Due to growing restrictions on the use of lead in electronic products, efforts have been made to find appropriate substitutes. In the advanced IC packaging industry, the formerly ubiquitous, high-quality…

Because EU directives like EU2002/95/EC and EU2002/96/EC prohibit lead and other heavy metals, the solderable coating systems used on printed circuit boards must now be lead free. However, immersion tin…

Modern printed circuit boards (PCBs) are furnished with a huge number of contact points for electrical connections, all of which are coated with metal. The metrological monitoring of these coated…

Determining the coating thickness of standard PCB applications must be fast, precise, non-destructive and cost effective. Ever-higher volumes of standard PCBs are being produced with ever-thinner coatings, often using precious…

To prevent solder from bridging conductive traces and causing short-circuits, while undergoing the soldering process printed circuit boards (PCBs) are coated with a non-conductive lacquer to which solder will not…

As electronic devices get smaller and smaller, conducting paths must be positioned even more closely together on printed circuit boards (PCBs). This is why, today, most PCBs are multi-layered. In…

Conformal coating material is applied to electronic circuitry to act as protection against moisture, dust, chemicals, and temperature extremes. Coatings on assemblies which are too thin or totally uncoated and therefore non-protected…

As the electronics industry makes use of ever thinner coatings, manufacturers increase their demands on measuring technologies to provide reliable parameters for product monitoring. One example is the Au/Pd/Ni/Cu/printed circuit…

For most electronics applications it is prohibited to use solders that contain lead (RoHS and WEEE directives). However, the so-called tin whiskers that sometimes grow from the surface of unleaded…