Alpha's Mitch Holtzer to Present on Minimizing Voiding in Bottom Terminated Components at IPC APEX 2017

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Alpha Assembly Solutions is participating at the 2017 IPC APEX show in San Diego as both an exhibitor and technical presenter.

The paper titled, "Minimizing Voiding in Bottom Terminated Components Using Vacuum Assisted Reflow", will be presented by Mitch Holtzer, Director of Reclaim for Alpha Assembly Solutions, a part of the MacDermid Performance Solutions group of businesses. The presentation will describe a series of experiments using three types of bottom terminated components commonly used in power management applications to determine if using vacuum assisted reflow has an effect on the creation of voids.

"Voids that are trapped in the interface between discrete power management devices and circuits assemblies are, unfortunately, excellent insulators or barriers to thermal conductivity," said Mitch Holtzer of Alpha. "This resistance of heat flow reduces the electrical efficiency of these devices, reducing battery life and expected functional shelf-life of electronic assemblies. The experiment utilized two levels of vacuum in an in-line convection reflow oven using a typical lead-free reflow profile. A solder paste flux and alloy with a known high level of voiding was used as the control.

"Our results show that the use of a low pressure vacuum during the time the solder alloy was above its liquidis temperature resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of observable voids in each combination of surface finish and reflow process conditions used in this study," Holtzer concludes. "This experiment highlights that starting with an alloy that exhibits superior thermal cycling conditions increases the likelihood of minimizing voids in bottom terminated components in power applications."

Speaker Biography – Mitch Holtzer

Holtzer is currently the Director of Alpha's Reclaim Business. He was formerly Global Director of Customer Technical Support, where a major focus of his role was to provide strategic support to OEM, CEM and Automotive customers and target accounts.  During his 19 years at Alpha, Holtzer has has progressed through positions of increasing responsibilities in Marketing, Product Management and R&D. He has presented at over 20 SMTA, IPC, Global OEM and Contract Manufacturers' technology forums.  Mitch is a graduate of Purdue University with a B.S. degree in Chemistry and holds an MBA in Finance from Temple University. 

About Alpha Assembly Solutions

Alpha Assembly Solutions, a MacDermid Performance Solutions Business, is the global leader in the development, manufacturing and sales of innovative specialty materials used in a wide range of industry segments, including electronics assembly, power electronics, die attach, LED lighting, photovoltaics, semiconductor packaging, automotive and others.

With a unique global presence in over 30 locations throughout the Asia Pacific, Americas and Europe regions, Alpha supplies a full line of ALPHA® electronics assembly material products, including Solder Paste, Exactalloy® Solder Preforms, Cored Solder Wire Solder, Wave Soldering Fluxes, Bar Solder Alloys, and Stencils.  It offers die attach product technologies to the power electronics segment in its Argomax®, Atrox™ and Fortibond™ brands.

For the LED segment, Alpha offers its Lumet™ products covering applications from die attach to systems assembly in the LED manufacturing process.  Alpha also offers product technologies for the Photovoltaic segment, including high performance liquid fluxes and solder alloys for producing standard ribbon and bus bar, as well as, solder pastes, cored wire, conductive adhesives and preforms for use in PV module assembly. Also, Alpha’s Advanced Materials unit is the leader in electronic polymers and solder materials for semiconductor packaging applications. 

Since its founding in 1872, Alpha has been committed to developing and manufacturing the highest quality specialty materials.  For more information, click here.