Archive for the ‘SMT Technology’ Category

How to choose surface finish on Printed Circuit Board?

Saturday, December 17th, 2022

When finish the PCB design, we should choose a suitable surface finish to protect traces from corrosion. Nowadays, the most popular surface treatments for PCB manufacturer to use are HASL/LF HASL, OSP and ENIG.

Different surface treatment has its unique functionality and the cost also is different. This article we will show you the pros and cons of the three surface finishing which use while the PCB manufacturing process.

HASL Surface Finish

HASL (Hot Air Solder Level) can be known as tin-lead HASL and lead-free HASL, it was the mainstream surface treatment technology in the 1980s, but with the increased of “small and high density” demands in PCB, there are less and less circuit boards use the HASL technology because it will cause the defective products due to the solder point are easy to leave on the board surface during SMT process. In view of this situation, some PCB board manufacturers or designers prefer use OSP or immersion gold to ensure the good quality products as well as smooth production process.

  • Tin-lead HASL

Advantages:

1) Economical and widely available.

2) Excellent solderability.

3)Better mechanical strength & lustrousness than lead-free HSAL.

Disadvantages: it is harmful to environment and violates RoHS compliance.

  • Lead-free HASL

Advantages: low cost, good solder performance and environmental.

Disadvantages: mechanical strength & lustrousness are not good than lead HASL.

In additional, due to the poor surface flatness of HASL circuit boards, neither leaded nor lead-free HASL is not suitable for soldering fine-pitch components or plated through-holes, because it will cause the short circuits and poor welding during the assembly process.

(LF_HASL)

OSP

OSP (Organic Solderability Preservatives) also named as pre flux, the working principle is to generate a layer of organic film chemically on the copper surface to protect the surface from oxidation or vulcanization in the room environment. Meanwhile, OSP also can increase the oxidation resistance, heat shock resistance and moisture resistance of a PCB. 

OSP is equivalent to an anti-oxidation treatment, the protective thin film can be easily removed by the flux quickly under the high soldering temperature, then it makes the exposed copper surface immediately combined with the molten solder in a very short time to become a solid solder spot.

At present, the usage of OSP surface finishing process has increased significantly because it is appropriated for both low and high-end products. If your application has no surface connection functional requirements or storage life limitations, the OSP process is the most desirable surface treatment process.

(OSP_surface_treatment)

Advantage:

1)With all the advantages of bare copper soldering, expired (more than 3 months) boards can also be resurfaced, but one time is better.

2)Good for fine-pitch, BGA and smaller components.

3)Low cost and easy to rework.

4)Simple process and easy to ensure quality.

Disadvantage:

1)OSP is easily affected by acid and humidity, so must be packed with vacuum.

2)Need to do surface treatment again if storage time more than 3 months.

3)It should be used within 24 hours after unpacking.

4)OSP is an insulating layer, so the test point must be printed with solder paste to remove the original OSP layer for electrical testing.

ENIG

ENIG (Electroless Nickel/Immersion Gold) is one of a chemical nickel gold deposition method, the working principle is to generate a layer of coating by chemical REDOX reaction to get a thicker gold layer. Currently, ENIG is mainly used in the surface of the circuit board with connection functional requirements and long storage life.

Advantage:

1)Can be stored long time as well as no oxidation.

2)Good flatness surface and suitable for small solder point components.

3)Good solderability.

4)Can be used as the base material for COB wire bonding.

Disadvantage:

1)High cost than other two surface treatments.

2)Easy to exist black-pad issue during production process.

(ENIG)

As we can know from above information, each PCB surface treatment has its own merit and demerit, you can choose the one according to the effect you want to reach, as well as your cost. 

If you don’t know which is best for you, you can send inquiry to us, our professional engineering team and PCB sales will choose the suitable one for you. Welcome to contact us if you have any other questions.

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Why Printed Circuit Boards are Important for Electronics?

