| Thermal Quality Management (ThQM™) |
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Q: If you bear the cost of your product’s failure, shouldn’t you have a say in ensuring it's success?
A: Solder joints “look good” at EMS inspection, but your product fails in the field.
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Evidence has come to light that increased solder process temperatures, specifically for lead free solder, are dramatically shortening life expectancy of components;  failures do not show up during initial test, but much later on in the products life, often 6 months to 2 years later, and well below forecasts that drive pricing and warranty policies.
A comprehensive study was done by IBM to specifically address this issue on components, which resulted in a new IPC standard released Dec 08, Classification of Non-IC Electronic Components for Assembly Processes, J-STD-075. This calls for a thermal classification of components and recommends a marking system to help contract manufactures recognize the limits the component may have regarding temperatures experienced in the solder process.
FACT: ALL parts being processed have temperature limits and until we take the time to profile the process to which we are subjecting these parts, we cannot know if we are causing harm or not. The IBM study has done much to provide such characterization, so there is little excuse to proceed in the dark.
Note: Temperature induced bulging of the capacitors in the image. |
| What is ThQM™? Take The Challenge |
ECD’s Thermal Quality Management (ThQM™) program:
- Focuses on the need and reasons to profile beyond just getting good solder joints.
- Introduces a program and method of dialog between OEM and Volume Manufacture (CM, EMS, etc) around the issues related to the soldering process and its effects on the parts being soldered
- Suggests a process (and check list) to assure for both parties that no damage was done during the solder process. If you don’t guard your bottom line…who will?
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