Symposium at Ersa
Symposium „Soldering in Electronics Production”
Soft soldering continues to be the most important joining technology in the production of electronic assemblies. This is due to the special electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of soft solder joints. Over two days, the specialist conference on electronics production at the Ersa Wertheim site imparted comprehensive basic knowledge on manufacturing technologies for soft soldering.
In order to always achieve the highest quality at the lowest cost in electronics production, trends and developments in materials and processes must be included in addition to basic principles. Therefore, the two-day symposium “Soldering in Electronics Production” in mid-October covered all relevant boundary conditions of the soft soldering process. For the first time, the event was held at the Ersa Seminar Center in Wertheim and was jointly organized by several companies – naturally in compliance with a comprehensive hygiene concept.
Interested in the 2022 symposium?
New impulses. Additional expertise. Program expansion.
Secure your place on the list of interested parties today – you will then be the first to find out everything important about the 2022 date; please send any questions to Laura.Schulz@kurtzersa.de or call +49 9342 800-261.
All aspects of soft soldering
More than 60 participants from the DACH region were looking forward to a densely packed program. As moderator and long-time expert in packaging technology, Dr. Hans Bell introduced the topic of soldering technology. In doing so, he highlighted trends and distinguished soft soldering from other areas. Günter Grossmann (EMPA) addressed the basic knowledge of materials technology, the mechanisms of the soldering process and the properties of different solders in “Fundamentals of Soft Soldering”. The theoretical content was underlined with experiments. The technical lecture “Properties of solder pastes and fluxes” by Manu Noe Vaidya (Heraeus) focused on the structure and modes of action of solder pastes and fluxes and explained areas of application including the reliability of solder alloys.
Ralph Fiehler (KSG) spoke on “Properties of base materials”, highlighting in particular solder heat resistance, delamination, torsion and warpage, and solder resist. He also contrasted drying with tempering with regard to the storage of base materials. In his presentation, Kurt-Jürgen Lang (Osram) discussed the solderability of electronic components as well as their solder heat resistance and moisture classification. He also discussed trends in IC packages and passive components as well as special features of QFN soldering. Ralf Schmidt (Fraunhofer IZM) dealt with the layer structure and properties of different PCB surfaces, process reliability and risk factors in “Characterization of PCB surfaces” and concluded with an outlook on new surfaces in the electronics industry.
The second day dealt with soldering processes of soft soldering and stencil printing. Harald Grumm (Ersa) discussed fundamentals and requirements for materials and equipment and gave a future outlook on stencil printing applications in terms of new technologies. Dr. Hans Bell completed the SMT line manufacturing processes with “Reflow Soldering”, focusing on challenges and trends. Using temperature profiles, he demonstrated measurable process windows in reflow soldering.
The THT soldering section was opened by Jürgen Friedrich (Ersa) with presentations on wave and selective soldering, covering fundamentals, trends and differences in the processes – as well as process limits, influences on assembly design, soldering defects and how these can be eliminated. Dr. Thomas Ahrens (Trainalytics) looked at metallurgy in “Hand and Repair Brazing”, describing process windows, associated process optimization and the aspect of heat stress. Finally, in the technical lecture “Reliability of lead-free solder joints” by Günter Grossmann (EMPA), the deformation of soft solders, degradation mechanisms and the reliability of solders were dealt with intensively and in descriptive experiments. The subsequent discussion rounds after the respective lectures always resulted in a lively dialog. During the evening social program at the hammer mill and a dinner on the Ersa roof terrace, the exchange was continued and intensified.