Production Begins at SEL’s New PCB Facility

PULLMAN, WA – Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories officially began fabricating printed circuit boards in its new facility in Moscow, ID in February.

The 162,000 sq. ft. facility, which the company began constructing in spring 2021, will house the operation to fabricate the printed circuit boards used in its products that protect, monitor, control and automate electric power systems around the world.

“SEL folks with many different backgrounds, educations, interests and experience teamed up to conceive, design, build and produce these essential components of our products–all on our own dime without any government handouts or subsidies,” said president and chief technology officer Edmund O. Schweitzer, III. “We committed to each other to do it right, and now we are safely producing the highest-quality boards in the cleanest plant, using the least amount of resources that science and engineering afford us today. This is $100 million of employee owners’ money well spent on creating our future right here at home. I’m proud of our entire team and grateful for the economic and political freedom we enjoy in America.”

Sihui Fuji to Build New Plant in Thailand

GUANGDONG, CHINA – Sihui Fuji Electronics Technology announced that it will be building a 500 million yuan ($72 million) printed circuit board factory in Thailand.

The Chinese PCB supplier said the new factory will allow it to respond to the needs of its overseas customers and expand its international business, as its production capacity is currently concentrated in China.

The planned facility in Thailand’s Amata Industrial Park in Rayong Province is slated to begin mass production in 2025. The company did not disclose the targeted design capacity of the plant.

NI Acquires SET

AUSTIN, TX – National Instruments announced the acquisition of SET, a German developer of aerospace and defense test systems and recent innovators in power semiconductor reliability tests. With the acquisition, the companies will aim to reduce time to market for critical, highly differentiated solutions and accelerate semiconductor-to-transportation supply-chain convergence with power electronic materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitrite (GaN), according to a release from NI.

NI first announced a strategic minority investment in SET in 2020 to help aerospace and defense companies solve soaring development costs and integration challenges. The collaboration enhanced a system-on-demand and model-based test approach delivered to shorten time-to-market schedules, reduce program risk, integrate labs, and optimize data and assets, which offered mutual customers more time spent ensuring the quality and safety of future products and less on building test systems. Those collaborative efforts will continue with a focus on sustainable commercial aviation, space launch vehicles, and urban air mobility applications.

Kinwong Holds Groundbreaking for New Manufacturing Facility

XINFENG COUNTY, CHINA – Kinwong Electronics held a groundbreaking ceremony in March for its new PCB manufacturing facility in China’s Jiangxi Province.

Liu Shaobai, chairman, Kinwong Electronics, said the ceremony marks the project’s entry into the substantive construction stage, and said the factory should be finished by the end of the year.

The project will be constructed in two phases, with a total investment of about 3 billion yuan ($436 million). The facility will use advanced technology, intelligence and high-precision manufacturing equipment to create a high-level multilayer PCB R&D and production base with a high degree of automation, intelligence, production efficiency and cost advantages, Liu said.

Study: Environmental Impact of Flexible Electronics Can Be Reduced 90%

ESPOO, FINLAND – A recent study by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland found that environmental impact could be reduced by 86% when additive printing methods are used to create flexible electronic components.

“Traditionally, metal electronics parts are etched out of copper sheets in a process called PCB etching. The process removes unwanted copper from a printed circuit board, so only the required circuit remains while the rest of the sheet isn’t used,” says Liisa Hakola, senior scientist and senior project manager, VTT. “We found that flexible metal electronics parts can instead be printed onto bio-based substrates, like paper or bio-plastic. The process requires less energy and avoids the use of harmful chemicals while drastically reducing material waste and increasing the use of renewable materials. This change in the manufacturing process is the single largest factor in potentially reducing the climate impact of flexible electronics.”

There are additional challenges that still need to be resolved, including the use of silver, which has a high environmental impact. The project found that silver can be replaced with more abundant and less valuable alternatives, such as copper or carbon-based materials, which can provide further reduction to the environmental footprint of flexible electronics. In addition, end-of-life management and longevity of product usability, i.e., better durability and decreased energy consumption, are also key factors in creating more sustainable electronics.

