Hi Ingemar, >Aren't IMCs natural part of any solder joint? Strongest link in the chain..if >not Kirkendall rotten. IMCs surely are a "natural part of any solder joint." However, because of the drastically different material properties of IMCs vs bulk solder [strong (with exceptions)/brittle/crystaline vs creep/weak/ductile], the failure mechanism and causal loading would be quite different. We know little enough about Sn-IMCs, and next to nothing about all the new ones. Are we having fun yet? Werner --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------