PCB Design

Rex Joseph
Department of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering
PCB Surface finishes
After Fabrication of PCB
The basics of soldering are the same whether you’re
connecting wires to a speaker or SMT components to a PCB;
you’ll need solder, flux, and heat.

When manufacturing production volumes not going to use

some solder wire and an iron; instead, use solder reflow or
wave soldering depending on the types of components in
your design.

Understanding these processes and principles behind

soldering will help you design to avoid the various defects
that can be difficult to trace and kill a design when it’s time
for production.
PCB Surface finishes
RoHS is a product level compliance based on the European
Union's Directive 2002/95/EC,

The Restriction of the Use of certain Hazardous Substances

in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS).

Products compliant with this directive do not exceed the

allowable amounts of the following restricted materials:
lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium,
polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated
diphenyl ethers (PBDE), with some limited exemptions.
PCB Surface finishes
Hot air solder leveling (Known as HASL)
It is a process of coating molten tin-lead solder on the
surface of the PCB and flattening (blowing) it with heated
compressed air to form a coating layer that not only resists
copper oxidation but also provides good solderability
PCB Surface finishes
Hot air solder leveling (Known as HASL)
The following important parameters need to be mastered:
welding temperature, air knife air temperature, air knife
pressure, dip soldering time, lifting speed, etc.
PCB Surface finishes
Hot air solder leveling (Known as HASL)
Advantages of HASL
•Relatively long storage time.
•Good pad wetting and copper coverage.
•Lead free (RoHS compliant) variant widely available.
•Mature technology.
•Low cost.
•Highly suited for visual inspection and electrical testing.
Disadvantages of HASL
•Not suitable for wire bonding.
•Poor planarity due to the natural meniscus of molten solder.
•Not suitable for capacitive touch switches.
•For particularly thin panels, HASL may not be suitable. The
high heat of the bath may cause board warping.
PCB Surface finishes
PCB Surface finishes
OSP (organic protective film)

OSP is the abbreviation of Organic Solderability Preservatives,

also known as Preflux.

OSP is sprayed onto the surface of the copper pads to provide

a protective film made of organic chemicals.

This layer of the film must have the characteristics of

oxidation resistance, heat shock resistance, moisture
resistance, etc., to protect the copper surface from oxidation
in a normal environment.
PCB Surface finishes
OSP (organic protective film)

However, in the subsequent high temperature soldering, this

protective film must be easily removed by the flux quickly, so
that the exposed clean copper surface can be immediately
combined with the molten solder to form a strong solder joint
in a very short time.

In other words, the role of OSP is to act as a barrier between

copper and air.
PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of OSP
•Simple and cheap; surface finish is just sprayed on.
•Pad surface is very smooth, planarity comparable to ENIG.
•Lead free (RoHS compliant) and environmentally friendly.
•Reworkable.

Disadvantages of OSP
•Poor wettability.
•Clear and thin nature of the film means it is difficult to gauge
quality with visual inspection and perform in-circuit testing.
•Poor lifetime, high storage and handling requirements.
•Poor protection for plated through holes.
PCB Surface finishes
Immersion silver
Silver has stable chemical properties.

Even if the PCB processed by the immersion silver process is

exposed to heat, humidity and pollution, it can still provide
good electrical properties and maintain good solderability,
even if it will lose its luster.

Immersion silver is a displacement reaction, directly coating

copper with a layer of pure silver.

Sometimes immersion silver is combined with a coating of

OSP to prevent the silver from reacting with sulfides in the
environment.
PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of Immersion Silver
•High solderability.
•Good surface planarity.
•Low cost and lead free (RoHS compliant).
•Suitable for aluminum wire bonding.

Disadvantages of immersion silver

•High storage requirements. Easily contaminated.
•Short assembly window once removed from packaging.
•Hard to electrically test.
PCB Surface finishes
Immersion Tin
Since all solders are tin-based, the tin layer can match any
type of solder.

After adding organic additives to the tin immersion solution,

the tin layer structure takes a granular structure, which
overcomes the problems caused by the migration of tin
whiskers and tin, and also has good thermal stability and
solderability.
The immersion tin process can form a flat copper-tin
intermetallic compound, which makes the immersion tin have
good solderability without flatness problems and intermetallic
diffusion problems.
PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of immersion tin
•Suitable for horizontal production line.
•Suitable for fine trace processing, suitable for lead-free
soldering, especially for crimping technology.
•Very good flatness, suitable for SMT.

Disadvantages of immersion tin

•High storage conditions, tarnishing can occur from
fingerprints.
•Tin whiskers may cause shorts and solder joint issues
therefore shelf life is reduced.
•Hard to electrically test.
•Process involves a carcinogen.
PCB Surface finishes
PCB Surface finishes
Immersion Gold (ENIG)
ENIG, or Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold is a widely-used
surface treatment coating, consisting of two metallic layers.

