Gents,
We have gotten some boards in house in which the soldermask is
failing.
SYMPTOMS:
o LPI solder mask bubbles off of copper. Looks a lot like SMO Tin
Lead, but it is really SMOBC
o 98% of the time it happens at a soldermask edge. That is to say at
the edge of a via, at a score or route, etc, where the soldermask
stops.
o 98% of the time is occurs in a large area of copper. That is to say
that if we use copper on an outer layer as a shield or a thermal heat sink, and
this large copper area has some untented vias in it, that is where the failure
will be.
o Symptoms appear after wave solder.
o Happened on several board designs from a single supplier.
o Sent PCB's out for analysis to several places who found no inherent issue
with the bare PCB's. Mask adhesion was good. No contamination.
o We repeat the problem in all of our factories. Supplier says they
are not seeing this at other customers.
o Process improvement activities at the supplier seem to indicate that more
attention to scrubbing, drying, and then getting the soldermask on in a timely
manner has improved the situation, but we wish to identify root cause and be
sure we kill the beast.
Comments? Anyone live through this before?
Thanks,
Lang
x5046