Quality Challenges of Reused Components

For the End-of-Life treatment of electronic products the option of reusing electronic parts and boards are of high interest. Among the reasons for doing this are not only legal regulations but economical and environmentally motivated reasons too. The economic point of view covers advantages as well as limits which are in the most cases related to the quality of the worked-off parts. The paper presents as an example the disassembly of printed wiring boards at the automated BeCAP pilot line. The analysis of the characteristic and limiting properties for re-assembling, for example, the form tolerances, the wetability and presence of remaining solder, will be described. One of the most worrying weak points is the popcorning of the packages. A reason for decreasing wetability can be the opening of the intermetallic phases during the desoldering process, which requires the re-tinning of the components. The paper is interesting for companies from industry and consultancy which are correlated with assembly and reuse of electronic parts and the test of the parts quality regarding to the ability for re-assembly. It shows some of the crucial points of disassembling processes of printed wiring boards, which should be taken into account, if high quality disassembly processes are planned.