• Nickel is deposited directly onto the copper which is then

coated in gold atoms via a displacement reaction.
• The thickness of the inner layer of Ni is generally 3~6μm,
and the deposition thickness of the outer layer of Au is
generally 0.05~0.1μm.
• Ni forms a barrier layer between solder and copper.
• The role of Au is to prevent Ni oxidation during storage,
resulting in a long shelf-life but the immersion gold process
also produces excellent surface planarity
PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of Immersion Gold (ENIG)
•Suitable for lead-free (RoHS compliant) soldering.
•Excellent surface planarity.
•Long shelf-life, surface is durable.
•Suitable for aluminum wire bonding.

Disadvantages of Immersion Gold (ENIG)

•Expensive, uses gold.
•The process is complicated and difficult to control.
•Prone to black pad effect.

“Black pad” is a term that usually refers to nickel corrosion on

electroless nickel and gold immersion, or ENIG, surface
finishes on PCBs.
PCB Surface finishes
PCB Surface finishes
Electrolytic Nickel/Gold (Hard Gold/Soft Gold)

Electrolytic nickel gold is divided into “hard gold” and “soft

gold”.

Hard gold has a lower purity and is commonly used for gold
fingers (PCB edge connectors), PCB contacts or other hard-wear
areas.

Gold thicknesses may vary according to requirements.

Soft gold is purer and is often used in wire bonding applications.

PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of Electrolytic Nickel/Gold
•Longer shelf life.
•Suitable for contact switches and wire bonding.
•Hard gold is suitable for electric test.
•Lead-free (RoHS compliant).

Disadvantage of Electrolytic Nickel/Gold

•Most expensive surface finish.
•Electroplating gold finger requires an additional conductive
trace.
•Hard gold has poor solderability. Due to the thickness of the
gold, thicker layers are more difficult to solder to.
PCB Surface finishes
PCB Surface finishes
ENEPIG
Electroless Nickel Electroless Palladium Immersion Gold, or
ENEPIG, is beginning to be used more and more as a PCB
surface finish.
Compared with ENIG, ENEPIG has an extra layer of palladium
between nickel and gold which further protects the nickel layer
from corrosion, preventing black pad that may occur with the
ENIG finish.
The deposition thickness of Ni is about 3~6μm, the thickness of
palladium is about 0.1~0.5μm, and the thickness of gold is
0.02~0.1μm. Although the thickness of the gold layer is less
than that of ENIG, ENEPIG is more expensive.
Recent falls in the cost of palladium have made ENEPIG more
affordable however.
PCB Surface finishes
Advantages of Nickel palladium (ENEPIG)
•All the benefits of ENIG without black pad problems.
•More suitable for wire bonding than ENIG.
•No corrosion risk.
•Long storage time.Lead free (RoHS compliant).
Disadvantages of Nickel palladium (ENEPIG)
•Complex process.
•Hard to control.
•High cost.
•ENEPIG is a relatively new method and not mature
PCB Surface finishes
PCB - Soldering
Soldering is the process of connecting two metals together by
fusing them with a different element, solder.

The process is distinguishable from welding in that only the

fused metal melts, while the two connecting metals remain
undeformed.

With this technique, a strong but reversible connection can be

made between electrical conductors, if necessary for
component replacement or board repair.
PCB - Soldering
Solder is an alloy typically composed of tin and lead;

however, other elements; such as silver are also used.

Due to concerns over the toxicity of lead, unleaded or lead-free

solder is becoming more common.

The primary difference between the two is their melting points,

with lead-free soldering usually having a melting point 50 C
higher than leaded solder.

Unless regulations require you to use lead-free solder, like in

the European Union, leaded solder will generally be simpler to
use and has a lower risk of defects.
PCB - Soldering
Exposing board components to such high temperatures can
reduce their useful lifetime and cause problems when your
board is in the field.

The other main ingredient in soldering is flux.

Flux can be broadly defined as a cleaning agent, which removes

oxidation from the metal surfaces to be soldered.

If you’ve used a handheld soldering iron and solder wire the

smoke you see when you melt the wire is the flux burning off.
PCB - Soldering
Solder Reflow -
This process is mostly used for boards with a lot of SMT
components.
In reflow, a solder paste consisting of tiny solder balls
suspended in flux is applied with a stencil to a PCB.
SMT components are then placed on the pads where the solder
paste acts as a bonding agent and holds them on during
heating.
The boards are then sent through an oven where the solder
melts, then cools and forms the electrical connections for the
PCBA.
For double-sided boards in this process, one side is done first
then the PCB is flipped and the other side is soldered.
PCB - Soldering
PCB - Soldering
Wave Soldering -

In this technique, the PCB is sprayed with flux and then sent
through a wave (or multiple waves) of solder.

This technique is generally better for through-hole

components as the solder will fill their vias more and make a
better connection.

For double-sided boards, SMT components are often glued to

the bottom and through-hole components are mounted on top.
PCB - Soldering
10 Channel Equalizer
THANK YOU
Rex Joseph
Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering

[email protected]

+91 80 6666 3333 Extn 515