Publication date: 22 January 2009
Although developed initially to address the need for an economical wave solder, it has since been found that its properties also make SN100C an ideal choice for reflow and hand soldering as well as spheres for the attachment of area-array packages.
In response to this momentous achievement, Nishimura said, “One of the direct results of SN100C prospering in the market for 10 years not only has been the increased status of our product but also of the status of solder in modern life.
I feel that it is important that the solder industry accept the responsibility that comes with that increased status. That means that solder makers must have the capability and the commitment to solve customers’ problems.
The goal of solder makers must be prompt delivery of quality products along with all the know-how the customer needs to make the best use of the product in the achievement of his production objectives.
Over the past 10 years, we have worked hard to achieve those goals ourselves. Needless to say we have been able to do so only because of the support we have received from our customers and our business partners around the world.”
Finding popularity and providing superior solutions in numerous markets, SN100C reaches this milestone not on its own merits alone.
Nihon Superior has teamed with highly successful companies worldwide to make sure that the alloy reaches as far as possible and provides optimal results every time. One such company, FCT Assembly, has been working with Nihon Superior since 2002, and was the first company to distribute SN100C in North America.
Mike Scimeca, President of FCT Assembly, looks back on the SN100C material from 10 years ago and explains that the material has not changed very much at all. “Unlike many of the competitive alloys on the market today, this product did not need to be readjusted. It is the best replacement to 63/37 solder on market and in time will be the default alloy.”
He believes that SN100C’s success is based on sound technology and innovation. Also instrumental in its success, says Scimeca, is Nihon Superior’s approach of picking only a select group of licensees that have been able to break through the barrier of a new lead-free alloy as opposed to licensing any and all interested companies.
But as good as the product is — and has been for the past 10 years — it did not meet with instant recognition and implementation, making this milestone that much more memorable. SN100C has had to work hard to find its place in the industry. According to Scimeca, it took time before the alloy was accepted.
“There are a lot of politics in this business and it was difficult to get trials for SN100C.” Then iNEMI and IPC’s Solder Value Product Council announced support for the SAC alloys, making the battle for recognition more difficult. However, Nihon Superior knew it had a truly superior product and did not give up. And now, according to Scimeca and many others, SN100C’s name is the strongest and most well known in lead-free solder.
“I believe that SN100C is superior to the SAC alloys on all the key issues,” Scimeca says. These issues include copper erosion, cosmetics, no cracking, easy bath to maintain, the fact that it is a eutectic alloy, and cost. “In the end, it is the customers that decide the best alloy — not the suppliers and not the industry associations. The customers have decided that tin/copper/nickel is the best and most decide on the proven SN100C.”
The fluidity of SN100C is comparable to that of tin-lead, and one of the factors that contributes to excellent through-hole fill and minimal shorts in wave soldering. However, that property is also an advantage in hand soldering where, in combination with the right core flux (030), it makes possible the completion of more than 35 average joints per minute with a tip temperature of only 380°C.
The 227°C melting point of SN100C was first thought to preclude its use in reflow soldering but when it was noted that tin-silver-copper alloys (such as SAC 305 with a melting point of 217°-218°C) are typically reflowed with a peak temperature around 245°C it was realized that SN100C could be a drop-in replacement. Its high fluidity and excellent wetting properties mean that SN100C can be reflowed successfully at a lower superheat above liquidus than SAC alloys.
Additionally, SN100C is available as a high-performance solder paste with a general purpose “P500” flux medium. Because of its high fluidity close to its melting point and fast wetting, SN100C P500 can be used as a drop-in replacement for SAC solder paste in reflow profiles that peak around 245°C ±5°C. The P500 no-clean halide-free medium delivers excellent printability, long stencil life, good tack, excellent reflow and wetting on all substrates with no solder balls and minimal clear residue.
