FEATURES

• COB for SMT
  Metalization Options for COB Assembly
  How they produce different metallurgical interactions with the various die pad and substrate metalizations, the resulting intermetallic structures and growth, and how they impact reliability and cost.
  Mukul Luthra

• Solder Materials
  A Test Comparison of SAC and Non-SAC Pb-Free Solders
  SAC 305 is the de facto Pb-free solder, but many industry tests have failed to take non-SAC alloys into consideration, nor have tests been performed for any other soldering process (such as wave or selective soldering).
  Howard P. Stevens

• Cover Story
  An A-to-Z Guide to X-Ray Inspection
  X-ray inspection is a way to inspect solder joints and locations in a nondestructive manner with products that cannot be inspected optically, such as BGAs and CSPs. It can also be used to investigate the wire attachment quality within semiconductor device packages and certain SMT components. More recently, x-ray techniques have been used for production quality and process control.
  Dr. David Bernard

• SEAs 2007
  BEST: A ‘Funky Chicken’ with an EMS Niche
  How the 2007 SEA winner for rework and repair uses the customer service survey feedback to identify trends in areas that may need improvement and determine areas of strength.
  Chelsey Drysdale

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  The world's waste shop.
  Mike Buetow

• Talking Heads
  Balver Zinn’s Josef Jost
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Global Sourcing
  Verifying material integrity.
  Mike Buetow

TECH TALK

• Screen Printing
  A defective theory.
  Dr. Rita Mohanty

• Better Manufacturing
  Occam? Not quite yet.
  Phil Zarrow

• Tech Tips
  Forming package-on-package PCBs.
  American Competitiveness Institute

• Wave Soldering
  Black powdery oxides.
  Ursula Marquez de Tino

• Process Doctor
  Brushed off.
  Terry Munson

• Pb-Free Lessons Learned
  MCSBs in SAC 305 vs. SnPb.
  Chrys Shea

• Getting Lean
  Business improvement systems.
  Robert Hemmant

• Eastern Approaches (Chinese PDF)
  SMT traceabilities, part 2.
  Cai San Qiang

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Product Spotlight
Ad Index
Assembly Insider

On the cover: Understanding 2-D x-ray inspection. (Photo courtesy Dage Precision Industries)