Technology Focus

Solder Paste Technology

Solder paste is a vital material for the modern electronics industry as
it enables surface mount assembly. Without solder paste, modern
electronics would not exist. The performance of the solder paste
directly affects the stencil printing and reflow soldering processes,
and contributes directly to manufacturing yields and reliability. The
development and manufacture of solder paste is multidisciplinary
and encompasses metallurgy, physics, chemistry, rheology, and other
fields. Liyakathali.K, Technical Support - India, Indium Corporation

S
oldering is the process of RO L 1
joining two dissimilar Flux Chemistry Halide Identification
RO, Rosin
metals by means of a RE, Resin
OR, Organic Activity Level
0 stands for absence of halides
1 stands for presence of halides
(threshold level of halide contents in
soldering alloy and a IN, Inorganic L - Low
M - Medium
% varies for different activity levels)

suitable flux. There are
other techniques of joining metals
like welding and brazing; however
these techniques require much
higher temperatures; whereas
soldering in electronics is typically
performed at temperatures below
250°C.
Soldering in SMT
Soldering of surface mount
devices is done by means of a
wave soldering and/or reflow
soldering process. Today, reflow
soldering is more dominant.
Reflow soldering requires solder in
a paste or cream form, which
makes solder paste technology
crucial for successful reflow
soldering assembly.
Solder Paste
Introduction
Solder paste is a homogenous
mixture of solder alloy powder
and a flux system. Solder paste
should have characteristics that
provide good printing and
dispensing, and exhibit good
reflow characteristics. See figure –
1 & 2.
Fig. 1.
Oxide Film Solder alloy
Flux System
Fig. 2.
Solder Paste Flux
What is flux: Flux is used to clean
the soldering areas, reduce
surface tension, and protect
soldering areas from further
oxidization. Generally, flux is
made out of rosin/resin,
activators, and solvents. Solder
paste flux also contains
rheological additives to enable
optimum printing characteristics.
IPC-J-STD 004 classifications:
As per IPC-J-STD 004, fluxes are
classified into four categories:
H - High
Fig. 3.
rosin (RO), resin (RE), organic
(OR) and inorganic (IN). The first
three are commonly used in the
electronics industries and the last
one is used for other soldering
applications. J-STD-004 also
classifies the fluxes based on the
nature of corrosion, activity level,
and halide content2. Refer figure –
3. The J-STD-004 may be revised
in the halogen free electronics
era.
Understanding Flux
Chemistry
Resin/Rosin: Rosin (colophony)
is a natural product, exuded from
pine trees and distilled. Resin is
synthetically made or a modified
rosin. Resin/rosin refers to organic
materials with a medium to high
molecular weight; they are acidic
in nature. Often they are used to
provide an oxygen barrier, fluxing
activity, and tackiness. Sometimes
they may serve as rheological
aids. See Figure – 4 (Rosin exudes
from pine tree)
Activators: Activators provide
Technology Focus
Fig. 4.
fluxing action by dissolving oxides,
creating a clean surface for
wetting. Activators may be a
combination of halides, amines,
and acids3.
Reflow soldering requires solder in a paste or
cream form, which makes solder paste technology
crucial for successful reflow soldering assembly.
Rheological Additives: These
additives provide or control the
solder paste rheology, such as
viscosity and thixotropy. For
instance, during the solder paste
printing, the paste is required to
flow easily but, after the paste is
printed, the printed deposit must
not flow, so that the solder deposit
maintains a well defined shape.
On the other hand, a paste is
required to be sufficiently non-
tacky to be released from the
stencil aperture, but tacky enough
to hold onto the substrate and
components. In order to meet
these requirements, paste
rheology must be tailored
carefully. Caster oil derivatives
and glycols are generally used as
rheological additives. Overall,
these additives provide tackiness
and required viscosity and
thixotropic properties.
Solvents: Solvents dissolve
activators, gelling agents
(rheological additives/tackifiers
etc), and resins to create a
homogeneous (uniform) paste
flux3. Commonly used solvents are
alcohols, amines, ethers, and
glycols.