MKS Invests in Package Substrate Research Site

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN – MKS Instruments in March unveiled a significant investment in its Yokohama Technical Center in Japan that will enable an integrated approach to creating solutions for complex package substrate manufacturing, satisfying current requirements as well as those needed for future roadmaps.

The recent investment in the YTC delivers the latest capabilities for producing next-generation package substrates. The YTC utilizes dedicated lasers, optics, and motion systems for high-precision, high-speed via formation in ABF build-up laminates, in combination with the latest process chemistry and equipment for desmear and electroless copper metallization. Using the latest Equalized Curtain Flow (ECF) plating tool, the YTC is able to support customers in their yield optimization and next generation process development for advanced packaging applications.

During a ceremony to celebrate the YTC expansion, Dr. John T.C. Lee, president and CEO of MKS Instruments, escorted visitors around the facility to showcase two new systems that have been installed, a ESI Geode A CO2 laser system and Atotech G-Plate plating tool, as well as demonstrating the Vitrocoat process for Plating on Glass (PoG).

DCP Capital Looking to Sell MFS Technology

HONG KONG – Chinese private equity firm DCP Capital aims to sell its stake in MFS Technology, which makes flexible printed circuit boards, for at least $550 million, Reuters reported.

The firm started marketing the sale in mid-March and will send out confidential information memoranda in April, sources said.

The sale is targeting primarily financial sponsors, but also strategic buyers, and initial bids are expected by late May.

DCP Capital bought a controlling stake in MFS in 2018 from Navis Capital Partners and Novo Tellus Capital Partners for an undisclosed amount. MFS manufactures circuit boards with applications focused on automotive, industrial, medical and data storage end-markets, and has manufacturing facilities in China and Malaysia.

Kulicke and Soffa Acquires Advanced Jet Automation

SINGAPORE – Kulicke and Soffa Industries in February announced the acquisition of Advanced Jet Automation, including the material business and assets formerly owned by its affiliate, Samurai Spirit Inc., a Taiwanese developer and manufacturer of high-precision micro-dispensing equipment and solutions.

The acquisition will broaden Kulicke and Soffa’s existing semiconductor, electronic assembly and advanced display portfolio and increase opportunities in several growth areas including mini- and micro-LED, which support both backlighting and direct-emissive approaches, according to a release from the company.

K&S said the acquired dispense technology currently supports advanced backlighting production in a high-volume, high-accuracy environment and is complementary to its existing advanced display portfolio. Beyond advanced display, the dispense equipment market, which collectively includes both semiconductor and electronics assembly opportunities, is adjacent to several other K&S businesses serving the general semiconductor, automotive, LED, and memory end-markets.

Foxconn Leases New Site in Zhengzhou

TAIPEI – Foxconn Technology Group has leased a 293-acre plot of land to build new smart warehouses in Zhengzhou, the same Chinese city where the company operates the world’s largest iPhone plant.

The 197 million yuan ($28 million) lease in the Zhengzhou Comprehensive Bonded Zone comes after efforts by government officials to convince the Taiwanese assembler to keep its local operations.

The deal was announced days after Foxconn chairman and CEO Liu Young-way visited Zhengzhou, where he met Lou Yangsheng, the Chinese Communist Party’s Secretary in central Henan province. Officials assured Liu that the government would provide comprehensive “services” to Foxconn’s local operations and urged the firm to “take root” in Henan, according to a statement published by the municipal government of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.

Foxconn’s operation in Zhengzhou was severely disrupted late last year by the exodus of tens of thousands of employees and worker protests that turned violent amid a coronavirus outbreak, and the company has since secured a new manufacturing site in Vietnam and invested in its Indian subsidiary with plans to quadruple its workforce in India over the next few years.

Benchmark Hosts Grand Opening of New Precision Technologies Facility

MESA, AZ – Benchmark Electronics in March celebrated the grand opening of its new Precision Technologies facility here. The company plans to invest around $20 million into capabilities and technology at the new facility, in addition to hiring 100 people to support the facility as the company ramps up with customers.

