There is ample capacity to treat spent ITO targets (as per point 3) and the recovery process is now mature and very efficient. The cycle time of this process has also now become very short enabling a very quick return of the refined indium for new consumption.

Question:    Are there any viable alternatives to ITO?

Claire:   A far as we know ITO remains the best material for LCD and other flat panel displays applications. It offers the best performances in terms of optical transparency, electrical resistivity, uniformity of both transparency and resistivity, chemical and mechanical stability, resistance to corrosion, and, finally, uniformity of etching.

The cost of the ITO on 42” TV represents less than $2 and less than 1% of the display cost. It is a small cost to pay to ensure that the quality of the display is maintained. Alternative materials have shown significant process problems with resistivity, uniformity and chemical and mechanical stability.

 

For more information:
www.indium.com/supply.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/indium

Folks,

After my recent post on the fact that there was no data linking tin whiskers to the Toyota sudden acceleration issues, there continue to be more posts saying things like “Tin Whiskers Implicated in Unintended Acceleration Problems.”  Many of these posts link back to the earlier TechEye post.   The basis for all of the posts, is a paper written by EurIng Keith Armstrong .   Armstrong’s paper is titled: “Toyota ‘sticking pedals’ recall is a smokescreen, Their sudden unintended acceleration problem is caused by electronics either due to EMI, lead-free soldering or software ‘bugs.’” It does not appear that Armstrong’s paper was sponsored or refereed. 

Since it appears that this entire wave of reporting implicating tin whiskers, in this important issue, emanates from Armstrong's paper, it is helpful to quote his entire comments on Tin Whiskers:

            "9.0 Lead-free soldering:

In recent years, various countries and trade blocs (including the European Union) have banned the use of lead on electrical solder, on the basis that lead going into landfill when electrical and electronic products are disposed of is bad for the environment, and hence for people.

But many accuse them of being shortsighted – lead has been added to solder in quite large amounts for many decades because it made the other main constituent, tin, behave much better, considerably improving reliability.

Now that lead has been removed from solder, which is now mainly tin (with a little silver and copper added) all sorts of new possibilities arise for short-circuits and open-circuits, and intermittent shorts and opens, mainly on printed circuit boards (PCBs) and mainly associated with small-footprint integrated circuits (ICs), especially ball-grid arrays (BGAs).

Its really just another cause of intermittent or fixed short-or-open circuits in electronic PCBs and modules - but one that would not have been any problem until a few years ago, and so could have caught Toyota by surprise.

John R Barnes has created a monumentally huge library of references to the problems of lead-free soldering, especially tin whiskering, see www.dbicorporation.com/rohsbib.htm. Prepare to be totally overwhelmed!

Removing lead from solder has the following effects:

9.1 Tin whiskers

These will grow out of soldered joints and can contact other conductors, causing short-circuits between PCB copper traces and the pins of connectors. They are often no longer than 0.5mm (about 1/50th of an inch) but can grow to 1mm (about 1/24th of an inch) or longer, especially in damp conditions.

Even at 1/50th of an inch they can short between the pins on a modern integrated circuit (IC). And the process of removing the PCB for inspection can brush them off, so you never find them.

And if you didn't accidentally brush them off, they are so thin they are very hard to see - you need a powerful microscope. They are as fine as the finest spider-web threads, yet can carry sufficient current to short-out the electronics. You won’t see them unless you are looking for them.

Being so thin, they can wave around in the breeze and/or due to shocks, vibration and acceleration, causing intermittent short-circuits.

The iNEMI organisation has published guidelines (www.inemi.org) on how to ensure that tin whiskers don’t grow too long, but I don’t know to what extent these are followed by suppliers of electronics to the car industry in general, or Toyota in particular."

Note that, in this paper,  there is no data or any evidence re: tin whiskers discussed from investigating any of the vehicles in question. All of this paper is an opinion.   In addition, the title of Armstrong’s paper leaves no room for any other cause, it has to be electronics or software. This position is very strong indeed for having no supporting data.

More recently Bob Landman added these comments to the tin whisker discussion:

“the increased use of electronics in automobiles when mixed with RoHS can make for a deadly cocktail. We don’t know what the causative agent [in regard to the Toyota recalls] was, but I have heard recently of new autos showing up at dealers that will not start. That cause has been linked to tin whiskers.”

Bob heard this. There is no report and no data. Until Bob gives us a reference for some analysis and data, his comments are little more than hearsay.  I searched the web in vain to find information related to Bob’s quote. In addition this comment is a little surprising, tin whiskers are usually associated with a certain amount of aging, hence not usually found in new products.   

That tin whiskers exist and cause failures is irrefutable. NASA  has an excellent website related to tin whiskers and failures caused by them. However, the total number of tin whisker fails reported is less than 100. Many other types of electronic failure modes would appear to be much more common.

