Can conductive epoxies be considered a viable substitute for tin lead solder? It's a question that's been asked many times, especially since the advent of RoHS appeared on the horizon.
Phil Zarrow, ITM Consulting With over 35 years experience in PCB assembly, Phil is one of the leading experts in SMT process failure analysis. He has vast experience in SMT equipment, materials and processes.
Jim Hall, ITM Consulting A Lean Six-Sigma Master Blackbelt, Jim has a wealth of knowledge in soldering, thermal technology, equipment and process basics. He is a pioneer in the science of reflow.
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Interesting talk on conductive epoxies. We have looked at this for many years, we used high volume Ag filled epoxies from the 1970's. This has reduced over the years due to changes in chip packaging/hybrid assembly. We saw no significant problems with using Ag epoxies even in extended life trials. Problem is price. Price problem is embarrassment. Majority of conductive epoxies are used in mil/hi-rel applications.
The few main suppliers have milked this business since 1960's. I can only use the last data I have (from 2001) but at that time the main US supplier was selling their Ag epoxy for about $1.75 per gram, main Asian source US$1.35 per gram. Both said these were competitive prices! At that time I was buying high purity electronic grade epoxies for about $0.003 per gram and Ag flake or powder for $0.15 per gram.
I spoke often to the main manufacturers to try to get them to reduce pricing to an acceptable level. I compared total cost of ownership of 96S solder or Ag epoxy as solder replacement for lead attach. The process savings using epoxy was enormous. No fluxing, reflow,cleaning just relatively low temperature curing.
Bottom line was we were willing to pay over $0.50 per gram. Volume would have been huge. No main supplier was interested. 4 times we had small epoxy manufacturers OEM the material to our specifications.
Each supplier either went out of business, was taken over or had "changes in strategic direction" after a few months manufacturing. Basically we gave up and looked at other ways to increase soldering efficiencies. I don't think we will ever have reasonable pricing in this sector due to the high historical margins for the suppliers.
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The few main suppliers have milked this business since 1960's. I can only use the last data I have (from 2001) but at that time the main US supplier was selling their Ag epoxy for about $1.75 per gram, main Asian source US$1.35 per gram. Both said these were competitive prices! At that time I was buying high purity electronic grade epoxies for about $0.003 per gram and Ag flake or powder for $0.15 per gram.
I spoke often to the main manufacturers to try to get them to reduce pricing to an acceptable level. I compared total cost of ownership of 96S solder or Ag epoxy as solder replacement for lead attach. The process savings using epoxy was enormous. No fluxing, reflow,cleaning just relatively low temperature curing.
Bottom line was we were willing to pay over $0.50 per gram. Volume would have been huge. No main supplier was interested. 4 times we had small epoxy manufacturers OEM the material to our specifications.
Each supplier either went out of business, was taken over or had "changes in strategic direction" after a few months manufacturing. Basically we gave up and looked at other ways to increase soldering efficiencies. I don't think we will ever have reasonable pricing in this sector due to the high historical margins for the suppliers.
Allan Dowie, BI Technologies Ltd