The facility is designed to provide several key engineering and manufacturing solution services, most notably supporting the production of semiconductor capital equipment building blocks and solutions. It significantly expands the existing cleanroom capacity across its Precision Technologies group with additional opportunity for the vertical integration of key processes. Those processes include metal joining applications such as TIG welding and electron beam welding, precision cleaning and other chemical finishes.

“Benchmark is a key solution partner to the capital equipment market worldwide and this new facility will enable us to support our customers in the US and across the globe with next generation manufacturing and engineering solutions,” said Jeff Benck, president and CEO, Benchmark. “The investments we’re making to serve these customers will be critical to meeting the increasing demand for semiconductor capital equipment, especially with the growth in demand for semiconductors and new domestic fabs being built supported by the CHIPS Act incentives.”

BMZ Group Acquires Visatronic

KARLSTEIN AM MAIN, GERMANY – BMZ Group, a specialist in lithium-ion batteries, announced the acquisition of Visatronic GmbH, a Mainhausen, Germany-based EMS supplier.

Visatronic had already been a supplier to BMZ Group for years, and the takeover of the company, which has seen steady growth since its foundation and recorded 2022 as the best year in its company history, offers synergies for both sides, BMZ Group said in a release.

Visatronic will retain its economic independence, and BMZ will integrate the supplier into the group to increase the security of supply. Visatronic will see a network expansion, particularly on the global stage, with regards to opportunities in purchasing, sales and expansion of production capacities. The management, which has been in the hands of the Gebauer brothers since 2000, will remain contractually secured for at least three more fiscal years. Beyond that, no fundamental changes are planned for existing customers and employees.

TTM to Sell Backplane Assembly Unit to Chinese Assembler

SANTA ANA, CA – TTM Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Shanghai backplane assembly plant for approximately $11.8 million, subject to customary post-closing adjustments, to DBG Holdings. TTM expected the transaction to close near the end of the first quarter.

BPA is a small assembly facility that generated $44.7 million in revenues and an immaterial amount of operating income in 2022, TTM said in announcing the sale.

TTM said the transaction is consistent with the printed circuit board fabricator’s strategy to continue developing TTM as a diversified technology solutions leader and to reshape its core business portfolio for improved differentiation, financial stability and long-term profitability. This strategy entails investing in differentiated commercial and aerospace & defense (“A&D”) capabilities.

Following the divestiture, TTM will exit the commercial backplane assembly business.

Zollner to Add 100 Jobs in Virginia

LEESBURG, VA – Zollner Elektronik will invest $18 million to expand in Virginia, including boosts to its electronics manufacturing operations in Danville as well as the company’s U.S. headquarters in Leesburg, adding a total of 100 jobs between the two locations.

The expansions include $14 million to expand manufacturing operations in the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Industrial Facility Authority’s Cyber Park to develop custom electronics products for clients using proprietary technology, which will add 80 jobs. In Leesburg, the company will invest $4 million and add 20 jobs.

The expansion comes after Zollner acquired Leesburg-based Electronic Instrumentation and Technology’s (EIT) electronics manufacturing services (EMS) division last July.

JEDEC Creates New Automotive Steering Subcommittee

ARLINGTON, VA – JEDEC announced the formation of the JC-42.9 Automotive Steering Subcommittee responsible for investigating memory technologies and recommending solutions pertaining to automotive applications.

Following approval by the standards group’s board earlier in the month, the new subcommittee held its first meeting in Seattle, the week of Mar. 6.

Responsibilities of the JC-42.9 subcommittee include generating directional or recommended automotive-specific standards expected to be applicable across different devices or modules, such as temperature range & classifications, telemetry support mechanisms, related firmware, quality/reliability requirements, and test and certification process and procedures. The subcommittee may also research various memory technologies, such as DRAM, non-volatile or otherwise, at the device or module level for optimal memory solutions for the automotive applications. The subcommittee will liaise with other JEDEC committees and external partner organizations in fulfilling its objectives.

Two-Day Talk on EMI Coming to Atlanta

Rick Hartley will present a special live two-day workshop on “Control of EMI, Noise and Signal Integrity in High-Speed Circuits and PCBs” in June in the Atlanta area. As Hartley notes, EMI is a leading concern for electronics designers and a major cause of failures. The seminar has been updated to contain a fair amount of new information that was not taught in years past.

