Indium to Host Reliability Symposium at SMTA Chapter Events

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Indium Corporation, in cooperation with industry partners MicroCare and Weller, is kicking off a half-day, reliability-focused technical symposium roadshow at SMTA Carolinas’ Expo & Tech Forum, starting May 2 in Durham, North Carolina.

Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) will host a series of these technical symposiums during which partners—global leaders in their own areas of expertise­—will discuss best-in-class processes.

Indium Corporation’s Kim Flanagan, technical support engineer, will present Impact of Exposing No-Clean Solder Paste Flux Residues to a Water Wash Cleaning Cycle. Her paper examines the increasing importance of electrical reliability in automotive, medical, and military or aerospace applications. In it, Flanagan reviews a series of surface insulation resistance (SIR) tests performed on no-clean flux residues that have been cleaned insufficiently and exposed to water wash processes in order to determine whether electrical reliability was affected.

Mike Jones, vice president – international, of MicroCare will explore the Reliability of Critical Cleaning and Best Practices in Electronics. His presentation examines cost-benefit trade-offs to cleaning and how cleaning can be an important tool for enhancing reliability in a production engineer’s toolbox. Cleaning adds manufacturing costs but can speed throughput, slash waste, minimize warranty expenses, extend product service lives or enable new capabilities. Balancing these options properly can enhance profitability.

Bubba Powers, manager, technical services for Weller Professional Tools – North America, will discuss the reliability of robotics for electronics manufacturing. this includes an overview of the process of automation in the soldering workplace, and a discussion of what factors are critical for high-reliability electronics in both manual and automated manufacturing environments.

Flanagan provides technical support and guidance on process steps, equipment, techniques, and materials to customers. In addition, she provides technical training to staff and industry partners. Flanagan began her career with Indium Corporation through the company’s summer college internship program, working in the quality department. She remained with Indium Corporation as a part-time quality engineering technician while she finished her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Le Moyne College and joined the technical support team in December 2016.

Jones has specialized in the field of critical cleaning for more than 30 years. Jones helps companies update their critical cleaning processes to reduce costs, improve productivity, and boost quality while protecting the environment. These products help companies enhance their cleaning processes in industries as diverse as electronics, metal finishing, transportation, photonics, medical devices, and aerospace.

Powers has been with Weller in varying positions of leadership for almost four decades. For the past three decades, he has primarily been involved in technical and application support roles for the electronics market. He has authored several white papers and hosted webinars pertaining to industry challenges, standards, and applications. Powers served as a committee chairperson on the ESD Associations Standards team for ANSI/ESD S13.1-2015 Electrical Soldering / Desoldering Hand Tools. Powers holds a certification as an IPC 7711 / 7721 CIT Instructor. He continues to support the industry’s many challenges for automation and hand soldering applications in the marketplace.

About Indium Corporation

Indium Corporation is a premier materials manufacturer and supplier to the global electronics, semiconductor, thin-film, and thermal management markets. Products include solders and fluxes; brazes; thermal interface materials; sputtering targets; indium, gallium, germanium, and tin metals and inorganic compounds; and NanoFoil®. Founded in 1934, the company has global technical support and factories located in China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

For more information about Indium Corporation, visit www.indium.com.