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022

Printed Circuit Boards are the core of the electronics devices, and they exist in everywhere and be everything from your electronic equipment such as mobile phone, computers, so what are they? Let’s explore the secrets together and know why they become more common as technology advances.

What are Printed Circuit Boards?

A printed circuit board also known as PCB for short, is an electronic board for connecting metal circuits by mounting different electronic components in a device and have it do its functions.

PCB is made of fiberglass and laminate materials or a composite epoxy with conductive, it can be made to varies shapes and sizes depends on what applications it will be used for—some have many holes on it while some only have several pads or traces.

In most of devices, we can see there are many components or wires mounted or connected on the surface of PCB, which comes into two different pathways –surface mount and through-hole. Surface mount is a technology that can be abbreviated as SMT, it is a famous technical that mount electronic components (typically SMDs) attached on top of a pad by melted solder paste. Through-hole generally refers to components that have wires through the plated-through-holes that drilled into the circuit board. Both ways are commonly use, but currently with the fast development of the technology advance, surface mount is more popular than through-hole as it is more convenient for production.

What the Functions of Printed Circuit Boards?

The main functions of a PCB is to connect different components and achieve a communication between components and devices, that can be used for everywhere you can think of – Computer, phones, televisions, tablets, cameras, projectors, and so on….

For a simple example, a phone has a PCB that can connect screen, the buttons, cameras, and the circuits on the both sides. Without this board, those components wouldn’t be able to transmit signals and talk to each other and the phone would cease to function.

In addition, electronic equipment using printed board enable to avoid the error of manual wiring, and can realize the automatic insertion or installation of electronic components, automatic soldering, automatic detection by communicate with each other, to ensure the quality of electronic products, improve labor productivity, protect components from damaged, reduce costs, and easy to maintenance.

The advantages of Printed Circuit Boards

PCB performs a number of advantages in electronic industries, a most significant feature is they make products be smaller and more portable as its density circuits and components communication. The density circuits on PCB allows it take up much space for components so you can get a smaller product.

  • High density

Over the past decades, the high density of printed boards has been developed with the improvement of integrated circuits and the advancement of installation technology.

  • High reliability

Through a series of checks, tests and aging tests, the PCB can be guaranteed to work reliably for a long time (generally 20 years).

  • Designability

For various performance (electrical, physical, chemical, mechanical, etc.) requirements, can PCB be achieved to such requirements in short time and high efficiency according to design standard rules.

  • Maintainability

By means of standard PCB design rules, once the program or device failure, users fix the devices quickly.

  • Cooling abilities

Overheating is one of the biggest reasons of electronics failure, so by keeping them cool with a PCB, you can increase the lifetime of your product.

Types of Printed Circuit Boards

Best Technology provides different kinds of PCBs and PCBAs for our customers, for a quickly reviewing, we listing as below:

  • Rigid Printed Circuit Board (FR4-PCB)
  • Flex Printed Circuit Board (FPCB)
  • Rigid-Flex PCB
  • Metal Core Printed Circuit Board (MCPCB)
  • Ceramic Board
  • SinkPAD Board
  • Other special PCB such as heavy copper PCB, HDI PCB, RF PCB, and so forth
  • PCB assembly

In a word, with the development of electronics, it’s necessary to have a functional part like the PCB that can keep up with the demand. Next step, contact us if you have PCB demands.

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Differences Between Solder Mask and Solder Paste in PCB

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022

When it comes to solder mask and solder paste, there are some engineers confused about their functionalities and even most of laymen thought they are the same, this is not hypothetical, it is real that happened to me. So today let’s explain differences between Solder Mask and Solder Paste for you.

Part 1: What is Solder Mask?

If you had ever seen a printed circuit board, you may see there is a layer of green ink cover on the PCB surface while some orange-yellow areas didn’t cover by ink. In PCB industry, the green ink we called Solder Mask, or abbreviated as S/M, and exposed area is copper, they were leave as GND plane or soldering pads to mount electronic components.

