Vendors always seem to advise using a thicker stencil for solder problems, but never claim their product is unsuitable for use in designs with fine pitch components, where a thinner stencil is required, in the spec sheet or application notes.
 
Although I am confident your coplanarity problem stems from Motorola; I did address this in a previous life.  Found the problem with the PLCC program parts used had coplanarity problems, everyone already guessed it, generated in house during programming.  As a young engineer assigned to gather technical data to support the high profile 'quality issue' concerning incoming parts, it was an experience to inform  management that the problem was internal and within an organization overseen by one of the more tenured members of senior staff.  Green and inexperienced I was, and took some darts, but somehow managed to make no lasting enemies.  GOOD TIMES
 
Good Luck, the overprinting strategy is not likely to work if coplanarity is the issue.
Brad Vanderhoof
AITI
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Howard Watson
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 11:17 AM
Subject: [TN] Coplanarity of PLCC's


Technetters,

I have been having a problem with a PLCC 68, manufactured by Motorola, where about 1 out of 100 components have 1 corner lead bent upwards creating no solder joint.  It's usually pin 9 or 61.  I use a DEK 265 Infinity, laser cut 6 mil stencil, and no clean solder paste.  The feedback from Motorola is that the lead they measured from one defect was within their coplanarity specification of .004".  They suggested using a 7 mil stencil, which I tried with no different result.   I also tried increasing the Z distance, to push the component into the paste more, but I don't think there was much of an impact.  It seems like it would be very difficult to push this many leads further into the paste.  Theoretically, with a 7 mil paste deposit, and if the component went half way down, then I would only have .0035" of allowance for coplanarity, which would not suffice for the tolerance of this component, rig! ht?  

My next plan is to overprint the solder paste 20% longer than the pad (.08" x .025"), and use no reduction of the width (I normally use 10% reduction), with the hope that the reflowed solder would "bridge" the gap.  I am hoping this will work, but does anyone have another suggestion?  Do you think its possible to push the component further into the paste?  A step stencil is impossible because of the density, and there is nothing on the PCB with a finer pitch than this component.  Thanks in advance for your help.

Howard Watson
SMT Manufacturing Engineer
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