Indium to Host Reliability Symposium at SMTA Dallas

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Indium Corporation, in cooperation with industry partners MicroCare and Weller, is hosting a half-day, reliability-focused technical symposium at SMTA Dallas on July 24 in Richardson, Texas.

The SMTA Dallas Reliability Symposium is the most recent in a series of technical symposiums hosted by Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA). The event brings together global leaders to discuss best-in-class processes in their own areas of expertise.

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 presentation will discuss the increasing importance of electrical reliability in automotive, medical, and military or aerospace applications. Flanagan will also review 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.

John Hoffman, Technical Consultant at MicroCare, will present Cleaning for Reliability in Electronics. His presentation will examine how cleaning can be an important tool for enhancing reliability in a production engineer’s toolbox. Successful critical cleaning involves first identifying the contaminant and then selecting the best combination of cleaning fluids and equipment to effectively remove it. Balancing these factors properly can enhance cleaning reliability.

Bubba Powers, Manager, Technical Services for Weller Professional Tools – North America, will discuss the Reliability of Robotics for Electronics Manufacturing. He will give an overview of the process of automation in the soldering workplace, and discuss 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.

]Hoffman has specialized in the field of critical cleaning for more than 50 years. Hoffman helps companies update their critical cleaning processes to improve productivity, and boost quality in a safe, economical, and environmentally-acceptable manner. He is an expert on vapor degreasing, modern cleaning fluid technologies, and thermodynamics. He helps 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 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 Association 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.