Solder Alloys
Tin (Sn) is the base metal for most
solders, as it melts at a relatively
low temperature and alloys well
with most metals used in
electronics assembly, such as
copper. When Sn is alloyed with
lead (Pb), the alloy melting
temperature is brought down to
1830C, where as individual metals
Sn melts at 2320C and Pb melts at
3270C. SnPb alloys exhibit good
mechanical and electrical
properties for both the assembly
process and product require-
ments. At present, Pb-Free alloys
are widely used to comply with the
E u r o p e a n U n i o n’ s R o H S
requirements. There are many
Less than
Powder No Larger
Size# than, um
1% larger
than, um
1 160 150
2 80 75
3 50 45
4 40 38
5 28 25
6 18 15
Courtesy : Modern Solder Technology for Competitive Electronics Manufacturing. By Jennie S Hwang. PHD
Table 1. IPC-J-STD 005, Solder Powder Type Classification
solder alloys available based on
the applications, such as low
melting point alloys, high
temperature alloys, etc. Choosing
an alloy is a very important step in
your assembly process*. Sn alloys
work with general PCB base
metals like copper (Cu),
palladium (Pd), nickel (Ni), silver
(Ag), etc. If thick gold (Au) is being
adopted as a base metal, indium
(In) often replaces Sn in the solder
alloy.
Solder Alloy Powder
Solder paste technology utilizes
solder alloys in powder form.
Powder is manufactured from the
alloy (i.e., Sn63Pb37) by means of
one of many powder manufa-
cturing processes. In the most
common process, the alloy is
melted and then allowed to fall on
a rotating disk. During this
process, the molten alloy bounces
back and forms spherical shapes,
then cools down. This process can
be done in an inert atmosphere to
reduce the oxidization of the
solder alloy powder. Later, these
alloy powders are sieved and
segregated, as per the industry
particle size requirements.
Types of Solder Alloy
Powder
Based on IPC-J-STD-005, solder
powder has been classified into 6
types which relate to the powder’s
particle size range. Refer to Table-
1. Most recently, type 7 has been
added to the list.
Less than
At least 80% At least 90%
between, um between, um
10% smaller
than, um
150 - 75 150 - 20 20
75 - 45 75 - 20 20
45 - 25 45 - 20 20
38 - 20 20
25 - 15 15
15 - 5 5
Solder Paste Mixing
Solder paste is manufactured by
making flux and solder powder
separately, and then blending the
two together to make solder paste.
Solder paste is manufactured
using blending machines under
Technology Focus
100
90
80
Volume Percent
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 20 40
Weight Percent
Fig. 5.
specific process conditions. Once
manufactured, solder paste is
stored in a cool and dry area. By
volume, solder paste contains
approximately 50% flux and 50%
alloy powder; whereas by weight,
10% is flux and 90% is powder.
The metal (alloy) content is
referred to as the metal load by
weight %. The relationship
between the metal volume % and
metal weight % of Sn63/Pb37
solder paste is shown in figure – 5.
Characteristics/proper-
ties of Solder Paste
Rheological Properties
Rheology is the study of the
deformation and flow of matter,
generally characterized by
elasticity, plasticity, and viscosity.
The rheology of the flux vehicle is
required to provide not only a
stable suspension of solder
powder in the solder paste system
during storage and handling, but
also to enable effective stencil
printing.
Viscosity
Viscosity is the one of the most
important rheological properties
of solder pastes. Viscosity is the
internal friction of a fluid caused
by molecular or atomic attraction,
which makes it resist the tendency
to flow. To enable successful
stencil printing, the viscosity of
solder paste must be controlled
with in a certain range.
Thixotropy
Thixotropy is the property of some
non-Newtonian fluids to show a
reflow is known as slump. The
STIRRING
deposit looses its brick shape and
LEVELING
SQUEEGEE
~50% vol spreads. A good solder paste
PRINTING
should have great slump
VISCOSITY
characteristics, which can be
60 80
~90% wt
100
evaluated using IPC test methods.
Depending on the temperature,
slump can be categorized as
either cold or hot slump. Cold
slump refers to slumping that
TIME
occurs at ambient temperature,
Fig. 6.
whereas hot slump happens
time - dependent change in during the reflow process. Solder
viscosity. The longer the fluid paste should be engineered to
undergoes shear stress, the lower provide minimal slump.
its viscosity. Otherwise, solder paste slump
This property enables the solder can lead to bridging and other
paste to roll when pressure is defects.
applied by reducing the steady
state viscosity and allowing the Response-to-Pause (RtP)
paste to transfer through the RtP is the ability of a solder paste to
stencil aperture (dispensing print at consistent transfer
needles incase of dispensing), efficiency on the first print after an
retaining nearly the original extended down time. Solder paste
viscosity once the pressure is has to resume normal working
removed; thus deposited paste condition after pause, which may
stays intact. The below picture be an hour or two. A good RtP can
explains this, see figure – 6. be measured by transfer efficiency.
