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miniaturization creates more stress points we must engineer against. Now we have smaller and denser packages with low stand- off heights that lead to high-reli- ability demand for the next gen- eration of electronic assemblies, from basic underhood electron- ics and infotainment systems to mission-critical, fail-safe autono- mous controls. It's where we see a combi- nation of high-reliability solu- tions kicking in. It comes down to how long your component or your board can survive the ther- mal incursions—harsh environ- ments that include vibration and, in some cases, drop shock as well. We also think about elec- trochemical reliability. You don't want premature failures on your board, and when you're looking at the interconnects miniaturizing, you want to ensure that there's no ionic movement that could induce a failure in your assem- bly. Being cognizant of all these factors contributes to that same reliability continuum—every new challenge demands a next-gen- eration response. The next step on this continuum is the challenge due to the com- plexity of the packages, which is where polymer reinforcements provide extended performance. In our experience, you can gain sig- nificant reliability improvement from moving from a conventional SAC-based alloy to a high-reliabil- ity alloy. But if you add any kind of reinforcement, that provides fur- ther improvement in terms of your thermomechanical performance. When you talk about reinforce- ments, you mean underfills and edgebonds? Rehman: We are talking about both edgebonds and under- fills. The choice depends on the application, board design, and type of components used on the assembly. For example, when a BGA package has a die-to-area ratio greater than 80%, espe- cially for the chip-scale pack- ages, underfills tend to be a more viable option and provide better improvement due to the strain distribution under the package. When we look at regular BGAs, edgebonds tend to provide com- parable performance to under- fills. It's primarily due to the pack- age's design, dictating strain on the Z-vector and causing warp- age. In this case, edgebond tends to keep the package in place. With the polymer reinforcement, are you using technology that is low temperature? Rehman: You are referring to our newest product, ALPHA HiTech CF31-4026 Edgebond, which is reworkable between 150°C–180°C. We wanted to be sure it not only contributes toward the sustainability of the