Kyzen’s Dr. Bixenman to Hold IPC Webinar on Cleaning Highly Dense Circuit Assemblies

This session will discuss the driving forces for cleaning highly dense circuit assemblies and packages, and the cleaning variability induced by lead-free flux residues based upon research.
Distances between conductors on PCBs — and the under-clearance gaps from the board to the bottom of the components — are increasingly smaller. This increases the probability that flux residues or surface contamination will increase reliability risks, which are commonly mitigated by cleaning all flux residues and ionic contamination on the surface and under components on the assembly.
New cleaning agent designs are needed to better dissolve advanced flux compositions. The most advanced flux technologies fit within the low-residue no-clean flux category. With the move toward highly dense miniaturized board assemblies and lead-free soldering, flux compositions require higher molecular weight flux vehicles with increased thermal stability. The flux residues from these compositions have a greater degree of product-to-product variation, form hard resinous barriers and are increasingly difficult to clean.
Co-founder and CTO of Kyzen, Dr. Mike Bixenman has more than 35 years of experience in the precision cleaning field, and is an active researcher and innovator. Dr. Bixenman chaired the IPC-CH-65B Cleaning Handbook that will be released this fall and the IPC-7526 Stencil Cleaning Handbook.