Bev, What kind of cracked solder joints on ENIG boards? Are the solder joints fractured and you see mostly exposed Ni with small islands of solder stuck to the pads or do the pads show mostly cohesive failures in the solder with small islands or areas of exposed Ni? The majority of what we do is on IAg boards but every now and then we do come across an ENIG board. When we need to replace a component, especially a BGA, our recommendation is not to use solder wick but to pretin the pads with solder to insure they are solderable and then use a solder sucker to clean off the excess solder, so we can use a micro-stencil to print fresh solder paste, place the component and either run it through a reflow oven if the other components can be reflowed again or use a BGA repair process. Regards, George George M. Wenger Reliability / FMA Engineer Base Station and Subsystems Group Andrew Corporation, 40 Technology Drive, Warren, NJ 07059 (908) 546-4531 [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bev Christian Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 11:17 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Exposed nickel and rework TechNetters, Are any of you willing to say what you company has for a policy about reworking returns from the field, where there are cracked solder joints on ENIG boards where, when the component is removed, there is exposed nickel or exposed intermetallic, rather than solder? Thanks in advance. Bev RIM --------------------------------------------------------------------- This transmission (including any attachments) may contain confidential information, privileged material (including material protected by the solicitor-client or other applicable privileges), or constitute non-public information. Any use of this information by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately reply to the sender and delete this information from your system. Use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this transmission by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e 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 or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, proprietary, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any unauthorized use of this email is prohibited. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [mf2] --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e 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 or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------