In addition to shear force, particle Transfer efficiency is the ratio
size and temperature can affect between theoretical (stencil
viscosity. Viscosity increases with aperture) volume vs. actual
finer particles and higher metal volume deposited on the pad.
loads, whereas viscosity is
reduced at lower temperatures. Stencil Life
Generally, solder paste viscosity Generally solder paste will have a
has a separate range for printing working life of more than 8 hours.
and dispensing applications. During its working life, it may
undergo continuous printing,
Tackiness pause in-between, and even
Tackiness refers to the capability of replenishment of additional solder
solder paste to adhere to the paste, so solder paste on the
substrate surface (i.e., the stencil has to perform well for an
component pad), holding the extended period of time without
components in place until they creating printing difficulties.
have been soldered. This property
may be achieved by adding Voiding
resin/rosin and additional Solder paste chemistry plays a
tackifiers to the solder paste vital role in voiding. Voiding is a
chemistry. phenomenon commonly associ-
ated with solder joints. A void is an
Slump empty space that is created in the
The gradual spread of solder solder joints, by the volatilization
paste after printing or during of solder paste solvents during the
Technology Focus
reflow and cool down process.
Solder paste chemistry must be
engineered to minimize voiding.
Coalescence and Wetting
Solder paste chemistry must be
engineered to provide excellent
coalescence and wetting. During
soldering, the flux removes metal
oxides, as well as other surface
tarnishes. This allows the coale-
scence of solder powder and the
wetting of parts by molten solder,
thus promoting the metallurgical
process of soldering.
Wide Reflow Process Window
In the manufacturing process, a
solder paste has to work in
different assembly conditions with
a wide variety of PCBAs. The same
paste might be used for low-
volume and high-mix board, as
well as high volume PCBAs. Also
the solder paste must be able to
work under different types of
reflow profiles in cases where a
unique reflow profile is required to
minimize a certain defect.
SIR and EM
Today, most SMT assembly
manufacturers rely on rigorous
simulation tests to verify that
electrical reliability will not be
compromised by corrosion,
current leakage, or metal dendrite
formation. These tests are referred
to as surface insulation resistance
(SIR) and electro migration (EM) or
electrochemical migration (ECM).
Performed in high humidity and
temperature conditions under an
electrical bias, the tests require
high insulation resistance (non-
conductive) and negligible sign of
corrosion or dendrite formation to
pass4.
References
[1] Reflow Soldering Processes
and Trouble Shooting by Dr. Ning
Cheng Lee.
This is the main reference thus not
mentioned the number…
[2] IPC-J-STD-004
[3] Understanding Flux Vehicle
Chemistry – Indium Corp,
Application Note
[4] Flux Chemistry for Lead-free
SMT, By Edward Briggs and
Ronald Lasky, Ph.D., Indium
Corporation. SMT Magazine
Online Article – 2008
* Choosing an alloy:
askus@indium.com
Suggested Readings
1. Optimizing Reflow Profile Via
Defect Mechanisms Analysis by
Dr.Lee, Indium Corporation
2. Engineering Solder Paste
Performance Via Controlled Stress
Rheology Analysis, by Dr. Xiaohua
Bao, Dr. Ning-Cheng Lee, Indium
Corporation and Rajkumar B. Raj,
K. P. Rangan, Dr. Anu Maria State
University of New York, Bingha-
mton, NY.
3. Solder Paste - Meeting the SMT
Challenge by Gregory Evans and
Dr. Ning-Cheng Lee, Indium
Corporation.
Reprinted with permission of
EM Media Pvt. Ltd.
Author Profile
Liyakathali Koorithodi is
Technical Support Engineer at
Indium Corporation of America
and a Certified SMT Process
Engineer from SMTA. He is
based in Chennai, India.
He can be reached at:
lkoorithodi@indium.com