Al. If it helps here's a section from our customer guide for handling & storing drypacked SMDs. I reckon 8.2 sounds like the likely option unless you have the luxury of a 3-week wait! 8.0 DRY-OUT PROCEDURES SMDs that are not handled or stored within specification must undergo one of the following dry-out procedures prior to reflow: 8.1 125°C Dry-Out Bake Bake SMDs at 125°C (± 5°C) for 24 hours (± 1 hour). CAUTION: Do not bake SMDs in shipping trays with a temperature rating of less than 130°C. Do not bake SMDs in plastic tubes or Tape and Reel (T&R) packaging. Use care in handling SMDs out of their shipping container to maintain lead coplanarity. 8.2. 40°C Dry-Out Bake Bake SMDs at 40°C (+5°C/-0°C) in an atmosphere of less than 5% RH for 192 hours (± 8 hours). NOTE: This bake is designed for SMDs in plastic tubes or T&R, and is best achieved in a dry nitrogen purge oven. Higher temperatures warp or melt plastic tubes and T&R cover tape separates from carrier tape at 60°C. 8.3 Room Temperature Dry-Out Store units at less than 20% RH for a minimum of 500 hours. This drying method is designed for SMDs in plastic tubes or T&R when a 40°C Dry-Out bake is not possible or desirable. NOTE: The customer must apply the same storage requirements and time limits specified in Section 6.0 to all "dried" SMDs. -- Thx & best regards . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Norman S. Robinson Tel. No.: (44) 1355 355349 Snr. Assy. Engr. Fax. No.: (44) 13552 65201 TSG BE/OS PE Email: [log in to unmask] MOTOROLA EKB, SCOTLAND, U.K. Email: [log in to unmask] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ John Brewer wrote: Al Writes: I have 5 year old plastic SOIC packages on reels and want to dry them out in an oven rather than leave it to the pre-heat of the reflow solder machine. Production asked for temperature and time for the SOIC to be in the oven. My initial thoughts are to put them in a cold oven and set the thermostat to 110'C and leave them baking for 4 hours. Al, make sure that they need baking.... if they're low pin count SOIC's they likely don't. Large >28 Pin PQFPs, TSOPs etc likely DO. 110C in tape will likely melt things. I believe the profile for in-tape bake is something like 40C for a week, or something close to that. IC vendor websites will have the appropriate profile. Beware that hi temp bakes can tend to oxidize the leads, so that only one high temp bake should be done (if done in air) to avoid creating solderability probs. Some contract vendors can perform bake in a dry nitrogen environment at high temps avoiding the oxidation issues (or so they say...does anyone have experience with this?). Rgds, John ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ##############################################################