Supply Chain Reaction

Got issues with solder? You’re not alone. Thanks to the anti-lead rules of EU RoHS and the many environmental compliance regulations that have since followed, many members of the electronics supply chain do. But there’s help on the way. The IPC is taking on solder with a new research program announced Thursday.

IPC Solder Products Value Council (SPVC) chairman, Karl F. Seelig, VP of technology, AIM, Inc., and IPC SPVC Technical Committee chairman, Paul Lotosky, director customer technical support, Cookson Electronics, are at the helm of a group of leading soldering manufacturers working on Take Action Limits (TAL, also known as “dump pot specifications”), IPC’s effort in this area.

TAL’s objective: To develop better-defined limits to guide electronics manufacturers on a more efficient use of solder and, as a result, improved yields for electronics manufacturing companies using flow soldering techniques either in selective soldering or wave soldering.

The goal is to provide consistent recommendations for action levels on contaminate of wave soldering alloys. To do so IPC SPVC is evaluating the effect of impurity limits on performance of lead-free solder by conducting wetting time and wetting force tests. Samples will be sent to a third-party test facility to determine if a correlation exists between bridging and copper concentration.

Findings and lists, along with guidelines for solder pot management, are slated to be published by IPC in Q1 2008.

For more information on the activities of the IPC council, contact Tony Hilvers, IPC VP of industry programs.