The Retronix IC Recovery process: Why it will change the landscape of the IC recovery market.

The philosophy of the Retronix IC recovery process is built around industry standards, adopted by the largest IC manufacturers. For them, when you are soldering ICs to PCBs, temperature and time are your enemy. The higher the temperature, and the longer the profile, then the more likely damage is to be caused. Think of passing your wet finger through a candle flame, no damage. Then think about holding it there for a minute! IC Manufacturers state (as a rule) no more than 3 or 4 reflow cycles should be carried out on an IC, but up to that number is fine:

Micron - "The maximum number of reflows is defined as three...product guarantees may be invalidated" (Ref 1.)

Xilinx - "Pg.11 JEDEC STD-20 compliant Packages capable of withstanding high reflow temperature rating (245 C-260 C) for 3 reflow cycles" (Ref 2.)

INTEL - "Many BGAs (including Intel BGAs) are rated for 3 reflow cycles" (Ref 3.)

Intel specifies two more points which are relevant, in the above referenced document, point 9.4.4.1 specifies, that the profile goes above 154 deg. after approx 1.9 minutes, and does not come below 154 deg. again till about 6.4 minutes. So it is above that temperature for approx. 4.5 minutes, moreover some profiles are even longer than this.

Keeping the above standards in mind, the Retronix IC Rescue process is different and unique as it manages to stay within all the stated manufacturers specifications, much shorter in terms of temperature and time, safe and well below stated reflow profiles.

Following comparison shows the traditional method  to the Retronix method, and how the Retronix IC recovery method is changing the landscape of the component recovery market.

The first time the component goes onto a PCB it has gone through a reflow profile, therefore the count starts from 1.

As can be seen from the comparison above:

The Retronix IC Rescue method is well within the manufacturers specifications, the process is automated, controlled and completely safe. 

Additional benefits of Retronix IC Rescue method include an automatic wash which makes sure each IC is clean, a mechanical test to verify functionality, including curve trace test, key functional test and memory test. A solderability test and XRF test to verify composition of leg or ball.

Watch a video on the IC recovery process: 

For more information on the reflow profiles and on our IC recovery process do contact us and we will be happy to set up  a meeting to discuss more on this process - (Click Here)

W - www.retronix.com

E   - info@retronix.com, sales@retronix.com

Know more about IC Rescue  -http://www.retronix.com/ic_bga_recovery

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Retronix 'IC Rescue' process helps maximise returns for a service repair company.

A service company that specialised in field repairs of telecommunication systems had a large quantity of spare PCBs, all brand new, that they bought in order to carry out repairs on systems. The product turned out to be far more reliable than estimated, and the product did not sell in the volumes expected.

The end result was that the service company ended up with a large quantity of brand new PCBs they had no use for, and there was no obvious external market.

Using Retronix’s “IC Rescue” process, the PCBs were stripped of valuable ICs, which were then offered to the market as 100% genuine, zero hours use ICs which were safely recovered from brand new PCBs.

These were either utilised on other PCBs which used the same chips, or sold on the general market to other companies, who knew they were recovered but also knew it was done with zero reflows and were from brand a new certified product.

This allowed the service company to maximise their return  on this product which otherwise would have returned no value, other than precious metal recovery.

For more information -

Know more about Retronix | CLICK HERE |

Know more about our IC Rescue Process | CLICK HERE |

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Mr.Tony Boswell at SMT Nuremberg 2013, talking about the new processes at Retronix Ltd.

Tony talks about the electronic component recovery business, and that Retronix have developed a process that avoid any additional reflow cycles, Tony also goes on to explain that it is not just economic factors but supply chain shortages that have led to a growing demand for IC Recovery.

Source: EMS Now

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Retronix's Process Reduces OEM Production Costs for NPI by Over 50%

A division of a large telecoms company was responsible for the design of new products, specifically telecoms switches. These pcbs cost $15k each to make. This company would make perhaps 5 different versions, each one an improved version of the first, until they were satisfied with the design and released it to production.

Although each new version of the pcb is slightly different, most of the ICs, which make up 90% of the cost, are the same.

By sending the previous version of the pcb to Retronix for component recovery, the oem reduced the cost of their NPI production process by over 50%, without compromising quality, using Retronix’s IC rescue process.

Retronix @ Electronica 2012 | Munich, Germany - Part II

The second half of Electronica became very busy as there were many visitors at the booth wanting to know about Retronix, specially services like BGA reballing, IC Recovery, Anti-Counterfeit IC Testing and Alloy Conversion which were of special interest.

The BGA Reballing video and the IC Rescue video were grabbing visitors attention and every visitor was interested in our processes which does not involve any reflows! This process is exclusively offered by Retronix and it gives the ability to recover, reball, rework without any reflows. Most of the visitors at the stand were majorly concentrated from Asia viz. China, India interested in either IC Tests or Recovery. The second half of the day there was maximum footfall keeping the booth extremely busy at all times and each representative from Retronix were occupied in talking to customers | opportunities in explaining all the various aspects about Retronix.

Word start to spread even representatives from big companies started to pop by our booth to know more about this unique process and how it could mutually benefit and bring costs down creating synergy for both corporate entities. As was planned during the whole event in the evening from 4pm onwards the whisky tasting event was organised. The second half of electronica with reference to the whisky tasting event was very popular as word had spread over the first two days about the event and therefore many more visitors dropped by at the booth for the whisky tasting event, Retronix did not mind it as the company had well anticipated the big footfall and more the visitors the better it was for the company to explain its services and discuss business over some fine Scotch. The event again was declared a resounding success as many discussions turned into real opportunities and subsequently in the future a continuing business relationship.

