With Occam’s solderless methodology, electronic equipment companies are now free to build the products they've always wanted to, without solder's limitations.
Question to ChatGPT: What are the primary causes of failure in electronic products?
Answer from ChatGPT: The primary causes of failure in electronic products can vary depending on the type of product and its application, but some common causes include:
• Environmental factors: Exposure to extreme temperatures, humidity, moisture, and vibration can cause electronic components to fail.
• Electrical stress: Overvoltage, overcurrent, and electrostatic discharge can cause electrical stress on components, leading to failure.
• Mechanical stress: Mechanical stress, such as shock, vibration, or bending, can cause damage to components and lead to failure.
• Wear and tear: Over time, components may degrade or wear out, leading to failure.
• Manufacturing defects: Defects introduced during the manufacturing process, such as contamination, soldering defects, and incorrect assembly, can cause failures.
• Design flaws: Inadequate design or flaws in the design can lead to failures, such as improper thermal management, insufficient power supply, and inadequate protection.
• Software and firmware errors: Errors in software and firmware can cause electronic products to malfunction or fail.
• Environmental hazards: Exposure to chemicals, radiation, or other environmental hazards can cause electronic components to fail.
Over a third of the failures listed above have something in common: solder and the component assembly process. Although the solder related failures are well-known, the industry has created layers of workarounds to manage these shortcomings. As a result, the root cause of the problem has become invisible.
Whether you buy or build PCBs and assemblies you’ve likely become all too familiar with many of these vexing problems over your career no matter the length of time you’ve spent in the industry, on or off the manufacturing floor. The rogues gallery of product life shortening culprits include: opens, insufficient solder, excessive solder, solder cracking, tin whiskers, poor wetting/dewetting, voids, blowhole, cold solder joints, brittle solder joints, head-on-pillow, graping, tombstoning, popcorning, solder balling, misregistration, insufficient cleaning under devices, incomplete solder joints, shorted solder joints, solder balls voids, solder ball shorts, overheated solder joints, cold solder joints, damaged solder pads, insufficient solder on joints or through holes. None of these are benign or inconsequential concerns.
Moreover, the problems with solder are not isolated, they, in fact, have a spillover effect on the PCB during the assembly process. These include: corner cracking, barrel cracking, post separation, hole wall pull away, resin recession, delamination, pad cratering, and resin decomposition.
The solution
There is a much better path forward. With Occam’s solderless methodology, more can be done with a whole lot less less material, less energy, less time, less waste and less money. The Occam Process unlocks a tremendous amount of bottled up product potential, removing the many constraints product designers have had to work around for decades. The list of opportunities are extensive: lower overall product cost, higher reliability, smaller size and reduced weight, simpler designs with fewer layers using less expensive software with fewer re-spins; improved first pass yield, improved environmental footprint, integral thermal management, EMI and ESD mitigation, new and improved architectural design potentials in the 3rd dimension, faster time to market along with many others not listed here.
Think of everything that’s wrong with solder, and Occam removes them. Can you afford not to investigate and consider the Occam solution?
About Occam
Occam is a manufacturing methodology and enabling technology for assembling electronic components without solder. Occam’s solderless approach opens the floodgates to a host of new opportunities. By removing this one limiting piece of the puzzle, electronic equipment companies are now free to build the products they’ve always wanted to, without solder’s limitations.
To learn more, visit the Occam Process website: https://theoccamgroup.com.