Past, Present, Future of Solderless Assembly

Joseph Fjelstad
Verdant Electronics, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

The forced transition to lead-free soldering foisted on the global electronics industry by a well meaning but misguided European parliament has actually resulted, according to the US EPA study, in a net worsening of the environment. One prospective response to the ongoing challenge facing the electronics industry is to eliminate solder from the electronic interconnection process. The concept is one that has deep roots in the electronics industry and it is now of growing interest to electronic product developers, especially among those in the military, aerospace and automotive markets but also in the portable electronics market. This paper will examine some of the many different methods that have been proposed or used over the years by the electronics industry and take a look forward at some solutions that
might lie in the future.

In summary, solderless assembly technologies have long been a part of the electronic interconnection process tool set. With the deleterious effects of high temperature solders now looming large on the manufacturing community and the increase in early failure of electronic assemblies, it is believed that solderless alloy free electronics (SAFE) will become a new standard for assembly as time progresses.

Given some of the recent reliability results reported by OKI for embedded device technology, it is assumed that solder alloy free electronic processes, such as that represented by the Occam process, will give the OEM a new choice for producing products that should prove a highly reliable and cost effective approach to electronic assembly and the printed circuit manufacturer the possibility to reinvent and redefine the circuit manufacturing process in a way that adds significant value while reducing overall costs and increasing reliability while reducing overall costs and increasing reliability while easily cleaning the hurdles put in place by the EU's RoHS legislation.