Updates on Cleaning Standards and Committees

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Graham Naisbitt of Gen3 discusses the changes he's seeing in cleaning, including how the WP-019 white paper has caused a closer look at electrochemical reliability. As a long-time head of committees, Graham also breaks down many of the topics he hopes are addressed at this year’s IPC APEX EXPO.

Nolan Johnson: Graham, even though so many members of this industry know who you are, I’m going to have you introduce yourself again.

Graham Naisbitt: On behalf of IPC and IEC, I am the vice-chair of the IPC 5-30 Committee, which embraces many different topics. I’m also vicechair or chair of both the SIR and the CAF test groups, and some major changes have taken place with the document that is used by the industry on how to assemble electronic circuits.

In October of 2018, J-STD-001 was changed with respect to Section 8 relating to cleaning, where we dropped the number that everyone has been relying on: 1.56 micrograms per centimeter squared of sodium chloride equivalence. The reasons for dropping that are covered comprehensively in the WP-019 white paper, which sets out the rationale for making these changes. It’s having a profound effect on the industry because with new products moving forward, we now have to look more closely at electrochemical reliability. Electrochemical reliability has become more and more relevant as the consequence of miniaturization in circuitry and circuit designs and working effectively in an increasingly hostile operating environment.

One of the challenges that the industry faces is that most process chemistries produced today have non-ionic additives that are used to aid wetting or de-wetting, as the case may be. These are not detectable by the existing or prevailing techniques. Insulation resistance testing, however, is something that has been used and embraced widely for at least the last 15–20 years, and I’ve been directly involved in most of the scientific research that originally kicked off around 1987 when we were dealing with the Montreal Protocol and the removal of CFCs, and that coincided with the introduction of no-clean processes.

To read this entire interview, which appeared in the January 2020 issue of SMT007 Magazine, click here.