Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1456062
50 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2022 fun. Our industry seems to like to replay the lessons of the past; gold embrittlement is proba- bly this sexiest topic ever on the planet because we just keep talking about it. Matties: One of the things that we hear constantly is that field defects primarily come down to the solder and solder joints. As an expert, would you validate that statement? Hillman: I do. If you don't want defects, it comes down to making sure a design is producible. For instance, why would you have three dif- ferent product design teams that are using the same part with three different footprints? You don't need three footprints. You need one foot- print because for the manufacturing guys that will be efficiency on their end and uniformity in the solder joints. As my friend Doug Pauls would say, you can design the most beautiful thing on the planet, but if you can't build it, what good is it? is industry no longer designs something, then throws it over the wall. Nowadays, the design teams and the manufacturing teams are very much connected. Matties: With the soldering process, there are a lot of ways it can go wrong. Hillman: I think it's interesting that we had this huge drive for "just in time," "no WIP," and "keep your inventory low." en COVID hits and sud- denly we don't have anything in stock. We have no security backup. at "just in time" phi- losophy works when things are coming together as planned. I think we all underrated how critical it is to a process. Matties: We're seeing a new trend in how we're melting sol- der as opposed to the tradi- tional reflow processes. How do you view these new technologies in terms of market accept- ability and performance? Hillman: I remember my mentors telling me early in my career, "Here's the wave solder machine, but don't pay much attention to it. It'll be gone in about five, six years. We're not using it very much." Yet, we still have wave sol- der. Our soldering processes have evolved to deliver what's needed. Look at vacuum reflow, the new compo- nents, QFNs, and more importantly, LEDs. We definitely don't want voids in the solder joints for these components, and the reflow oven manufacturers figured out how to put a mini vacuum system inside the reflow oven to increase throughput. e assemblers did not want to have batch processes because of pro- cess volume/process flow. e equipment evolves. Soldering is solder- ing. I take a metal, I use flux to get rid of the oxides, and I create an intermetallic connection. But how we do that keeps evolving in response to the new technologies and smaller packages. I think we will continue to see new innovations just because engineers like to solve problems. And we've got plenty of those to go aer. Matties: Some of the core benefits, at least from what I understand, is that when you're using these new technologies, you're not heating up all the material around the target area. You're If you don't want defects, it comes down to making sure a design is producible. Dave Hillman