BALVE, GERMANY — Balver Zinn, a leading provider of high-quality anodes with various alloys as well as soft solders and special wires, and Cobar BV, a member of the Balver Zinn Group, announces it will introduce its new XF3 lead-free solder paste in stand 9-524 at the upcoming SMT/Hybrid/Packaging 2008 exhibition and conference - scheduled to take place June 3-5, 2008 in Nürnberg, Germany.

The XF3 lead-free solder paste was developed to accommodate extended reflow profiles without the use of nitrogen and it completes the family of Cobar products based on Nihon Superior’s patented SN100C-alloy.

SN100C has demonstrated superior long-term fatigue strength over silver-containing SAC-alloys. Being completely free of silver, SN100C shines as the only true remedy against Cu-migration into the Sn regions of the solder joint. With XF3, wetting on all common metal surfaces is excellent, yielding shiny joints reminiscent of leaded solders. It exhibits a robust printing window, printing at 150-200 mm per second. SN100C-XF3 performs better in eliminating voiding when compared to any SAC-alloy.

Balver Zinn offers a coherent system of SN100C soldering materials to customers, ranging from solder bars to cored solder wire, compatible fluxes, and solder paste. The Balver Zinn Group also offers a complete range of SN100C-based Hot Air Leveling products for the board manufacturing industry.