Characterization of the solder paste release from small stencil apertures in the stencil printing process

Stencil printing is a critical first step in surface mount assembly. However, its robustness can be called into question because of the fact that about 50% or more of the defects found in the assembly of printed circuit boards (PCBs) are attributed to stencil printing [I]. Manufacturing techniques for the assembly of certain flip chips, chip scale packages, 0201s, and fine pitch ball grid arrays are testing the limits of current stencil printing capabilities. This paper focuses on understanding the release of solder paste from the stencil, based on experimental and modeling approaches. The primary goal of the study is to characterize the performance of various aperture sizes and geometries based on release efficiencies and to compare them to predictions. The resulting model validation helps us better understand the print process for small features and offers options for increasing print yields. The study is divided into two phases. The first phase examines the release performance of various solder pastes from a variety of aperture sizes and geometries. The focus of this study is a comparison of square versus circular apertures when the nominal volume of paste to be deposited is kept constant. The second phase consists of developing a model that predicts paste-release efficiencies from small apertures and validating the model with experimental results.