Abstract. When time-varying energy travels in the transmission lines of a printed circuit board, state changing electric and magnetic fields are present. Not properly managed, these fields are the energy source of noise, EMI and signal integrity issues. “Noise” is “intentional energy” that we fail to control and contain. Uncontrolled energy can generate many forms of interference. Some circuits are noisy, others are not. With the right training, the reasons and solutions are easily understood. Compounding the issue are today’s extremely fast ICs. A circuit with 100ps rise time IC outputs can generate very serious problems, whether clocked at 5MHz, 500MHz or 5GHz.

Chapter News

San Diego. We will have a booth at the Del Mar Electronics Show on Apr. 26-27. On April 26, Mike Konrad of Aqueous Technologies will speak on cleaning low-residue solder fluxes and Dave Lackey of American Standard Circuits will speak on flex circuits as part of a PCEA special seminar. Visit manufacturing.show for details.

Orange County. We had another successful Lunch ‘n Learn event on Feb. 23 and are planning our next meeting in May.

Seattle. We are looking at getting the Seattle Chapter back up and running. If anyone is interested in assisting with the chapter activities please contact Tim Mullin at tim_mullin@comcast.net.

National News

Education Committee. The Palomar College Advanced Course is running well with interest from students. Next year’s Starter Course is also looking like it will fill up quickly, which if it does may result in a second course being offered. An “Intro to Hardware Design” Content is underway and will be having its initial high-level review before the end of March.

This month we will host a pair of free webinars for PCEA members. On Apr. 11, “Reverse Engineering PCBs: How to Recreate a Lost Design,” by Ethan Pierce, presents a skillset to technicians, designers, and engineers that leverages assembled PCBs without design data to be recovered and recreated. Using a set of software- and hardware-agnostic processes, this course analyzes a design of unknown origin and recreates that design with a set of commonly available tools. To register, click here.

China to Remain Leading PCB Manufacturer, Study Says

TAIPEI – The global PCB industry will continue to grow in the near future, and China will hold its position as the center of manufacturing for the industry, according to a prediction from Prismark released by the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association in late February.

The firm forecasts annual growth of around 4.6% for PCB output in China until 2026, and the PCB output value will reach around $67.8 billion by 2027 based on growth in the communications market, computer market, automobile market, consumer electronics and other industries.

In 2021, due to factors such as a recovery in demand, upgrading of technical equipment, and a sharp rise in raw material prices, the output value of PCBs in mainland China grew to reach $51.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.4%. For that year, the output percentage of products from China was 49% standard multilayer boards, 18% HDI boards, 14% rigid single-layer boards and 14% flex circuits. High-value IC substrates accounted for 4% of the country’s output, and rigid-flex boards accounted for 1%.

Understanding Electroless Nickel Thickness in ENIG and ENEPIG

The actual phosphorus content in the deposit must be considered.
by ROBERT WEBER

While the current focus in the electronics industry is chips, components and microelectronics, the printed wiring board (PWB) also plays a vital role. Continued miniaturization and environmental considerations, such Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directives (RoHS), have led the industry to create and improve surface finishes to meet current and future generations of electronic assemblies. Two PWB finishes have become very common: ENIG and ENEPIG. The industry trade association, IPC, released IPC-4552 in 2002¹ to help standardize the global printed circuit board industry around a specification for ENIG. IPC-4556 was released in 2013² to establish industry standards around ENEPIG surface finishes.