My purpose of writing this post is not to suggest that tin whiskers are not a concern in lead-free electronics. However, it is a fundamental principle in engineering and science to only make pronouncements on how something failed, when they can be supported with data. No data supports implicating tin whiskers in the Toyota incidents. It is also troubling how readily many people referenced the work of Armstrong without apparently reading what he said and checking his sources and lack of data.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

The image is from: http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/photos/ziff/ZIFF-whisker-3.JPG

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

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If you look for indium on the periodic chart, you will see that it located right by tin (Sn) and lead (Pb) but it is a world away in terms of its properties.

Indium and indium alloys have some unique characteristics that make them ideal for a variety of usages including: soldering to non-metals, low temperature alloys, RoHS compliance, thermal management, battery manufacturing, cryogenic or hermetic sealing and many, many more.

Does your application require you to bond to glass, quartz or ceramic?  Then you know that traditional solders will not work.  But if you choose Indalloy #4 (pure indium) or Indalloy #1E (52In 48Sn) you will get excellent wetting.  If you choose an alloy that includes silver (like Indalloy #290 which is 97In 3Ag or Indalloy #3 which is 90In 10Ag) you will get slightly less wetting but a much stronger solder joint.

Surface preparation along with the proper tools and the proper process are key to acheiving the proper bond.  You can get all the details with our PDS, Bonding Non-Metallic Materials Using Indium and High Indium Alloys.
 

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.

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

Cheers!  Andy

Eutectic Gold Tin (AuSn) with a composition of 80Au20Sn is a unique material.  This particular alloy of gold tin (AuSn) is considered a solder because it has a melting temperature of 280ºC, which is lower than the 350ºC transition temperature into braze materials.  Still, there are some similarities between this solder alloy and braze alloys. The most obvious is the hardness of the gold tin (AuSn) alloy. With a tensile strength of 40,000PSI, this solder is much more rigid than the tin solders most are familiar with. The strength is more closely compared to the silver brazes which melt above 500ºC. 

 

With that strength has come some unique manufacturing difficulties. For many years, one obstacle for implementation of gold tin (AuSn) as a solder preform or wire, was its availability in thin forms or fine diameters. The gold tin (AuSn) is extremely hard and it became brittle as it was handled through manufacturing and would crack if it was pressed too thin or fine.  

 

Luckily, in the 40+ years since eutectic gold tin (AuSn) was first used in electronics manufacturing, processing techniques have come a long way.  Today, gold tin (AuSn) solder can be made into dimensions much smaller than the soft solders, allowing it to be used in applications which require the highest level of precision.

 

Typical dimensions and tolerances of gold tin (AuSn) can be found in the below chart.

 

This chart as well as more detail on gold tin (AuSn) applications are available in the paper titled, “Process and Reliability Advantages of AuSn Eutectic Die-Attach,” presented at IMAPS 2009.    

The binary eutectic alloy of bismuth and tin (Bi/Sn) is well suited for many low temperature applications due to its melting point of 138°C, but the alloy is known for being rather brittle for a solder alloy.
All hope is not lost though - there is a similar alloy, known as Indalloy 282, which drastically reduces the brittle nature of the Bi/Sn alloy with the addition of just 1% Silver (Ag).  This 57%Bi/42%Sn/1%Ag alloy has a 1°C higher melting point.  Although you won’t be able to notice this reflow change, you will immediately notice the physical difference if you compare solder wire made from each alloy.  The Bi/Sn wire is likely to break upon bending, unlike the Bi/Sn/Ag alloy.
The easiest (and most economical) way to experiment with these alloys is with a solder wire kit . With a wire kit you can obtain both wires in the same diameter, and you get 5 fluxes to help with soldering.  You can also get up to 10 different alloys if you want to experiment-your-heart-out and compare Bi/Sn and Bi/Sn/Ag to other alloys like Sn/Pb or Sn/Ag/Cu.

 

 

 

When you think of solders, you generally think of tin, lead, copper, silver.  But have you ever considered bismuth? 

Bismuth as a pure metal has a melting temperature of 271C but when bismuth is alloyed with other metals, it can bring the melting temperature of the resulting alloy down considerably.  For example 58 Bismuth 42 Tin alloy is a eutectic alloy that melts at 138C.  And there are a whole host of bismuth contained alloys that fall below the 100C range.

While this wide range of lower melting temperature alloys will not put them in the mainstream of electronics assembly, there are plenty of other applications including step soldering where they will be very useful.  Stay tuned to this space for more ideas on using bismuth.

For more information, go to Bismuth.

Once you have an understanding of the type of solder needed for an application, (a hard solder such as AuSn for reflow temperatures above 125°C or a soft solder such as SnPb or SnAgCu for lower temperatures) it is time to consider the impact of the substrate metallization on your solder choice. 

Common surface finishes for soldering include gold (ENIG), copper and OSP, immersion silver, tin, and nickel. Each element reacts differently with these finishes and solders should be carefully chosen to match the finish to prevent issues such as brittle intermetallics and excessive scavenging.

The data sheet titled flux and solder compatibility found here recommends solder choices for various substrate finishes as well as incompatible solders.

For more assistance in choosing an appropriate solder for your particular application, please feel free to contact me directly.