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FEATURES

  • Cover Story
    The Plexus Rx
    The best-performing publicly held EMS company is not Jabil, Benchmark nor Flextronics, but a quiet Midwestern entity with a primarily North American footprint and “too many” engineers. Why Plexus is our 2008 EMS Company of the Year.
    By Mike Buetow

  • Retrospective
    In Memoriam
    Circuits Assembly recalls friends and industry colleagues who won’t see 2009.

  • Solder Joint Reliability
    HIP Defects in BGAs
    Solder joints afflicted with head-in-pillow lack strength, and the components may fail under minimal mechanical or thermal stress. HIP is now known to be caused by certain process variables, including the BGA ball alloy, reflow process type, reflow profile and solder paste chemistry. The role each of these variables plays, and certain mitigation techniques, are identified in this study.
    By Karl Seelig

FIRST PERSON

  • Caveat Lector
    Foxconn goes south of the border.
    Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

  • Global Sourcing
    Relationship ruiners.
    Jennifer Read

TECH TALK

  • Screen Printing
    Post-print inspection.
    Clive Ashmore

  • Better Manufacturing
    What I don’t like about you.
    Dr. H.J. Zapfardt III

  • Tech Tips
    Solder wetting tests.
    American Competitiveness Institute

  • Test and Inspection
    In support of DfT.
    Stacy Kalisz Johnson

  • Wave Soldering
    Drop-ins are out.
    Ursula Marquez de Tino

  • Process Doctor
    Analyzing SEM and EDX.
    Terry Munson

  • Pb-Free Lessons Learned
    The HIP epidemic proliferates.
    Chrys Shea

  • The Defects Database
    Paste residue and solvent incompatibilities.
    Dr. Davide Di Maio

  • Standards
    All marked up.
    John Perry

  • Getting Lean
    Predicting outcomes.
    Robert Hemmant

  • Eastern Advances (410KB PDF)
    Soldering terminations, part 2.
    Sanqiang Cai

  • Technical Abstracts

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Industry News
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On the cover: Plexus has perfected the art of the workcell. (Photo courtesy of Plexus Corp.)

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