Category: SMT

The reflow oven process principle and introduction

As we know,reflow oven is the most important welding technology in surface mount technology. It has been widely used in many industries including mobile phones, computers, automotive electronics, control circuits, communications, LED lighting and many other industries. More and more electronic devices are converted from through hole to surface mount, and reflow oven  replaces wave  soldering is a obvious  trend in welding industry.

So what is the role of reflow oven equipment in the increasingly mature lead-free SMT process? Let’s take a look at the whole SMT surface mount line:

The whole SMT surface mounting line consists of three parts, such as steel mesh solder paste printing machine, SMT machine and reflow oven furnace. For the machine, and compared with lead free, and no new demands on the equipment itself; for screen printing machine, and a lead-free solder paste in the physical properties there are some differences, so put forward some improvement on the device itself, but there is no qualitative change. the key of lead-free  is  in the reflow oven.

The lead paste (Sn63Pb37) melting point of 183 degrees, if you want to form a good weld must have the thickness of 0.5-3.5um intermetallic compounds in welding, intermetallic compound formation temperature is above the melting point of 10-15, the lead welding is 195-200. The maximum withstand temperature of the electronic device on the circuit board is generally 240 degrees. Therefore, for lead welding, the ideal welding process window is 195-240 degrees.

Because of the change of melting point of lead-free solder paste, lead-free welding has brought great changes for welding process. At present, the lead-free solder paste is Sn96Ag0.5Cu3.5 and the melting point is 217-221 degrees. Good lead-free solder must also be formed 0.5-3.5um thickness intermetallic compounds, intermetallic compound formation temperature is also above the melting point of 10-15 degrees, for lead-free welding, that is, 230-235 degrees. Since the highest temperature of lead-free solder electronic device will not change, therefore, for lead-free soldering, ideal welding process window is 230-245 degrees.
The substantial reduction of process window brings great challenge to ensure welding quality, and also brings higher requirements to stability and reliability of lead-free wave soldering equipment. Because the equipment itself is coupled with the electronic device transverse temperature difference, due to differences in size of heat capacity will produce temperature difference in the heating process, so in the process control of lead-free reflow oven can be adjusted in the process of welding temperature window becomes very small, this is the real lead-free reflow to the difficulty.