Air Products will introduce a break-through fluxless soldering technology using electron attachment (EA) technology for wafer level packaging applications at the IPC APEX Expo in San Diego, to be held from 27 February to 1 March.
Air Products' patented EA technology uses activated hydrogen at ambient pressure with a starting temperature as low as 100°C to remove metal oxides from electroplated solder bumps on semiconductor wafers and permit reflow of these bumps to obtain the proper shape and size for interconnection onto a package or substrate.
Expo attendees are invited to stop by Air Products' booth #3604 to learn about the benefits of the company's proprietary EA-based technology.
These benefits include enhanced bump reflow quality due to flux induced solder voids and wafer contaminations that naturally disappear; improved productivity from in-line process capability, which reduces or eliminates post wafer cleaning and furnace downtime for cleaning; lower cost of ownership for end users due to reduction or elimination of costs associated with cleaning equipment, cleaning solution, labor work and flux; and fewer environmental issues due to elimination of organic vapors, hazard residues and CO2 emissions.
Air Products has collaborated with Sikama International to offer an electron attachment fluxless reflow system (EAUP1200). The furnace is designed to remove metal oxides from solder bumps on UBM wafers and solder caps from copper pillar wafers via the EA technology.
The activated hydrogen produces hydrogen anions, which induces reflow of the solder to a final shape in the absence of traditional flux processes.
In addition to industrial gases for integrated circuit assembly processes, Air Products provides nitrogen reflow, inert nitrogen control systems, wave soldering inerting kits and selective wave soldering for printed circuit board assembly, as well as environmental stress screening.