The electroless nickel layer plays important roles in the functionality of printed boards. Electroless nickel provides a diffusion barrier between the copper basis metal and the surface finish layers of immersion gold (ENIG) or electroless palladium and gold (ENEPIG). It also provides a stable metallization for wire bonding, and acts as a wear resistant layer for switch pad applications that copper, or other copper basis surface finishes, cannot offer. The formation of nickel-tin (Ni₃Sn₄) intermetallic compounds (IMCs) have shown to offer similar long-term reliability when compared to copper-tin IMCs (Cu₆Sn₅ and Cu₃Sn) that have been the standard for reliability studies since the inception of the electronics industry.³ Both IPC-4552B and IPC-4556 specify the electroless nickel thickness for rigid boards shall be 3 to 6µm (118.1 to 236.2µin).^4,5 IPC-4556 contains an additional requirement to apply a ±4 Sigma (four standard deviations) from the mean to account for measurement uncertainty. (Note: IPC-4552 also provides electroless nickel thickness requirements for flexible circuits. For brevity, this article addresses only rigid boards. The concepts detailed can be applied to flex boards, however.)

‘A Solution for Anybody in North America’

Following its acquisition of ACI, APCT head Steve Robinson is bullish on what’s ahead.
by Mike Buetow

APCT in February completed the acquisition of Advanced Circuits Inc. (ACI), a printed circuit board fabricator based in Aurora, CO, and with facilities in Chandler, AZ, and Maple Grove, MN. The acquisition nearly doubles APCT’s annual revenue to $200 million, and makes the company the third largest among PCB fabricators in North America behind TTM and Summit Interconnect.

In March, Steve Robinson, president and CEO of APCT, joined PCEA president Mike Buetow on the PCB Chat podcast to discuss the acquisition, the pending integration, and APCT’s new responsibilities as one of the largest North American PCB fabricators. This transcript has been lightly edited for grammar and context.

Mike Buetow: Steve, regarding the acquisition, why was it the right move at this time?

Steve Robinson: We’ve been working with the Yacoubs [the directors of Advanced Circuits] and the ACI acquisition for about six to seven months. We started to sense a need for APCT to expand beyond our specialty offerings. We have established a business on the more advanced-technology platform. Speed and technology are what we founded APCT on and as we started to saturate that market and really grow with it, our customers started reaching out for us for more capacity and a better solution in the two-to-10-layer technology, what we consider very low technology.

That, along with what we saw, was very intriguing: [ACI’s] software, their integration model, their online and Internet-based business were intriguing and something that I had interest in for many, many years. Customer demand, a capability and a capacity expansion of APCT that we just didn’t have. When you go into the advanced technology, really HDI-focused arena, which APCT is in, there’s a very large expense infrastructure, engineering and capital expense associated. Having a more-economic solution in that lower technology space was a challenge for us, and this vehicle provided us additional, very specific capacity in the two-to-10-layer technology space that our customers were asking us for. In fact, we saw an increase in demand in the industry in general and we really felt the timing was right to do this. Along with that, in the Aurora facility, we added that capacity, but in the Chandler and Maple Grove plants we also added full-blown government certifications in all classifications and some very specialty and niche capacity to support our country and our government, which APCT has been committed to for years.

An AI Method for Early Detection of Failures Caused by Corrosion on Components During Assembly – Correlated to Field-Failure Analysis Cases

Does lead roughness correlate to corrosion content?
by EYAL WEISS, NAVEH BARTANAH, ALON SHACHAR and MICHAEL DOLKIN

The electronics industry perceives corrosion on soldering leads as a potential risk to the solderability of the components.¹ Several traditional methods assess the solderability of an electronic component.² In the defense industry, samples from a component batch that is suspected of poor solderability must be inspected according to MIL-STD-202, Method 208,³ and SAE 26262 used in the automotive industry. Typically, samples of the tested components are selected and tested under specified conditions to gauge solder wettability on the component leads and the bond strength. The current procedure is practiced on a very small sample of components within a batch under the assumption that few samples represent the entire batch. This is not the case, however.⁴ Yet, the effect of corrosion on soldering leads on product quality is rarely considered, despite numerous evidence and research on the impact of corrosion on the bond strength and its reliability.^5-8

This work presents a method to detect defective soldering leads on components during assembly.^9-11 It demonstrates how components with corrosion and contamination in the soldering leads can be detected early during production and avoided. Failures caused by corrosion on components during assembly are presented and correlated to field-failure analysis cases as proof of the method’s effectiveness.

