FEATURES

• Cover Story
  Optimizing Pb-Free SMT Process Parameters
  A Taguchi approach reveals the most important process steps and best settings for screen-printing and reflow, as well as the best combination of paste and board finishes for lead-free soldering.
  Antonio Buonomo, Alessandro Lo Schiavo and Fabrizio Rotulo

• Packaging
  A New, Thin High-Performance Organic Substrate
  A new flip-chip package can be conventionally processed and meets lead-free demands, all while surpassing 10 GHz performance tests.
  Donald Banks, Robin Gorrell, Duy Le-Huu, David Hanson and Shichun Qu

• Purchasing
  The Circuits Assembly Buyers' Guide
  Our annual directory of products, services and suppliers.

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  2005: Time for a new model.
  Mike Buetow

• Letters

• Talking Heads
  WKK's Hamed El-Abd
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Focus on Business
  Sell yourselves, but in the right way.
  Susan Mucha

• Global Sourcing
  It's 10 p.m.: Do you know where your boards are?
  Greg Papandrew

TECH TALK

• Screen Printing
  Thousands of dots in a single stroke.
  Clive Ashmore

• Better Manufacturing
  'Tracing' problems.
  Peter Grundy

• Test and Inspection
  Lead-free means more voids.
  Stig Oresjo

• Optoelectronics Assembly
  Manufacturing yields are slowing adoption.
  Michael C. Shores

• Countdown to Pb-Free
  The environmental mandate.
  Robert C. Pfahl Jr.

• New Standards
  What's your equipment made of?
  Fern Abrams

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Assembly Insider
APEX Product Preview
Ad Index
Classifieds

On the cover: This month's top story lists the optimum reflow and printing settings for lead-free alloys. (© Gencay M. Emin)