Analyser keeps watch over solder paste quality

The G3 SPA 1000 is designed to help OEMs avoid offshore solder paste defect issues by providing quantitative data of solder paste quality on a manufacturer's line.

Gen3 Systems has developed the SPA 1000 solder paste analyser for OEMs wishing to ensure globally recognised, international soldering quality standards are maintained no matter where in the world their products are manufactured.

The Gen3 Systems SPA 1000 is a robust and accurate, integrated soldering instrument that performs all solder quality testing detailed by IEC and IPC international standards including: slump; solder ball; tack and wetting in accordance with IEC61189-5 and IPC-TM-650; the IPC-TM-650 spread test; and Gen3's own Open Time test to check the integrity of solder paste that has been sitting exposed (ie "open") to the atmosphere while "in-use" on an assembly line.

Solder paste open time is a problem for assemblers because individual process conditions that can affect solder paste integrity will often vary from site-to-site, and sometimes, from line to line.

"If the recent woes of US toy manufacturer Mattel demonstrate one thing: it's how even well managed companies can rapidly find themselves in hot water when the offshore manufacturing process goes wrong", comments Gen3 Systems Managing Director, Graham Naisbitt.

"But this is exactly the risk run by Western-based electronics OEMs when seeking to reduce manufacturing costs by offshoring assembly processes to lower cost regions such as Eastern Europe, China, India, and more recently Russia, Brazil and Vietnam".

Naisbitt continues: "Offshoring to a manufacturing facility halfway around the world makes the manufacturing process doubly difficult to control".

"And in the electronics industry, analysis of manufacturing defects shows that solder problems are the largest single cause of failure".

"With surface mount technology now the dominant assembly method, many of these soldering failures can be traced back to poor housekeeping of solder paste creating problems during printing, placement and reflow".

The G3 SPA 1000 is designed to help OEMs avoid offshore solder paste defect issues by providing quantitative - ie measurable and scientific - data of solder paste quality on a manufacturer's line in accordance with every single major international standard soldering paste test from a single machine.

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