There's a whole lot of nontechfill in that Press release. Boiling that out what we seem to have is a low melting Bi based alloy and appropriate flux. [I haven't done any research so I surmise this is essentially a Bi/Sn alloy modified with minor additions of Ag and Cu, the Ni would be to modify grain structure. There is probably  bit of patent engineering stuff too. Of course I could be wrong.]
Low MP Bi based alloys were put on hold in the earlier days of Pb-free thinking because of concerns with their interactions with remnant Pb. The thinking was when all the lead had washed out of the system, industry could take a look at them. Then we all went off looking at different SAC alloys and mods to them, seemingly forgetting about the possibilities of lower MP alloys. These guys clearly didn't. Be interesting to see if it becomes more widely used/ brings on similar offerings. The main difficulty I imagine just now is loss of herd protection for first movers

Regards


Mike 
www.chrisfennerfund.org  
www.facebook.com/chrisfennerfund/  

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Hillman
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 12:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] New Solder Alloy

Hi TechNet - I will echo Andy's comments, the SnBi solder alloy system may have some application in some products but a number of solder alloys in the SnBi alloy family have been extensively investigated and found to not be applicable for a large segment of high performance product types/use environments.

Dave

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 2:06 PM, Giamis, Andy <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Interesting.
> I tore apart a certain smart phone a few years back and saw that they
> attach heat shields/heat spreaders to the PCB edge with Sn-Bi.   The PCBA
> was amazing but I thought the Sn-Bi solder joints had wetting issues 
> and many of the solder joints were cracked.  Sn-Bi seems to be rather brittle.
> It would be interesting to see how this particular alloy performs.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Buetow
> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 11:38 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [TN] New Solder Alloy
>
> I have been in touch with Lenovo about the alloy, which is a 
> tin-bismuth alloy developed in concert with Alpha and Senju. There's 
> some info in the link below based on what I've learned.
> http://circuitsassembly.com/ca/editorial/menu-news/27004-
> new-lenovo-lts-lowers-melting-temp-cuts-co2-emissions.html
> Best,
> Mike
> -------- Original message --------From: "Vargas, Stephen M" < 
> [log in to unmask]> Date: 2/14/17  9:19 AM  (GMT-08:00) To:
> [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] New Solder Alloy Got news of this from a 
> colleague. Interesting... would love to hear comments from the TechNet 
> group.
>
> http://news.lenovo.com/news-releases/lenovo-announces-
> breakthrough-innovative-pc-manufacturing-process.htm
>
> Regards,
> Steve Vargas
>