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Avoiding Solder-Ball Formation

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19 views2 pages

Avoiding Solder-Ball Formation

Uploaded by

ivanshitov2015
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Process Solutions

Avoiding
solder-ball
formation
Bob Willis

S
older balls occur in both wave and reflow solder- in the plating, the moisture can steam out through the
ing and can also occur if great care is not taken plated hole wall. And if you have solder in the hole, this
during hand soldering. An untrained operator dur- will either produce voids in the solder as it solidifies or
ing rework or hand soldering can flick solder onto the the solder balls will be ejected.
surface of a circuit board and no one would ever know
how it got there.
Do solder balls really matter? They indicate that ev-
erything is not quite right in the process, and should
therefore be eliminated. It may not be possible for you
to fix the whole process and remove all the problems in
a few hours because the solution depends on the root
cause of the problem.
There are international standards for solder balling,
but who will measure and count balls on the surface of a
board to determine acceptability? I was once asked by a
company to set visual criteria and train production staff
in solder balls and their acceptability. Instead, I worked
with the company to eliminate the problem, which after
all is the best course of action. Figure 1: Get rid of solder balls that do not serve any function.
The IPC in their inspection document IPC A 610 pro-
vides the following definition: Solder balls are noncon- Having the correct copper plating thickness in the
forming defects for class 1, 2, and 3 that violate mini- through holes is the key. A minimum of 25µm of cop-
mum electrical design clearances, or are not encapsulated per should be present on the surface of the hole walls.
in a permanent coating or attached to a metal contact (fig- Solder balls are generally seen on the top surface of
ure 1). Solder balls can be considered as process indica- the board.
tors when they are within 0.13mm of lands or tracks, ex- Solder balls on the base of the board are caused by a
ceed 0.13mm in diameter, or are found in clusters of more number of process parameters. Spitting from the sur-
than five solder balls ≤0.13mm per 600mm2. face of the wave, which is associated with either the
amount of flux or the preheat settings, normally causes
Tips for wave soldering balls in a random pattern. If the preheat is incorrectly
Solder balling during wave soldering has always been set or the quantity of flux applied increases, the evapo-
around but the elimination of cleaning after the solder- ration of the solvent from the flux may be affected.
ing operation has made it more visible. In the past, sol-
der balls were washed off the board surface during clean- Tackling the problem
ing—out of sight out of mind. Using a glass plate over the wave should show up the
Outgassing is still a common problem associated with gassing problem. Ideally, there should be few bubbles
wave and hand soldering. When a board is soldered any visible below the glass when it contacts the wave. If the
moisture in the board close to the hole is heated and solder falls at a distance from the printed board as the
turned to vapour. If there is either thin plating or voids wave separates, the solder can literally splash back from

18 Electronics Engineer October 1998


Process Solutions

Take a close look at the board after printing and on


the underside of the stencil. It should show evidence
of paste between pads and stencil apertures. Some re-
cent printing trials using a glass plate and video film-
ing the printing process showed how much paste
squeezes out if a gasket is not produced. Try printing
paste on to glass and see the effect of correct gasketing
for yourself.
To determine when the paste enters under the parts,
check the paste printing quality. Remove parts prior to
reflow and check for paste. This will reveal if the place-
ment machine is literally squeezing the paste under the
parts. Pass a fully loaded board through reflow, chang-
ing the final zone temperature to prevent paste reflow.
Figure 2: Most companies do not realize the problem of When the board has exited, check for paste under the
solder beads at the sides of components. parts. By finding out when the paste gets under the com-
the bath and result in a random pattern. You should also ponents, you can eliminate the problem.
examine the compatibility of the resist and flux; the mask Reflowing of solder paste is a function of tempera-
often contributes to solder ball adhesion. ture and time. If you don’t provide a high enough tem-
To understand where the balls are coming from place perature or not enough time, the paste will not reflow. If
a sheet of white paper card over the wave and fix it to the there is excessive delay between placement and reflow,
top of the conveyor. Run the wave-soldering machine the same fault may occur due to degradation of the flux.
without any board then check the white card. If balls are In each case, solder balls are formed.
present, you know that there is spitting from the wave.
The next step is to test run boards over the wave for
ten minutes and the use the white-card technique. This
will indicate if the problem is associated with gassing
on the surface of the wave. Remember that the correct
set up of the wave-soldering process is a very important
procedure.

Solder balls in reflow


Solder balls forming at the side of chip components
and not at the joint surface are referred to as solder beads
(figure 2). This is simply to avoid the confusion with
the many other solder ball phenomena. Solder beading
is common in reflow soldering and many companies
have this problem without even realizing it.
During the assembly operation solder paste can get Figure 3: Poor under stencil cleaning is another cause of
under the body of the chip component. As the board solder-ball formation.
passes through the reflow oven and into the reflow zone, There are also other solder balling problems that you
the paste turns into a liquid. All solder balls coalesce to should be aware of, such as poor cleaning of misprinted
form a solder joint. The same thing happens to paste boards, realignment of components prior to reflow, and
under the chip. In this case, the increase in size of the poor under-stencil cleaning (figure 3). These days, it is
solder lifts the part to allow the liquid to escape. The uncommon for solder balls to be results of poor paste
component lowers back on to the board leaving the sol- materials or incorrect profiles. Both suppliers and pro-
der bead visible at the side of the component normally cess engineers have come a long way since the early
held by the remaining flux. days of surface-mount components. In any case, just
remember that the paste should not slump and the pro-
Examining solder beads files should not cause spitting. ee
If solder beads are always seen in the same location, it
is worth examining the design and stencil pattern. The Bob Willis is an independent process consultant. Please e-mail
stencil aperture may not be correct for the component. your comments and questions to [email protected], or fax
The stencil may not be sealing with the pad, allowing 44-01245-496123. His home page is at www. bobwillis.co.uk.
paste to flow under the stencil.
18 Electronics Engineer October 1998

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