Technical paper about Stencil Design
This is a technical paper about:
Aperture Size vs Pad Size, Aperture Shape, Stencil Thickness, Adhesives Printing, Stencil Manufacturing Method, Stencil Thickness, Aperture Design, etc.

Fiducial Mark Design Guidelines
These guidelines are intended to provide a generic outline for the design and layout of circuit pattern recognition marks, commonly called Fiducial Marks.
The guidelines adhere to design rules standardized by the Surface Mount Equipment Manufacturers Association and are supported by IPC.

Volume Assembly Qualification for 0201 Packages
In this work, a QV is designed for 0201 packages including more than 5,000 locations for 0201s and 1,400 locations for 0402 components, with the pad-to-pad spacing for 0201 components ranging from 0.010, 0.008 to 0.006".
No-clean solder pastes and 0201 components from several different vendors are evaluated.
Detailed studies are carried out on important process parameters, including solder paste printing, component pick-and-place and reflow.
Based on this study, 0201 capacitors show a higher defect level than that of 0201 resistors, and solder pastes with higher tackiness exhibit a lower defect level for 0201 assembly.

Causes and Cures of Tombstoning Chip Components
A tombstone-sometimes called a Manhattan skyline, crocodile, leaning tower or space rocket-is a chip component that has partially or completely lifted off one end of the surface of the pad. Tombstones may be caused by solderability variations on terminations; volume of paste; surface area of pad; variations in thermal demand of pads; solder mask thickness; paste under parts; limited placement force; and nitrogen usage.

Technical paper about Printing of SMT Solderpaste
This is a technical paper about printing Solderpaste, with some info about stencils and a small list of failures related to printing. (Novice)

Suggestions for layout of "rat-bite" breakaway tabs
PCBs held together with breakaway tabs to make handling, placement and soldering easier and more efficient.
Boards are snapped apart at the end of processing. (Also look at V-Scoring)

What does X-ray inspection of hidden BGA solder joints reveal?
An X-ray image is generated by different X-radiation absorption of various parts of the object. Simply spoken, these absorption differences are due to variations in density or thickness of the object.
For solder joints, mainly the thickness (or shape) is of interest. The longer the path of the radiation through a part of the object, the darker this part appears in the image.

The benefits of v-scoring (Pocket Guide to Excellent V-Scoring)
Since you are a very busy engineer, operator or manager involved in many other important areas, we offer this concise review of the fundamentals of v-scoring, that will produce the accurate and functional product that you desire. By Phil Altomare, Jr. and Mark Simmons.

About ESD (Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Air ionization).
ESD is a multi-step event. Charge is generated, typically triboelectrically, accumulating on some object. At some later time, a discharge occurs. Ionizers prevent problems that would occur in few seconds or longer from the time of generation of charge to the discharge.

Soldering to Gold over Nickel surfaces.
There are many things that can go wrong when soldering to gold plate over nickel surfaces.
First of all, we know that gold and solder are not good friends,....

Process Parameters Wave soldering.
In this article you will find some basics to start / check the Parameters for a wave soldering machine. You will also find and a explanation of the technical vocabulary such as "Dwell time, Solidification time and wetting time.

Technical paper about Printing of SMT Adhesives
The printing technique has become popular. This technology is very well known from solder paste printing.
The major driving force is the higher throughput of this application method. More over, a new printing technique with thick stencils allows depositing of glue dots with different diameters and different heights.

Metal Stencil Overview.
A definite learning curve exist when ordering the stencil for a printing process. When familiarization with its technologies helps produce desired results, the stencil becomes a constant in an otherwise variable assembly operation.

The Benefits of a Ramp-to-Spike Reflow Profile.
The issue of reflow profiling has been and continues to be a hot topic.
Questions ranging from Why Profile? to How To Profile? to How Can I Better Profile? continue to proliferate.
This paper shall discuss the appropriate guidelines and troubleshooting methods for reflow profiling, and in particular shall focus upon the advantages of newer-style reflow ovens and the benefits of implementing the linear ramp-to-spike profile.

Minimizing defects on board assemblies by reflow profile adjustments.
Obviously, the soldering profile created in the reflow oven is one of the most important factors in determining defect rates in the SMT manufacturing process. To gain or to maintain a good process realising the necessarily high yield, board assemblers have to look carefully and eventually optimise plenty of adjustments.

Reducing solder microballs in innert wave soldering.
Investigation of small solder balls produced during wave soldering suggest a tightening of process controls and the correct solder mask.

What is Nitrogen?
The nitrogen content of the air we normally breath in is around 78 %, making it the main constituent of air.
The fact that nitrogen is a chemical element was discovered relatively late in the history of science, mainly because, under normal laboratory conditions, it is a an element that is inert to most chemical reactions.

Matte-surface solder masks reduce solder ball defects.
This article provides a short description of the Influence of surface liquid photoimageable solder masks on the number of solder balls remaining on printed circuit boards) processed with no-clean flux).

Achieving Long-term stability in the SMD placement Process.
This article provides a short description of the MCT process, together with the essential fundamentals of placement accuracy.
It then introduces a special calibration method which allows for placement accuracy testing to help meet today's pressing market demands.

Flip chip interconnect
Until recently, controlled collapse chip connection bump technology, developed in the late 1960s, provided a reliable interconnect for high-performance, leading-edge microprocessors. As device and wafer fabrication methods have progressed, however, evaporative bump technology has been increasingly unable to meet product demands. Electroplated bump technology, while not new, has emerged as one of the most desirable options currently available to meet increased interconnect requirements.

Nitrogen in refow
Nitrogen is used in reflow soldering to drive out the oxygen from the soldering chamber. This prevents the solder pads and component terminals to oxidise during reflow of the solder paste.