Hi all ---

The following is a request for an informal summary of printed board (PB)
manufacturers in order to determine the industry-wide availability of
alternative solderable and solderability preservative protective
coatings/finishes for No-HASL processing.

BACKGROUND

As you fellow "technetters" know, there has been considerable
discussions on HASL and other alternative solderability preservation
finish coatings (SPFCs) on Technet as well as trade journals.

I recently had an inquiry from a company that was having problems with
the uniformity and consistency of HASL coatings on printed boards both
IMT and SMT (mostly SMT - traditional side-to-side and land
orientations) and is considering changing their requirements to No-HASL
SPFCs.  They would like to know about the industry-wide availability of
alternative coatings to HASL.  Their goal is to use this data to
preselect some "more commonly available/used" SPFC alternatives and
follow up by conducting a more thorough investigation on the suitability
and qualification of industry alternative SPFCs to their assembly
processes and functional "operating environment" product requirements. 

SURVEY

It is realized that some of you PB manufacturers may have more than one
solderability preservation coating (organic or inorganic) and it would
be desirable to discriminate between high/low usage.  So a simple
high/low (H/L) usage code is included if you need it, with the "H" code
and the "L" code respectively being for >50% and <50% of production
usage.  An "X" code location is provided for you to record availability
(do you use it).

ORGANIC COATINGS:
|_X_|_H_|_L_|
|___|___|___| Shercoat (Atotech)
|___|___|___| Entek Plus (Enthone)
|___|___|___| Ronacoat (LeaRonal)
|___|___|___| MecSeal (Mec)
|___|___|___| Coat Plus (MacDermid)
|___|___|___| Glicoat - F1, E3 (Shikoku)
|___|___|___| Alfa 20 XR (Alpha Metals?)
|___|___|___| Orgosol SMT (Alpha Metals?)

Add others not listed ________________________

METAL COATINGS:

|_X_|_H_|_L_|
|___|___|___| Immersion Gold over the electroless nickel (Aurotech,
              Ronamerse SMT, OROLITHE)
|___|___|___| Immersion Silver (Alpha Level)
|___|___|___| Electroless Palladium (Pallatect, Pallamerse SMT)
|___|___|___| Immersion tin (APT 884, Tinposit, Tinplate RT,
              Chemposit Sn)
|___|___|___| Immersion Palladium (Paladin)
|___|___|___| Electroless Gold over Nickel

The summary of the individual responses will be held "In Strict
Confidence".

The results of the survey will be tabulated, and a simple histogram like
frequency chart will be developed to show the survey results.  The
results of the survey will be made available to technetters.

Lets pick a close date for submission of data, Thursday, April 17th,
1997, 9 p.m. PDT, CA, US.  I'll try to post the data on Friday, April
19th.

All responses will be gratefully appreciated and suffice to say -- many
thanks in advance for those of you who participate in this informal
survey.

Please direct-send your responses to me so we don't plug up technet.

Ralph Hersey
PHN: 510.454.9805
FAX: 510.454.9805
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

***************************************************************************
* TechNet mail list is provided as a service by IPC using SmartList v3.05 *
***************************************************************************
* To subscribe/unsubscribe send a message <to: [log in to unmask]>   *
* with <subject: subscribe/unsubscribe> and no text in the body.          *
***************************************************************************
* If you are having a problem with the IPC TechNet forum please contact   *
* Dmitriy Sklyar at 847-509-9700 ext. 311 or email at [log in to unmask]      *
***************************************************************************