The Attainment of Reliability in Modern Soldering Techniques for Electronic Assemblies

Abstract

The joining together of metal components by soft soldering using tin-lead alloys is the oldest metallurgical joining technique; yet because of its apparent simplicity it has in the past been much misunderstood and abused as a production method. The fact that reasonably satisfactory joints are obtained under a relatively wide range of conditions has resulted in a neglect of the basic essentials of the soldering process. Furthermore, even when the design and manufacture of the most up-to-date and exotic electronic equipment is being considered, the otherwise logical and ordered thinking is dispensed with where the soldering aspect is concerned. Finally, the production staff is left to cope with that part of the schedule that states simply ‘to be soldered’.