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There are five commonly used methods of wafer bumping for flip chip attach, three of which are challenging and expensive: Stud bumps formed by ball bonding using gold wire; plated gold bumps using electrolytic or electroless gold; and plating solder…

PREVIEW   By improving productivity and quality, North American electronics assemblers can better compete with China.Here’s how.   The continuing economic downturn has shaken the North American electronics assembly industry, leaving in its wake massive plant closings and layoffs. Many…

Automating and using readily available and affordable solutions can yield significant gains in quality and productivity. For the majority of assemblers, the solder reflow process has been free of innovation since the use of forced-air convection ovens more than 10…

Improving product quality in electronic assembly processes is important to profitability and is especially significant in the highly competitive electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. In practical terms, the foundation step is choosing a process setup that minimizes defects. A process…

Let’s face it, the electronics assembly industry is a low-value-added business. This does not mean that assemblers cannot be highly profitable. After squeezing material and equipment suppliers for lower prices and trimming the work force to run leaner, or moving…

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is… unsatisfactory”–Lord Kelvin“Define, Measure, Improve”— GE Quality Approach Introduction Thermal profiling…

Introduction The Electronics Industry is the most rapidly growing industry in the world, recently passing the $1 trillion per year mark, while averaging a rate of 6% compounded annual growth. Annual price reductions of approximately 6% a year make the…