Retronix Takes Delivery of its New High Capacity Laser Balling System

Retronix has taken delivery of its custom developed high capacity laser balling and reballing system. Developed in partnership with Retronix by a world renowned laser company, the new laser system will be capable of reballing multiple ICs over a wide work area. Retronix is finalising the development of the new laser system and will partner with existing customers to finalise its trialling and commissioning. The new laser represents a significant investment by Retronix and will reinforce its leadership in the market for balling and reballing ICs.

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Retronix Successfully Trials Plastic Core Solder Balls

Plastic Core Solder Balls (PCSB) provide a method of ensuring stand-off height between an IC package and the substrate or PCB. Inside the SnAg sphere is a polymer core buffered by nickel  and copper layers.  Standard Pb free reflow profiles can be used to attach the PCSBs unlike the alternative method of High Melting Point (HMP) spheres.

For RF and microwave applications, PCSBs can provide a predictable and well controlled path length and inductance solution for package attachment to PCBs.

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RoHS compliance: Case where the ICs did not have the correct alloy

A UK distributor had old stock of an IC that a customer wanted. However the stock was in leaded format, and the customer needed it RoHS (lead free).

The customer was suspicious of the distributor’s ability to do this but having limited options decided to proceed but he needed guarantees. Retronix fixed this issue as a guarantor by going through the process with the customer.

These are the actions that were implemented:

• Chemical strip back of leaded device legs
• Auto replating of RoHS compliant solder coating
• XRF Test to ensure compliance

We then made an agreement deal whereby distributor/Retronix supplied the parts in batches, with the customer only paying when devices were successfully placed, eliminating the risk.

Retronix has invested in the latest automated retinning technology to ensure the highest levels of process repeatability and quality for alloy conversion or alloy refreshing.

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RoHS Conversion in the Defence sector

Many defence systems rely on electronic parts that are no longer produced by the original manufacturer. That reliance is based, in part, on the long life cycles of these systems.

Alloy conversion

A UK defence company was buying BGAs via a distributor. Their requirement was a SnPb finish (leaded) and the BGAs that were purchased were Pb free.

BGA Reballing

Removing the lead free balls and replacing them with SnPb was an accepted process, but one which affected reliability via multiple reflows. 

Between us we managed to secure their allocation before the BGAs had balls placed on them, and they were subsequently finished on the Retronix BGA reballing laser machine.  By adopting the Retronix laser process we improved the reliability compared to the old process.  

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Retronix Ltd. | Counterfeit Alert 2012 |

A customer sent approx. 5000 parts [BUK139-50DL] to check the authenticity of the components.  The customer who had procured these parts believed that the devices were originals and worked perfectly fine. He sent these parts to Retronix for Visual inspection, marking permanency testing, de-cap and a basic electrical test.

First a visual check of the label information was done and it showed on the labels attached on each reel, that the parts were lead free. Moving onto deeper visual checks on the components for the markings and the condition of the terminal told a different story. Retronix used the standard IDEA-STD-1010-B to compare the results.

Images 1 & 2 show faint indent markings and corner damage, these signs are evidence of remarking the components. Moreover there was no country of origin on the devices.

Image 3 shows further evidence that parts are remarked/sanded down as the device is uneven.











Parts on the same reel showing different DRAIN tab features, also the top part of the device was in a very poor condition

Further to this, parts from the same reel showed different DRAIN tabs, the condition of the tab was poor, deep scratches and signs of damages to the edge as shown.





The Retronix testing team then went on to perform an X-ray test of these devices for a more in depth look and as per ERAI-STD-1010-B used for as reference found the following:

The test revealed that different results of die and the drain tab, all the parts on the same reel with the same datecodes should match under the X-Ray. As was mentioned earlier the labels showed all the devices to be lead free, and in order to authenticate this the X-ray test was performed which revealed otherwise.

The de-capsulation test was then done on the devices :

Figure : Images illustrate the topside (1) and the underside (2) of the sample device. Analysis suggests no evidence of attempted re-marking or re-packaging.

The images illustrate the package markings (1) , the entire die surface (2), and the die viewed at high magnification (3) and (4) , with no known good component or information from the datasheet, the die could not be confirmed as genuine. If the information on the datasheet is to be compared to the die, then Retronix believed that there would be more internal circuitry. Moreover no Die markings were found showing part number or the manufacturer.

Further checks revealed that the parts were already reported to the ERAI, where complaints such as parts smoking exploding on the boards were being reported.

Conclusion :

With all the evidence found Retronix believed the parts to be counterfeit components and not suitable for use on PCBs due to the electrical tests that were carried out and also with the information found on the ERAI website.

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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.

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Retronix @ Electronica 2012 | Munich, Germany - Part I

Retronix was an exhibitor at the recent Electronica 2012 held at Munich,Germany over 4 days from 13th - 16th November. Electronica is the biggest trade show for the electronics industry and is held every 2 years. This year there were over 2600 exhibitors from over 49 different countries.

Retronix was at Hall A6 | Booth 135 sharing a stand with the German partners Factronix and another company Topline. This blog gives out the experiences and thoughts over the first two days.

Compared to the other big stands around; we were happy that our booth got a fair amount of footfall; right from people becoming curious after seeing the video that was looping, to down right sparkling pens along with notepads that were given away to visitors at the stand. The first day we saw at least 300 visitors of which we could safely say that 40-50 were real opportunities that Retronix could provide services to and vice versa. Also on the first day Mr.Tony Boswell | Founder of Retronix Ltd. spoke on 'How to safely recover ICs from obsolete and scrap PCBs' which generated a lot of interest as it a unique service only provided by Retronix Ltd.

On the second day it became even busier as expected as we started getting visitors as early as 9 in the morning wanting to know about our services and the company as a whole. Retronix having worldwide locations was also a factor as many of our visitors came from all parts of the world right from China, Korea, India, Israel, Russia, USA and many European countries. Retronix was prepared with all kinds of information packs and brochures so that specific services could be targeted to specific type of companies. We observed a trend that many companies from Asia were interested in our Anti-Counterfeit IC testing services and companies based in Israel and surrounding areas were interested in the Hi-Rel industry services that we provide.

On both the days from 4pm-6pm we held a Scotch tasting event which we can term as a resounding success as each visitor not only got a guide to whisky by Retronix but also got to taste each type of pure original scotch from different regions of Scotland. This event was not only about the whisky tasting, many meetings and productive discussions on business were carried out and real positive outcomes in terms of business were signed and sealed.

The first two days of Retronix at Electronica generated a lot of interest in services and the unique processes that Retronix has developed and were termed to be productive and successful.

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Retronix @ Electronica 2012 | Munich, Germany - Part II will follow soon.