Assessment of thermal and process properties of lead-free solder pastes for high reliable electronic devices

Increasing void contents has been discovered in the course of conversion to lead-free materials in the manufacturing of electronic components and packages. At the present time these voids are probably originated by the common flux materials which are issued by the most manufacturers. Regrettably, the common applied fluxes are transferred from basic flux materials for lead-containing solders. For a better understanding different soldering parameters of five selected lead-free solder pastes were tested and analysed to identify affecting the generation of voids. X-ray investigations of the dynamic reflow kinetics proved to be a valuable tool to investigable the void creation in solder joints.