Solder mask is a liquid acrylic oligomer, which has variety of colors such as red, blue, green, white, black. Green is commonly used in the process of PCB manufacturing, so some professional engineers call it as green oil.

Solder_mask

Solder mask applied on the PCB designed as a protection layer to avoid oxidation, corrosion and other environmental impacts when they leave production line. In addition, solder mask between solder pads also can help to prevent forming to solder bridge when assembly.

Below are some other functions of coating a layer solder mask:

  • Prevent physical line breaking of copper trace
  • Only weld in the area that must be soldered to avoid waste of soldering
  • Reduce copper pollution to soldering groove 
  • Prevent insulation deterioration and corrosion caused by dust, moisture and other external environmental factors 
  • With high insulation, so that the high-density circuit is possible

Part 2: What is Solder Paste?

Solder Paste also known as “Solder cream”, is a most important soldering material used in surface mount technology (SMT) process. Mainly function for soldering resistors, capacitors, ICs and other electronic components onto the PCB surface to form a permanent connection.

The solder particles are a mixture of solder formed by mixing solder powder, flux and other surfactants and thixotropic. Traditionally this used to be tin and lead, but with the legislation has been introduced around the world, to only use lead free solders. These may be made from a variety of mixtures, Best Technology commonly used is SAC305 which includes 96.5% tin, 0.5% copper and 3.0% silver, some manufacturers also use 99.7% tin and 0.3% copper, whereas there are other mixtures that include other metals including tin.

Due to the role of solder paste in assembly, solder paste storage is extremely important. However, solder paste got into drying during storing became a common problem faced by most PCBA manufacturers, so How to solve solder paste dry problem is premier.

Solder_paste

Part 3: The Difference Between Solder Mask and Solder Paste

  1. Solder mask is a formal part of PCB, but solder paste ONLY for PCB assembly.
  2. Solder mask is not allowed on the solder pads while solder paste can be printed on the solder pads openings.
  3. Solder mask is used for applying solder mask ink, but solder paste is used for applying paste.
  4. Solder mask has many available colors, but paste mask visually gray.
  5. Solder mask is coating during PCB fabrication, but solder paste is printing when PCB assembly.

With over 16 years in PCB industry, Best Technology is one of the most reliable PCB and PCBA supplier in Asia, we commit to provide high quality products with excellent service before and after sales, to take care our customers wholeheartedly, and to treat customers’ business as ours. At the same time, we keep learning and continually to improve ourselves so that we can catch up the latest technology trend and provide better and better service for our customers.

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Why Solder Paste became Dry and How to Solve This Problem

Thursday, August 18th, 2022

As a One-stop PCBA manufacturer, I believe most of manufacturers have faced a problem of solder paste became dry during SMT process, especially in hot summer, and there will be a large number of defects come out when solder paste was dry, such as poor printing, false solder, components be shifted, cold solder and so on, which will greatly decrease assembly efficiency and PCBA quality.

Do you know why the solder paste became dry?

A serious dried solder paste
Good solder paste

After checking and discussing with our SMT engineers, we found the root cause of solder paste be dry is corrosion, in below images you can see the detailed solder powder morphology of corrosion.

2-a Solder powder from good solder paste
2-b Solder powder from dried solder paste

In generally, the main reason of corrosion is thermodynamic instability of metal, that is metal and its alloy is in a high free energy status than other chemical compound (for example, oxide, hydroxide, salt or others), when this situation occurs, metal will transform to lower energy, which is called corrosion.

Metal corrosion is under the basis of the theory of electrochemical, and it’s required four main elements: anode, cathode, electrolyte and constitute current path.

