riends of PSMA is a new feature of the PSMA Update. This space will be used to introduce readers to organizations that PSMA has cooperative relationship with to better serve our respective memberships and the international power electronics industry. If you have suggestions on other industry organizations to consider or ways that we can improve our current relationship with other industry associations, we would be delighted to hear from you.

In this article we introduce you to the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI)

The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) is an industry-led consortium of electronics manufacturing companies along with universities, government agencies, national labs and research institutes. iNEMI's focus — along with their membership — encompasses the full electronics manufacturing value chain. By working collaboratively, their members leverage expertise and resources to enable the industry to tackle issues that no one organization can address efficiently alone — moving faster while also reducing the costs and risks of technology introduction.

Over the last 25 years, iNEMI has also regularly published an electronics manufacturing technology roadmap, an industry-wide effort involving members and non-members, which anticipates technology requirements over the next 10 years, identifies gaps in capabilities and standards, and identifies R&D priorities to meet the needs of future products and applications.

Based on information from the roadmap as well as member needs, iNEMI organizes collaborative projects to help eliminate gaps, accelerate innovation and ensure technology and supply chain readiness.

iNEMI collaborations cover a broad range of technology topics that range from evaluating industry capabilities, driving sustainability in electronics products and manufacturing, materials characterization for high volume manufacturing, reliability testing, demonstration of new technologies and identification of industry best practices. Examples of some of our latest collaborative projects are profiled below to show the breadth of the scope and industry engagement, as well as the level of technical work accomplished. See a listing of all iNEMI projects. https://community.inemi.org/projects_all

New Packaging Technology Qualification Methodology

Current package qualification methods are based on past test methods that do not always consider new use conditions and applications. This can result in higher risk and delays in terms of materials development and additional packaging qualification cycles. With industry input, this project team identified inconsistencies in qualification methodologies and confirmed the need for new test methods for applications in harsher environments. They recommended updates on test methods and qualification standards and developed guidelines and best practices for new package qualification across a broad range of applications.

Back End Commonality for Advanced Packaging: Large Form Factor

Advanced packaging and adoption of heterogeneous integration and system-in-package (SiP) are driving the trend for larger package sizes. These larger packages present new and unique handling challenges in semiconductor assembly processes (chip to package), as well as PCB assembly (package to board). This cross-industry team is proposing to demonstrate a large form factor tray and drive new guidelines for handling these emerging package formats for cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency. Based on the success of the demonstrators, they will make relevant recommendations to standards organization(s) on handling media design.

Conformal Coating Evaluation for Improved Environmental Protection

Conformal coatings protect printed circuit boards and components mounted on them from the deleterious effects of moisture, particulate matter and corrosive gases. The conventional method of testing the effectiveness of these coatings is to expose coated hardware to a corrosive environment for extended periods of time, typically lasting many months, to determine the mean time to failure. This project team is working to develop an effective conformal coating evaluation test with a duration of less than a week to save time and enable faster qualification of materials.  

Characterization of Third Generation High-Reliability Pb-Free Alloys

With the continuing introduction of new Pb-free solder alloys the industry needs to build the knowledge base required to ensure correct selection of solder alloys for processing and the required reliability. As these are relatively new materials, thermal fatigue data is lacking. For example, there is limited understanding of the impact of additions of fourth and fifth element major alloying additions as well as microalloy additions on performance. The team is characterizing 10+ alloys, as well as conducting thermal cycling and thermal shock testing over different ranges to establish the correlation between microstructure and thermal fatigue performance.

Wafer/Panel Level Package Flowability & Warpage — this project is working to drive higher yield of mold-first WLP/PLP assembly processes, with better control of flow and warpage. This is a graph from a simulation to determine potential warpage.

Warpage Characterization

iNEMI's several successful warpage-related projects have studied warpage in PCBs and advanced packaging technologies. These projects have gained significant insights into dynamic warpage behavior, studying effects such as design, processing and temperature, and have developed modeling approaches to better predict warpage. Our latest warpage projects are continuing the study of warpage in new packaging technologies in the Package Warpage Prediction and Characterization project, which looks to establish a reliable modelling framework to optimize package warpage simulation. The High Density Interconnect Socket Warpage Prediction and Characterization project is focused on the impact of molding and design on large size socket warpage. As the size and density of advanced packages increase, they require larger and more complex sockets, and socket warpage has become a key issue in board assembly. This project will focus on the socket warpage measurement guidelines and prediction methods needed for these larger sockets.

5G/mmWave Materials Assessment and Characterization

Circuit designers need dielectric properties data for materials at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies to optimize device performance of new 5G hardware and ensure quality. There are presently no standard reference materials or even agreed upon characterization test methods for materials at mmWave frequencies. Without this information, manufacturers are forced to extrapolate materials data from low frequencies to high frequencies, which can lead to mistakes that have potentially devastating costs.

iNEMI's 5G/mmWave Materials Assessment and Characterization project is developing guidelines and best practices for a standardized measurement and test methodology that can be shared with industry and relevant standards organizations. The initial focus of the large cross-industry team is to benchmark current available test methods and identify any gaps for extending test methods to 5G/mmWave frequencies.

Smart Manufacturing: Data Management Best Practices for PCB Assembly

An automated method to collect, analyze and use machine/process data is a key enabler for the factory of the future. Implementation is hampered in many cases by the diversity of the equipment and lines already in use. This project team will study existing PCBA processes and develop a generic reference data architecture and best practices to enable efficient implementation of smart PCB assembly, defining guidelines for data format, inputs/outputs, timing, frequency, etc. Physical implementation to validate these best practices and demonstrate the ability to improve process/machine performance is also planned.

Eco-Impact Estimator

There is an increasing need across the electronics manufacturing industry for eco-impact transparency and support for decisions at the design stage. A full featured life cycle analysis (LCA) can be burdensome in terms of time and data. An LCA-based estimator tool for assessing selected eco-impact of key electronic components can both speed up and improve design planning and decisions. This iNEMI project is focused on improving the component algorithms and methods for estimating the eco-impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) products. Leveraging prior development in earlier projects, this project is porting the LCA estimator to a hosted environment and updating lifecycle eco-impact data for key component categories such as PCBs, integrated circuits, cables and mechanical parts. 

Connector Reliability Test Recommendations, Phase 3

A standardized reliability test framework for evaluating electrical connectors across types and use conditions is needed. This new project is addressing gaps in existing connector test coverage. A test vehicle for identified connector types will be defined and then verified against a set of test parameters (developed by an earlier iNEMI project) that account for some of the harsher environments that many of today's electronics operate in. Results from this work will be shared with the industry and are expected to lead to updates in connector standards.

Provided by:
Cynthia Williams, Communications Manager,
International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative

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