Heat_Damage

Our Guarantee

If a customer buys your product and isn't happy, he can probably send it back for a refund. We think that's a good policy, so we apply it to our workshops. If you are not satisfied, we won't charge you. We've operated on this basis for more than 25 years. No client has ever asked not to pay. We also believe in return on investment and promise to deliver at least 200% R.O.I. within the first year. Typical returns are many times greater and all our projects have far exceeded the minimum target. Those are benefits that will continue to flow in year after year, long after our involvement has ended. Benefits are calculated using hard quantifiable improvements against a baseline agreed on by the client at the start of our activities. Significant but hard to measure benefits such as happier customers due to better product reliability are not included in the calculations.

Heat damage has various forms, many of them invisible. Heat damage like burned laminate and melted component bodies is easy to see. But the damage inside components as a result of hand soldering can't be seen and is more likely to escape detection.

Purple-Plague-Image

Heat from soldering irons flows up component leads and along the wires connecting leads to the die circuitry, causing elevated temperature where the wire is bonded to the die. The high temperature causes rapid growth of intermetallic between the bond (typically gold) and the circuit (typically alumina).

The intermetallic is less conductive than the bond, so switching properties change. Also, the alumina migrates into the ball, creating gaps in the chip circuitry and causing failure. This phenomenon (known as “purple plague” by the component industry because of the Au/Al color) is shown in this photograph. The temperature responsible for the failure was only 235°C, far below the lowest operating temperature of any soldering iron.

The heat damage inside components can range from inconsequential (reduced life span but beyond the expected use of the assembly) to grave (failure at test or, much worse, infant mortality when the assembly reaches the customer).

Heat damage from improper use of soldering irons is a serious issue that generally goes unnoticed in today’s electronics manufacturing. By conditioning operators to use a soldering technique designed for connecting wires to lugs of vacuum tube sockets more than 5 decades ago, the most common solder training causes a needlessly high failure rate. We developed a simple scientific heat control technique that prevents all thermal damage. The technique is not available anywhere else.

What Happened to Heat Sinks?

Concern about heat damage to components during manual soldering ran high in the early days of solid state circuits. Operators were instructed to attach metal alligator clamps to the lead next to the component body; as heat flowed up the lead, it would be absorbed by the clamp (a “heat sink”) rather than progressing into the component. As components grew smaller, however, there was no room for the heat sinks and operators were simply told to “solder faster.” That doesn’t seem very reliable to us, so we developed our own technique that absolutely prevents heat damage. Our technique does not require special equipment (it works perfectly well even with the most inexpensive soldering irons, allowing users to save money on tools). It takes no longer than the traditional soldering technique. In fact, the only differences between our technique and the traditional approach are (1) it prevents heat damage and (2) it saves money on tools, calibration of irons and better reliability.

Why Hasn't Heat Damage
Attracted More Attention?

ESD kills components. But ESD causes far fewer failures than heat damage from soldering irons. So why doesn't heat damage attract more attention?

Anti–static programs require lots of expensive materials. In other words, there's a lot of money to be made by sellers of the anti–static materials. And that means huge advertising budgets.

Heat damage prevention doesn't make money for anyone except the company paying the soldering operator. Component manufacturers actually lose money when there's no component damage. (No heat damage means no sale of replacement components.)

So heat damage — the plague of modern electronics — gets virtually no attention.

Heat Damage From Wave Soldering

Manual soldering, being less controlled, poses the most serious risk of heat damage. However, wave soldering causes heat damage, too. Sagging of the laminate as the assembly passes over the solder reflects melting of the glass fibers (which, in turn, compromises the insulating properties of the laminate). Larger chip components delaminate (crack) when subjected to excessive heat. These degradations occur in the temperature range at which most plants set their solder baths.

EMS clients avoid heat damage during soldering. Scientific heat control in hand soldering is taught only in EMS Science of Soldering (including The Recipe). Our wave soldering process guidelines prevent heat damage, too. We would like to explain why we can help you eliminate heat damage, too. Just wri t e or call (01)727–866-6502, extension 21 for more information.