Now let’s parse the mainly metals in solder paste — Sn, Ag, Cu (or other impurities), then under the action of flux medium, numerous galvanic cells with Sn as the cathode and Ag/Cu as the anode are formed, then below chemical reaction will be happened:

Cathode: Sn – 2e → Sn2+

Anode: O2 + H2O + 4e → 4OH

That is: Sn + H2O + ½O2 → Sn(OH)2

Sn(OH)2 decompose: Sn(OH)2 → SnO + H2O

Then chemical reaction of corrosion of solder powder under the moisture in the air can be described as:

The following figure shows the infrared spectrum of succinic acid liquor before and after soaking the solder powder. It can be clearly seen that the soaked liquor contains carboxyl. Therefore, in the solder paste system, except the oxidation reaction of electrochemical corrosion, salinization chemical reaction will be happened too:

Infrared spectrum of Chemical reaction between succinic acid solution and solder powder succinic acid liquor

So now, do you know why solder paste will be dry? And why it is more seriously in hot summer with high temperature and humidity?

Yes, its root cause is not only high temperature in summer, also the humidity is so high (humidity is 70-85% in the summer of Shenzhen City), flux and solder powder will increase the adsorption of water molecules, and due to water is electrolyte of the galvanic cell reaction, it will aggravate the hydrolysis of flux, stimulate the activity of flux, then finally the reaction on the surface of the solder powder is aggravating, and the vicious cycle eventually changes the physical properties of the solder paste.

Then how to solve this problem?

  1. Warm up solder paste before using

Generally, in order to slow down the reaction of flux and solder powder, as well as extend the storage period, the solder paste needed to be stored in a refrigerator with 2-10oC degree. So before using, it is better to take out solder paste and put in standard room temperature for warming up first. A can of 500g solder paste need to be rewarmed at least 2 hours, to make sure its temperature is the same as rooms’. (Normally that period of warming up time is 4 hours in Best Technology.) Otherwise, insufficient warming up will cause the water vapor in the air to condense and enter the solder paste due to the temperature difference, and result in solder paste be dry finally.

  • Environment temperature and humidity

The best storage temp of solder paste is 2-10oC, but the recommended working environment temp is 20-25oC, relative humidity is 30%-60%. (There’re additional humidifiers in the workshop of Best Technology, to make sure suitable humidity in the dry season such as Winter and Spring, and of course the air conditioner in Summer time to decrease the humidity) Usually, the rate of chemical reaction will approximately double, as the temperature increases by 10℃, so the high temperature will increase the volatilization of the solvent in the solder paste and the reaction speed of flux with powder, so the solder paste is easily to be dry. Meanwhile, low temperature will affect the viscosity and expansion of solder paste, and then will cause the poor soldering. At the same time, high humidity will also greatly increase the water vapor entering the solder paste; However, low humidity also affects the volatilization rate of solvent in solder paste.

  • For those solder paste that became dried already, it is better to dilute with flux provided by manufacturer of solder paste.

In a word, when use and store solder paste, we should pay more attention to its temperature & humidity, to make sure high quality of SMT can be achieved. Pls contact Best Technology if you have any questions or comments on solder paste, or SMT.

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X-ray Inspection in PCB Assembly

Wednesday, June 15th, 2022

X-Ray Inspection’s Definition

X-ray inspection is a technology used to inspect the hidden features of the target objects or products. As for PCB inspection, X-ray is commonly used in the inspection of PCB assembly in order to test the quality and find the hidden defects, X-ray inspection is one of the most important steps for quality-oriented PCB manufacturers.

X-Ray Machine

X-Ray Inspection’s Working Principle

Generally, there are three elements in the X-ray devices.

  • X-ray tube—to generate the X-ray photons.
  • Operation platform—to move along with the sample so that the sample can be inspected from different angles and magnification.
  • Detector—it can capture the X-ray through the samples and then transfer it into the image so that we can find out whether there are defects on the printed circuit board.

The Hidden Defects that can be Identified by X-Ray

Since PCB has the higher density with the solder joints hidden and holes buried or blind, X-ray enable us to inspect the quality of the PCB and identify various hidden defects. And there are three common hidden defects that can be inspected by X-ray.

