Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1534953
without you having to figure out where the failure happened on a very large set of solder joints. We also have a much more sen- sitive capability of measuring resis- tance than the other testers out there. For a long time, the automotive busi- ness realized that testing daisy chains only really allows you to see the end of the via structure's failure. There's so much resistance of the circuits that connect the via structures together that when a single or a few via struc- tures start to fail, they don't change the resistance enough for you to see it. It's just noise. You only see it when one or more pop open. That's a good set of information, but a lot of people want to see how it fails, and the only way to do that is to mea- sure one via structure, which is typ- ically less than a milliohm of resis- tance. It's a really tough measurement to make, so there are a lot of innova- tions that we did with the HATS² test system to be able to measure below a milliohm and to increase measure- ment precision and minimize drift. All our measurement and switching equipment is climate-controlled and kept at a very constant temperature so we minimize the drift during the test and measurement. We use mechan- ical wetted relays that allow a higher current to go through, assuring more accurate measurement than any other tester that's out there today. Those little things increase the qual- ity of the data that's coming back so you can make better decisions. Do you already have ideas for improve- ments and the next generation? Neves: Assessing via structure qual- ity and reliability using multiple reflow simulations followed by thermal shock is the next phase. Using the microsec- tion, nothing has really changed for the past 40 years. Some IPC documents are addressing it. With HATS², we can start evaluating and improving the reli- ability and robustness of solder joints more rapidly and economically than what is currently being done. It will become more important and valuable because now you have other ways of making inter- connections to your components that don't necessarily involve via structures and differ- ent ways that compo- nents can attach to the supporting base structure. There is the movement toward glass substrates that will create some inter- esting interconnec- tion issues because they don't have any through-holes. As the industry moves, we will move with it. I plan to attack some of the old stuff that just hasn't been fixed in a long time. If you want reliability of via structures or solder joints, you have to wait a month for traditional cham- ber results—and nobody waits that long. If you want it in a few days, you