From the Show: APEX Best Papers

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

BANNOCKBURN, IL IPC Association Connecting Electronics Industries announced the winners of this year's Best U.S. and International Papers at IPC APEX EXPO, held March 31April 2, 2009 in Las Vegas. The event's Technical Program Committee selected the winners through a ballot process.

"Validated Test Method to Characterize and Quantify Pad Cratering under BGA Pads on Printed Circuit Boards," by Mudasir Ahmad, Cisco Systems, Inc., took the U.S. Best Paper honor. Co-authors included Jennifer Burlingame and Cherif Guirguis, also from Cisco Systems, Inc.

Polina Snugovsky, Ph.D., Celestica International Inc., won the International Best Paper award for "Rework Process Window and Microstructural Analysis for Lead-free Mirrored BGA Design Points." Matthew Kelly and Mitchell Ferrill from IBM Corporation, and Rupen Trivedi, Gaby Dinca, Chris Achong and Zohreh Bagheri, all from Celestica International Inc. shared in the honor as co-authors.

Three U.S. Honorable Mention awards were presented. David Rae, Unovis Solutions, took the honorable mention award for "Optimizing the Automated Assembly Process for Filled Polymer-based Thermal Bondlines." Drs. Peter Borgesen, Unovis Solutions and Eric Cotts, Binghamton University, co-authored the paper with Rae. "Polyphenylene Ether Macromonomers III, Enhancement of Dielectric Materials," earned Edward Peters, Sabic Innovative Plastics, an honorable mention along with co-authors Scott Fisher and Hua Guo, both of Sabic Innovative Plastics. In addition, Scott Hinaga, Cisco Systems, Inc. took an honorable mention award for "Effect of Conductor Surface Roughness upon Measured Loss and Extracted Values of PCB Laminate Material Dissipation Factor." His co-authors were Marina Koledintseva, Praveen Reddy Anmula and James Drewniak, all of Missouri University of Science & Technology.

Honorable Mention awards for International papers were presented to three winners. Akira Takeuchi, Nissin Inc., won for "Effect of Plasma Surface Treatment for Peel Strength of Metallization Based on Polyimide." Co-authors were Takahiro Kurahashi and Kiyotaka Kato, both of K-tech Research Corp. "A Test Methodology for Copper Dissolution in Lead-free Alloys" earned Christopher Hunt, National Physical Laboratory an honorable mention along with co-author Davide Di Maio, also of National Physical Laboratory. Gerjan Diepstraten, Cobar Europe B.V., took an honorable mention for "Estimating Stencil Life and Ideal Heating Profile of Solder Paste Using Advanced Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis." His co-author was Dr. Di Wu, also of Cobar Europe B.V.

Nearly 100 papers were submitted for consideration as Best Paper. Papers were evaluated on their technical content, originality, test procedures and data used to deduce conclusions, quality of illustrations and the clarity and professionalism of writing. Each team of Best Paper authors will receive a $1,000 honorarium and all authors will be presented with a commemorative plaque for their achievement.

Copies of the winning papers are included in the 2009 Technical Conference Proceedings. The Proceedings CD is available for purchase through the IPC online store, on www.ipc.org.