PCB’s Image Under X-Ray
  • Solder bridges—it is a common issue that will occur when the solder joints are so close that they create a connection which is not allowed. And usually, the solder bridges will be covered by some components on the PCB. But they can be easily found with the help of the X-ray device.
  • Solder voids—when gas or flux is entrained during welding, solder voids will be produced, which will lower the thermal conductivity at the solder joint and may cause physical defects. And X-ray can help to  identify the solder voids
  • Pin-hole fills—pin-hole fills issue is a common problem occurring in the plug-in components on the  printed circuit boards. The X-ray device can be used to identify these errors, and can even quantify the missing filling amount.

Our X-Ray Inspection Device

The maximum size of the board that can be put in the device’s operation platform is 510*430 mm, while the maximum inspection size of the device is 435*385 mm. So here is the manifestation of the operation platform’s function. When the size of PCB is over 435*385 mm, the operation platform will move along with the board so that the board can be inspected thoroughly.

And here is a video about operation of our X-ray inspection device.

So, this is the end of this article. In case if you have any questions, you are welcome to contact us via email at  sales@bestpcbs.com. We are fully equipped to handle your PCB  manufacturing requirements.

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What Should be Prepared Before Starting the SMT Process?

Tuesday, February 15th, 2022

SMT, whose full name is Surface Mounted Technology, is the most popular technology in electronic assembly industry. It refers to process on PCB (Printed Circuit Board), putting various electronic components on PCB, such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth. Also, there are some dos and don’ts in the whole process of PCBA.

As noted previously, there are all sorts of electronic components that will be used in the assembly process of Printed Circuit Board. Therefore, it is extremely important to take some measures to keep a check on static. Here are three steps before entering the SMT workshop.

First, put on anti-static clothes and hats. It is to prevent static existing in clothes and hair from influencing the board, for static has a potential and tremendous destructive power.

Anti-static Clothes and Hats

Second, what we have to do is to put just one hand on static elimination instrument, and do not leave our hand from it until the red light turns to green, which aims to eliminate the static existing in our body.

Static Elimination Instrument

Third, across the air shower door. In this way, dust that is invisible on our body can be blown off in about 5 seconds.

Air Shower Door

Only finishing the three steps above can we enter the PCB assembly workshop. And after entering the workshop, there are also something needed to be prepared.

  • Solder paste. The storage temperature of solder paste is 2-10 degrees Celcius, hence it has a period of regaining temperature, which conducts in the rewarming machine for 4 hours. Then the solder paste should be rabbled in a blender for 5 mins in order to help three ingredients in it to be fully integrated, which can help to achieve a better printing and back-flow soldering effect.
Solder Paste
  • Oven. This machine is used to get rid of the moisture from materials or boards, ensuring that PCB will not be defective due to moisture during the subsequent assembly process. Moreover, different boards have different requirements. But generally, the baking parameter is 105 degrees Celcius, lasting 1.5 hours.
Oven
  • Dryer. It is used to maintain a set temperature and humility of materials and boards that needs to be processed that day, which is also to avoid that moisture does harm to materials and boards after removing the moisture by oven.
Dryer
  • Tension test of stencils. Before manufacturing, the stencils’ uniformity should be tested by tensiometer, which mainly tests the four corners and the center part of the stencil, guaranteeing the solder paste printing quality. And the parameter should be between 30 and 45.
Stencils

To sum up, although there are lots of preparations should be done before starting the formal assembly process, each of them is significant, for they will probably influence the quality of boards directly. Besides, only a good preparation can make a certain that the follow-up process can keep going. Thus, it is a must to prepare well in advance.

And Best Technology is an experienced electronic company. It not only can provide PCBA service, but can provide other services, such as FPC, FR4 PCB, Rigid-flex PCB and so on. And if you have any questions about SMT, or any other questions about assembly, you are welcome to contact us.

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The SMT production progressing

Thursday, November 18th, 2021

SMT (Surface Mounted Technology) is the most popular Technology and process in electronic assembly industry. SMT refers to a series of process processes based on PCB. Due to the better outcome and higher efficiency, SMT has become the primary approach used in the process of PCB assembly. In some extent, the turn-key service is a way to reduce the cost.