For Retronix, Electronica 2012 has been productive in terms of brand enhancement and also business development and this concludes the story of Electronica for 2012.

To know more about Retronix please click here

To know more about the unique processes click here

To contact us for any enquiries please click here | or email us at 

info@retronix.com

The Retronix advantage: Recovering and reusing ICs from scrap or obsolete PCBs

A CEM had a large customer base of complex telecoms PCBs, and found these difficult to debug if they failed after assembly. This was mainly due to their being such a large amount of revisions, the techs found it difficult to be familiar with all of them.

Subsequently there was a lot of PCB “shotgunning” going on. This was the practice of making an educated guess at what IC was causing the issue, and changing it. This meant a huge expense in ICs, most of which were thought to be fine; it would be a solder problem causing the fault (open or short under the BGA).

So they introduced an exercise of sending the removed ICs to Retronix for IC Recovery, and putting them then back into the repair loop. For IC Recovery were also sent 3^rd time failed PCBs.

This resulted in a 61% drop in IC cost in the repair area, with no noticeable difference in test yields.

All the ICs were tested electrically by Retronix before being returned.

If you want to learn more, please contact us here

Watch the video about IC Recovery here

Retronix working with Service Repair Companies

A cell phone company manufactured its product in Asia, but had an EU Service based operation for EMEA. The service operation had small easy fix/replacement centres scattered around EMEA, but central repair facilities for PCB debug and repair issues.

It bought parts in bulk from HQ, but experienced many issues with parts shortages, over stocking and obsolete stock at the end of life for a product.

Retronix introduced a programme whereby they recovered the scrap PCBs from the company’s CEM manufacturing operations in Asia, (which were previously landfilled) and recovered the ICs locally. The recovered ICs were then shipped to the EU and held by Retronix free of charge. The service company had online access to all parts held, effectively parts held which had cost nothing, and were known genuine.

The service company would then call off parts as needed by its repair operations. At this point the parts would be refurbished using Retronix’s “IC Rescue” safe process and shipped in a few days to where they were needed. At this point Retronix would invoice for the refurbishment, which was a fraction of the cost of buying new.

The service company experienced no issues with these parts, which were brand new with zero hours use, and had been recovered using the safe “IC Rescue” process.

This successful programme slashed the parts costs of the service company, in terms of both buying and sourcing, as well as reducing obsolete costs massively.

If you want to learn more, please contact us here

A possible solution to “Hard to find electronic components”, when you cannot find the new parts, on time

A USA based OEM was looking for Xilinx parts but they could not be found within the timescale. It was offered parts by a broker in China which were advertised as “refurbished”. After further investigation, the OEM found out the parts were on scrap PCBs which the broker had bought from a local CEM. However the part were still on the PCBs, and the PCBs were in ESD bags, in boxes.

The broker was planning on outsourcing the recovery and refurbishment of the BGAs to a local company in Shenzhen, however Retronix was asked by the OEM to do the BGA recovery.

IC Recovery/ IC Repair

We recovered the Xilinx parts and others from the PCBs locally in Shenzhen. This was done using our new “IC Rescue” process that recovers ICs without a reflow cycle in order to comply with the IC manufacturers’ specifications.  The parts were packed and shipped to our European facility. Shipping of the ICs only was low cost. The remainders of the PCBs were sent for recycling in Shenzhen.

BGA Reballing

Retronix then removed the excess solder from the BGAs, using a controlled process without reflow or abrasion, then cleaned the parts and immediately reballed them. The parts were mechanically & electrically inspected and packed to be shipped to the USA based OEM.

The parts were placed without any issue and zero failures were reported.

Certificate verification

The remainder of the parts were held by Retronix pending sale by the broker, and were sold with a “Retronix Certified” certificate of conformance, protecting the broker and the end user.

If you want to learn more, please contact us here

IC Recovery: Retronix “IC Rescue” process in action

With the demise of Nortel, it has left existing users with a problem if they want to expand their existing Nortel telecoms telephone system – where do they get the hardware?

Flextronics were tasked with supplying a daughter board for an exchange, and could source all the parts apart from one – the Nortel processor itself.

The part was a NT6X54AA ASIC, long since out of production. The only alternative at the time was to set up a production run to make a batch of chips – however this was a massive cost.

Then it was discovered that although the revision of daughter board needed did not exist, earlier revisions of the board existed in quite large numbers – and the only constant between all the revisions was the ASIC chip!

So Retronix was asked to carry out a recovery operation on the chips so they could be re-used.

Retronix used their unique IC Rescue process to remove and refurbish the ASIC chips without using any dangerous heat or abrasive processes. All chips were then fully tested, both mechanically and electrically, and supplied to the CEM to be installed on the latest revision of PCB.

This proved a highly successful operation, with no reported field failures after 2 years of installation.

For further info on how Retronix can help you recover chips for reuse, to either save money, the environment or because you cant source them, email us at info@retronix.com

Safe Recovery White Paper: Learn more about Retronix Zero Reflow Cycles Process for IC Rescue by clicking here.