Capillary soldering system for the material property characterization of solder joints

摘要

A fivehyphen;stage capillary soldering system that can emulate commercial soldering processes in a laboratory environment has been designed, constructed, and tested using Snhyphen;Pb and Snhyphen;Ag solders. The system is comprised of a loading stage, a preheat stage, a soldering stage, a primary cool down stage, and a secondary cool down stage. The thermal history of a given sample is controlled by selecting the temperature of each stage and the sample hold time at each stage of the process. A temperature controller maintains the temperature of each heated stage of the device within plusmn;3thinsp;deg;C of the target temperature, providing excellent control over the heating and cooling rates and the maximum process temperature of each sample produced. The maximum attainable process temperature of the system is 280thinsp;deg;C allowing for the use of a wide range of solder chemistries. A specially designed sample holder and associated measurement techniques allow for joint thickness control to within 0.0010 in. The process control provided by this system has been found to produce highhyphen;quality, reproducible solder joint specimens that are suitable for material property characterization.