There are the SMT progressing in the following.

1. Solder paste printing: The function is to print the solder paste to the PCB pad to prepare for the welding of components. The screen-printing machine is located at the front end of SMT production line.

(Automatic solder paste printer)

2. Part mounting: The function is to accurately install surface assembly components into fixed positions on the PCB. The equipment is the SMT machine, located behind the screen-printing machine in the SMT production line.

3. Furnace curing: its function is to melt the patch adhesive, so that the surface assembly components and PCB board firmly stick together. The equipment used is the curing furnace, located behind the SMT machine in the SMT line.

4. Reflow welding: The function is to melt the solder paste, so that the surface assembly components and PCB board firmly stick together. The reflow furnace is located behind the SMT machine in the SMT line.

(Reflow soldering)

5. AOI optical detection: its function is to detect the welding quality and assembly quality of assembled PCB board. The equipment used is automatic optical detection (AOI)

(AOI machine)

6. Maintenance: its function is to detect the failure of the PCB board for repair. The tools used are soldering iron, repair workstation and so on. Configured after AOI optical detection.

7.Dividing board: its function is to cut PCBA of multiple connecting boards, so that they are separated to form a single individual, generally using V-cut and machine cutting.

8. Grinding plate: its role is to scrub the burr parts to make them smooth and flat.

9. Washing plate: its function is to remove welding residues such as flux and other harmful to human body on assembled PCB board and manually clean it.

Turnkey service reduces customers’ time in contacting with multiple suppliers for separate steps in PCB assembly manufacturing. And the scientific order arrangement system allows customers to get PCB assembly products with higher quality and less cost in a shorter time than the traditional way of PCB assembly.

(SMT production line)

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How to make Panel for MCPCB?

Friday, July 16th, 2021

Regarding all Metal core PCB required panelization, which needs to take into account how the boards are connected. There are two main connection methods for panel: Double face carved V-shaped groove (V-CUT), and the long slot plus a small circular hole (commonly known as stamp hole), depending on the shape of the PCB.

  1. V-CUT

V-CUT is to draw a slot at the junction of two boards, where the connection of the boards is relatively thin and easy to break. Currently SMT Board is widely used, characterized with neat and level edges after separation, which is recommended as priority.

V-cuts are generally straight lines, and there will be no complicated traces such as curved arcs, so pay attention to be in a straight line when making the panelization. Please also note the following two points.

â‘  The two sides of V-CUT line (top side and bottom side) require a no circuits area that is not smaller than 1mm, to avoid the damage circuits when separating.

② After cutting the V-shaped groove, the remaining thickness should be 1/4 to 1/3 of the total board thickness , which is not smaller than 0.4mm.

V-Cut
  • Stamp Holes/Mouse Bite

For irregular PCB boards, the shape of the board has curved corners, there will be many burrs if use V-cut. In this case the stamp hole connection would be the better choice.

  1. Panelization Rules:
  1. The spacing between the panel and the board is 1.2mm or 1.6mm.
  • The diameter of hole is 0.55mm, generally a row of 8 holes (Hole count depends on the design requirements, more holes can enhance the stability), the spacing of the two holes is 0.2mm.
  • The distance between the upper and lower rows of holes is 2mm, and 1/3 of the stamp holes enter the board. Pay attention to avoid the circuit on the edge of the board.
  • After adding the stamp holes, the shape of both sides of the hole need to be connected to facilitate the subsequent routing manufacturing.
  • The part picture after panelization.(Using the connection bridge in the middle, which can minimize the residual.)
Part Picture
  • The effect picture after panelization.
Stamp Holes

If you want to learn more about MCPCB design, welcome contact us.

