Joe Belmonte Joins Creyr Innovation

We are very pleased to announce Joe Belmonte has become part of our team at Creyr Innovation. Joe has joined our team to provide sales & customer support in New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, & VT) for all Creyr Innovation’s principals. Joe brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, consistent with our goal of being the premier Technology Solutions Provider & Supplier Representative for the electronics industry.

Joe has been a process engineer and process engineering manager in electronics manufacturing for over 30 years. His responsibilities have included managing advanced process development projects such as Pb-free Process Development, miniature component assembly, developing and conducting process training programs, and working with customers on quality, cycle time, and cost improvement projects.

Positions held include:

Joe has been a member of the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) since 1985 and is currently a member of the Board of Directors. He has written papers for many trade magazines, trade shows, and has spoken at technical conferences and professional society meetings worldwide. Joe is also a consultant for ITM Consulting.

Joe holds an Associate Degree in Mechanical Design from Wentworth Institute and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Operations Technology from Northeastern University in Boston Massachusetts.

January, 2010

Indium Announces New Account Specialist, Jill Martin,
Supporting the Northeast U.S.

Indium Corporation announces that Jill Martin has been hired as an Account Specialist. Jill is based at Indium's global headquarters in Clinton, NY, USA.

Jill is responsible for the day-to-day support of existing and new accounts in the Northeast and Canada, working closely with Indium's team of sales representatives.

Jill attended Mohawk Valley Community College and has over ten years of experience in account service, including sales support. She resides in New Hartford, NY. 

For more information about Indium Corporation, visit http://www.indium.com/.

January, 2010

Kyzen Global Technology Award for Cybersolve 141R

We are proud to announce that Kyzen has won this years Global Technology Award in the category of Cleaning Materials for our CYBERSOLV® 141-R Precision Cleaner. Kyzen strives to produce the best precision cleaning chemistries and services in the industry and are grateful for the recognition from industry peers and customers.

CYBERSOLV® 141-R is designed for optimum effectiveness on a wide variety of soils typically found in electronics assembly and maintenance cleaning applications including flux, paste, inks, uncured adhesives, waxes, mill markings, greases, oils, fingerprints, etc. It is the most effective bench top cleaner on the market, capable of cleaning all types of solder paste and many SMT adhesives. Better cleaning means better quality, due to lower residues and fewer failures.

November, 2009

Advanced Process Laboratory Hosts AREA Consortium Meeting

Universal Instruments’ Advanced Process Lab hosted the third 2009 Advanced Research in Electronics Assembly (AREA) Consortium meeting at the Treadway Inn in Owego, NY on October 28-29. More than 75 attendees from the 29 member companies participated in the two-day event and a much larger number has signed up for subsequent web casts of the presentations. Topics ranged from lead-free solder microstructure and reliability to environmental stress screening procedures.

November 4, 2009 - Attending companies included industry leaders such as Alcatel-Lucent, Asymtek, BAE, Boston Scientific, Brocade, Celestica, Curtiss Wright, Dell, Ericsson, Harris, IBM, Indium, Lord Corporation, MIT Lincoln Labs, Motorola, Multek, Northrop Grumman, Plexus, Qualcomm, Rockwell Automation, Sun, Texas Instruments, and Textron.

The agenda format was consistent with previous meetings, featuring concise presentations with the opportunity for detailed follow-up discussions in a final poster session. The Wednesday session opened the event with a review of systematic results of thermal cycling of lead-free soldered assemblies and then progressed to a neural network analysis of this and previous thermal cycling data. This information revealed a systematic trend of considerable importance for assessment of acceleration factors to life in service. Other Wednesday morning topics included pad cratering research and new thermal interface materials (TIMs). Previous pad cratering research has led to protocols for choosing the most reliable among the many new printed circuit board materials.

The afternoon session on the opening day featured presentations on the reliability testing of various TIMs, as well as a discussion on new insights into lead-free metallurgy. Also examined was the evolution of lead-free solder microstructure. "The so-called Manhattan Project, headed by a team of deep subject matter experts from the military and aerospace community, has identified our current inability to account for the effects of long-term aging and combinations of different loads on lead-free solder reliability as particularly critical,” stated George Westby, Director of Universal’s Advanced Process Lab. “These issues and their consequences have therefore been the focus of in-depth research efforts in recent months, and we were delighted to see technical leaders from across the industry travel to our meeting to learn and discuss our results," continued Westby. Further analysis of these results will improve the ability to measure and predict reliability and make our military and aerospace vehicles safer. Low-Ag SAC alloys and the minimization of reflow temperatures were other topics rounding out the day-one session.

Day two of the event kicked off with updates on edge and corner bonding, a topic of ongoing interest to many, and efforts to define a practical, safe screening test for the identification of inferior electrolytic Ni, i.e. Ni/Au coatings that may give 'missing balls' and/or brittle failure of the inter-metallic bond right after reflow. Current screening tests are now suspected of doing more damage than previously thought, presenting a safety issue. Other day two topics included flux dipping of flip chips, reballing, ENEPIG coatings, and an overview of all past consortium reports and how to effectively use them for reference. The event was concluded with the poster session, including in-depth discussions of the major projects with the researchers, as well as networking opportunities.

If you are facing new technology challenges or preparing for future designs and are not yet familiar with the Consortium, we welcome you to contact Creyr or the Universal Instruments Advanced Process Laboratory to discuss how membership could benefit your current projects and the future of your organization. For more information please click here to visit the Universal page on our web site.