Christian Aßfalg, accredited Cleaning Expert and Senior Process Engineer with ZESTRON presented a recently completed study on “Cleaning Requirements Prior to Conformal Coating”. This study showed, that the number of contaminations such as greases, flux residues and surfactant-based cleaning agents which are created during the assembly processes, can severely impact the adhesion of protective coatings and might lead to corrosion and electrical failure. Therefore, proper cleaning of the contaminated boards becomes an essential process step.
About 100 participants showed great interest in Aßfalg’s presentation, as he elaborated on problems and required corrective actions needed to achieve high reliability assemblies. He described the requirements for the surface cleanliness of assemblies prior to conformal coating and presented fast and cost-effective test methods to analyze the cleanliness level. Furthermore he outlined necessary steps to overcome cleaning process limitations and potential improvements on quality and cost.