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Common Problems in SinkPAD Board Design

Thursday, June 17th, 2021

1. What is the SinkPAD Board?

Sink Pad Board, also called Heat Sink or DTP (direct thermal path), it’s an alternative PCB technology to the conventional metal core PCB providing direct thermal path solutions for high power LED. 

The thermal conductive PAD is convexity area of copper core/pedestal, so that the thermal PAD of LED can touch the convexity area of metal core directly, and then the heat of LED will be dissipated into the air much faster and more efficient than conventional MCPCB.

Heat Sink

2. If only the LED pad can be made as SinkPAD?

Of course no, the pads of other chips or components also can be designed as Sink PAD, one of the most common is the IC pad. In some designs, IC needs to pass through the large current and it will emit a lot of heat, it would be best to design its pad as a thermal conductive pad at this time.

SinkPad Board after SMT

3. What is the thermal conductivity of a SinkPAD ?

The thermal conductivity could be 235 W/m.k to 400 W/m.k.

4. Can we use SinkPAD technology for any LED packages?

No, it’s designed to be used with the LEDs which has electrically neutral thermal pad. Such as Cree XPL/XML/XHP/XPG/XPE/XPC/XTE/XBD, Luxeon Rebel & Luxeon M from Philips Lumiled, Oslon SSL & Oslon square from Osram, Nichia N219, Seoul Semiconductor Z5P / Z5M, Samsung 3535, Bridgelux SM4, etc.

5. What is the Manufacturing Process for the SinkPAD Board?

Manufacturing process is the same as conventional MCPCB, please click here to see the manufacturing process status.

Shinkpad

6. How does SinkPAD Board compare to Conventional MCPCB?

Conventional MCPCB uses a thermally conductive dielectric layer to bond circuit layer with base metal (Aluminum or Copper) layer. The key to thermal performance of MCPCB lies in its dielectric layer. Even though thermally conductive dielectric has higher thermal performance compared to normal FR4, it’s still a weakest link in the conduction thermal path.

SinkPAD Board approach overcomes this limitation, which provides “Direct thermal path”, the LED Chip can directly contact the copper substrate, there’s no dielectric between LED thermal pads and the metal base, then the thermal resistance is very small.

7. Can the aluminum be made as the base of Heat Sink?

Actually yes, however, regarding of current technical conditions, since aluminum or aluminum alloy cannot directly react with acid, the reaction process is too complex and difficult to control, which will increase the difficulty of etching the LED pad platform.

Considering the scrap rate, the process of etching LED pad platform with aluminum is more complex and the overall cost is higher, and the copper also dissipates heat much better than aluminum, so copper is generally used as the substrate for Heat Sink in our company.

Copper Substrate

8. Does SinkPAD Board require special PCB design?

No, we can use your existing MCPCB Gerber data.

Welcome to contact us if you have other questions about Sink Pad Board. 

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How to do SMT for ceramic PCB

Wednesday, May 19th, 2021

As we all know if ceramic PCB is very fragile, so it is not easy to do SMT for them.

But we can do the SMT for ceramic PCB easily because we do it every day and we have more than 15 years experiences for doing that.

For the almost SMD components (such as SMD rsistors, capacitors, diode etc), normally we will add the solder paste by using SMT stencil, then put the components by machine, finally do the oven reflow.

For some special components, we will need to solder it by hand, such as through connectors, but it can’t be soldered by hand directly, it need to be put on the heating table to keep the temperature is high enough to make the solder past at melt state. Because the ceramic material with very good heat dissipation, the solder paste will be solidification very easily if don’t put the ceramic PCB on heating table

For some small LED, it can’t be put by SMT machine, because no such small feeder to pick it up, then need to put it on board by hand.

We can do very well for the small BGA components too.

Below some photos of ceramic PCB.

If you would like to know more about ceramic and ceramic PCB SMT, please feel free to email me

Ceramic PCB with SMT 1
Ceramic PCB with SMT 2
Ceramic PCB with SMT 3
Ceramic PCB with SMT 4
Ceramic PCB with SMT 5

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