5-6th October 2011, The Oxfordshire, Thame, Oxfordshire, England is the date for you diary for the greatest show on earth. Area Array, Assembly, Cleaning, Conformal Coating & Reliability Conference plus Table Top Exhibition Following our successful two day conference last year SMART proudly announces an equally exciting two day conference.

This year’s conference will focus on Area Array Design, Assembly, Reliability, Cleaning and Conformal Coating with speakers from the US and Europe. In a recent survey engineers highlighted Ball Grid Array packages as one of the main causes of failure. Based on other industry database research BGA is one of the most common internet searches. This is why this year’s conference covers area array technology and the growing need for cleaning and conformal coating to reduce failures due to environmental challenges in commercial and high reliability applications.

The Workshop on µBGA, CSP, Flip Chip Design & Assembly is set for Wednesday 31st August 2011 The use of uBGA, flip chip and Chip Scale Package (CSP) is now of significant importance to design and assembly engineers. The advanced packaging techniques are being driven by the needs of miniature handheld products and the increasing integration of electronics into the automobile. Reliability concerns have focused attention on the possible failure of area array solder joints put under thermal cycle or shock increasing the interest in the use of underfill materials to extend the life of solder interconnections.

This workshop will provide a better understanding of chip scale design, assembly, soldering, encapsulation and reliability. It will illustrate many practical examples of products using advanced packaging techniques and their benefits. The session will also bring engineers up to date with recent results from the European Funded uBGA Project of solder sphere manufacture under FP7-SME-2008-2-243653. The workshop is sponsored by Tyndall National Institute and speakers will include Finbarr Waldron, Tyndall, Ravin Ginige, KCC and Bob Willis on behalf of SMART Group.

For further information or to book for this event Click here

The Workshop includes:

Current and future alternative package types
Package production
Solder sphere manufacture
uBGA/CSP/Flip Chip balling
Designing rules for board layout
Flip chip assembly overview
Placement requirements

For more information contact Philip J. O’Rourke SMART Group Ireland admin@smartgroupireland.com Tel: +353 (0)86 8061998 Fax: +353 (0)1 8186321

SMART Group announces an online PCB Specification smart-e-webinar to be held on 5th July 2011 at 2.30 GMT. The session will cover all aspects of understanding the printed circuit board, from specifications, materials, standards etc.

To book your place Click Here

The printed circuit board is the foundation for all electronic assemblies. An understanding of the fundamentals of its construction, materials and manufacturing processes is really the key to the quality of the end product.

It really is inadequate to simply ask a supplier to take the design Gerber files plus drilling drawing and to provide a green coloured FR4 PCB from these, especially since the advent of the more demanding lead-free solder assembly process. Giving the supplier a full specification is the only way to guarantee the PCB behaves the way you expect it to!

This webinar is presented by users actively involved in commercial and high reliability electronics assemblies. They have many years practical experience in the measures necessary to control and assess quality, purchasing, design and production issues associated with PCBs.

This webinar will be presented by Sue Knight and Nigel Burtt both experienced engineers and SMART Group Technical Committee Members.

The topics will include: Writing a suitable PCB specification, Relevant International Standards, Laminate Types, Solder Finishes, Solder Mask, Flex and Flexi-rigid requirements, Quality Control, Inspection, Common Defects and how to find and avoid them, also the importance of assessing supplier capability.

To book your place Click Here