Inspection was performed based on data processed by novel electronic component authentication and qualification software.¹² The software interfaces with pick-and-place (PNP) machines during production and collects component images.¹³ The images are then processed using a deep network algorithm that is looking for visual defects in the components and flags every suspected component.^10,14 In addition, another network is used to evaluate the texture of the soldering leads and estimate their solderability.¹¹

Real-time X-ray Video Imaging of Pb-Free Solders Under Simulated SMT Reflow*

Imaging of hidden solder pastes under MLF-100s revealed joint and voiding formation mechanisms differed from each of the solder pastes evaluated.
by NORMAN J. ARMENDARIZ, PH.D.

SnPb (tin/lead) is considered the most reliable solder alloy for aerospace/defense (IPC Class 3) applications because of its ability to withstand shock and vibration and mitigate Sn whiskering. SnPb components, however, are becoming obsolete from increasing restrictions of Pb in commercial applications. Presently waived for AD, these solders are increasingly expensive, with increasing supply constraints and reliability limitations. Moreover, current SAC 305 alloys also fall short of commercial performance objectives, especially in automotive (electric vehicle) end-use environments. As a result, the Raytheon Lead to Lead-Free (L-LF) team evaluated two current baselines and seven next-generation LF solder paste alloys based on three major “pathfinder” studies on representative SMT assembled test samples, to identify the best LF alloys for the next phase for production prototypes. An L-LF working subgroup was formed to outline a path forward to better anticipate and prepare the transition to a “pure” LF metallurgical system for circuit card assemblies (CCA). Raytheon has been successfully mixing SnPb paste and LF SAC 305 parts with ~225°C processing temperatures without having to reball from SnPb to Pb-free; this is ~15% of product today. The strategy is to transition from SnPb to next-generation Pb-free solder paste alloys to mix-assemble with SAC 305 or Sn surfaces between 200° and 240°C or melting ranges between 183° and 220°C for minimum transition disruption, but not too low; e.g., low-temp (~150°C) solders (LTS) that risk reflowing material with lower temperature processing used in subsequent next higher assemblies (NHA) (FIGURE 1).

In Case You Missed It

Lead-free Solder

“The Impact of Intermetallic Compound on Microstructure, Mechanical Characteristics, and Thermal Behavior of the Melt-Spun Bi-Ag High-Temperature Lead-Free Solder”

Authors: Rizk Mostafa Shalaby and Musaeed Allzeleh

Abstracts: This study aims to study the impact of intermetallic compound on microstructure, mechanical characteristics and thermal behavior of the melt-spun Bi-Ag high-temperature lead-free solder. In this paper, a new group of lead-free high-temperature Pb-free solder bearing alloys with five weight percentages of different silver additions, Bi-Agx (x = 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0 Wt.%) have been developed by rapidly solidification processing (RSP) using melt-spun technique as a promising candidate for replacement of conventional Sn-37Pb common solder. The effect of adding a small amount of Ag on the structure, microstructure, and thermal properties of Bi-Ag solder was analyzed by means of x-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Vickers hardness technique. Applying RSP commonly results in departures from conventional microstructures, giving improved grain refinement. Further, the grain size of rhombohedral hexagonal phase Bi solid solution and cubic IMC Bi0.97Ag0.03 phase is refined by the addition of Ag. Microstructure analysis of the as-soldered revealed that relatively uniform distribution, equiaxed refined grains of secondary IMC Bi0.97Ag0.03 particles about 10µm for Bi-Ag4.5 dispersed in a Bi matrix. Addition of trace Ag led to a decrease in the solidus and liquidus temperatures of solder, meanwhile; the mushy zone is about 11.4°C and the melting of Sn-Ag4.5 solder was found to be 261.42°C, lower compared with Sn-Ag3 solder (263.6°C). This means silver added to Bi enhances the melting point. The results indicate that an obvious change in electrical resistivity at room temperature was noticed by the Ag addition. Also observed was that the Vickers microhardness (Hv) increased with Ag, increasing from 118 to 152 MPa. This study recommends use of Bi-Ag lead-free solder alloys for higher temperature applications. (Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Feb. 28, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/SSMT-03-2022-0015)