Good day Technet!  Hope my friends to the south had a good Thanksgiving holiday!

A question today concerning shelf life and storage.  We build equipment that is expected to be supported for a fairly long time - say a decade or more.  We are also as an industry moving to using COTS (commercial) components to reduce cost.  Fine and good, but the life cycle for commercial parts is often pretty short compared with a military spec'd component - which puts us into a life time buy situation earlier rather than later.

My question:
Is there a good method to use to store BGA type components for long term storage?  E.G. I build board X using a particular BGA part.  It goes "end of life" a couple of years later, but I'm expected to support repair and overhaul for another few years yet, so I buy as many as I predict I'll need.  As the time goes on, the solder balls oxidize.  How should I store the spare parts?  In nitrogen?  Cold environment?  Will it even be a problem?



regards

Graham Collins
Process Engineer, 
Northrop Grumman
Atlantic Facility of Litton Systems Canada
(902) 873-2000 ext 6215

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