Eric,

IMHO, the bad news on vapor phase are the hazardous chemistry and waste
issues. I really don't think it would be economical to use in a high
volume commercial environment. I never heard good things about in line
vapor phase units in a SnPb (or Lead Free) production environment,
regardless of volume.

Good news, by being in an inert atmosphere, which will increase the
process window by allowing less than optimum material to be soldered, I
think it would be worth considering for specific low volume applications
i.e. aerospace. As far as generating a thermal profile, depending upon
the unit I don't really see a problem with it having done it on a
Corpane VP23BU vapor phase batch unit. I found the profile easy to
generate, maintain, and control. It has been a while since I fooled
around with it - I'm assuming that the chemistries can reach the higher
Lead Free Soldering temperatures for SAC.

A neat thing about a batch unit is that by sticking you head above the
cooling coils, you can see the actual soldering process as opposed to
waiting for the hardware to come out of the convection oven. Which
explains a lot...

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Lee Whiteman, PMP
Senior Member Engineering Staff
L-3 Communications East
Telephone: (856) 338-3508
FAX: (856) 338-2906
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
 

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric CHRISTISON
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 8:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Vapor Phase Soldering - The way Forward?

Subject
Re: [TN] FW: [LF] Vapor Phase Soldering






" I should also opine that when soldering RoHS-compliant assemblies
using
lead-free solder paste, you will probably get a much better yield with
VPS than you ever will with convection. Especially in the case of SAC
solders. "


Richard's statement prompts me to ask a related question.

The subject of vapour phase soldering came up in a review that I 
attended this morning on the qualification of a new semiconductor 
package. It was stated that VP soldering would become a lot more popular

in the future because of a number of advantages it has over hot air when

using it on lead free components.

What is the opinion of Technet on this? I'm particularily interested on 
predictions of it's usage for the manufacture of high volume PWB assys 
for consumer electronics.

Thanks,

-- 
Eric Christison Msc
Mechanical Engineer
Consumer & Micro group
Imaging Division

STMicroelectronics (R&D) Ltd
33 Pinkhill
Edinburgh EH12 7BF
United Kingdom

Tel:	+44 (0)131 336 6165
Fax:	+ 44 (0)131 336 6001

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