Advantages of the tin-copper system include its ruggedness in impact loading and the nickel addition provides inhibition of the intermetallic growth that can increase the susceptibility of joints to failure in shock loading, e.g. when a mobile phone is dropped. These properties are prompting the industry to evaluate SN100C in flip chip and area-array packages.
Looking ahead to the future of SN100C, Scimeca says that he sees it becoming the default alloy in the market. He reports that competitive companies have been trying to copy this material, but with Nihon Superior holding the patent for the technology behind SN100C, all copies will have to work outside the optimum concentrations of nickel.
He adds, “Customers want the best lead-free alloy with the biggest operating window, and this is SN100C.” Without nickel, the competition’s products cannot come close to achieving SN100C’s reliability. “The alloy has more reliability data than all of the other copies,” Scimeca explains. “When people need to make the critical decision of which lead-free solder they want to use, they will move toward the most proven alloy — SN100C.”
“I believe that our mission is more than to spread the use of SN00C around the world,” Nishimura says. “It is to achieve, through high-level academic research, recognition of SN100C as the ‘Global Standard Lead-free Solder’ and so open up opportunities for expanding its application in new market sectors. We hope that by this continuing pursuit of excellence, Nihon Superior will face the future as the innovator of the solder industry.”
The German-based Balver Zinn Group has a pedigree in the metals business dating back to the late 19th century.
Today, their core competencies include high-quality anodes with various alloys, as well as soft solders, specialty wires and lead-free products for the electronics industry.
As part of the global alliance in the sale of the SN100C solder alloy, Managing Director Josef Jost and the team also celebrate its landmark 10 years in the industry.
Balver Zinn has held the licence to distribute the patented wave solder alloy SN100C in Europe for more than seven years, when it began its fruitful partnership with Nihon Superior.
This has been an extremely successful partnership, which forms part of a global alliance with DKL Metals in the UK and FCTA in Colorado, US. The SN100C nickel stabilized tin/copper alloy had already enjoyed enormous success in Asia and in the last seven years Balver Zinn has been successful in making it a household name for the electronics assembly market in Europe.
In 2007, Balver Zinn’s licence was extended to cover areas from the Atlantic coast of Europe to India, for the sale of bars and ingots. The relationship with Nihon Superior goes beyond this product license, however, as they also share market intelligence and have a joint venture in Malaysia.
SN100C was very well accepted in the PC Fab industry and from there the use has now extended into wave solder appliations for the electronics assembly sector. According to an independent ELFNET study, SN100C is the most used wave solder in Europe, preferred for the higher process temperatures of selective soldering.
In 2007, Nihon Superior awarded Balver Zinn its highest accolade ‘Gold Award’ in recognition of outstanding sales performance of its SN100C lead-free solders in Europe. SN100C is outperforming competitive products in Europe, with increasing numbers of leading manufacturers incorporating it into their process; born out by the significant sales they have achieved in Europe.
DKL Metals, based in West Lothian, Scotland and headed by Colin Longworth, MD is an independent manufacturer of lead-free and traditional tin/lead alloys.
Established more than 23 years ago, DKL is widely recognized as a UK leading supplier of high purity solders and alloys, manufactured in accordance with national and international standards or customer proprietary specifications.
The SN100C solder alloy, produced by DKL Metals in Scotland for the UK marketplace, has now reached a 10-year milestone.
Its increasing popularity with CEM and OEMs throughout the world shows no signs of losing momentum and has earned its position amongst the most successful, technically proven lead-free solders in use today. Longworth explains why he believes the reasons behind its success are clear.
“In line with our policy to pursue the highest standards of quality and consistency to satisfy the varied and exacting demands of the modern manufacturing industry, we took the decision to sign a manufacturing license to produce the SN100 range of lead-free solders in early 2002,” he explains. “The alloy was initially supplied to Japanese manufacturing companies based in the UK; however, demand for the alloy quickly increased as the benefits of SN100C over the silver containing SAC systems became more widely known. The agreement enabled us to bring the product to manufacturers in the UK and Ireland, and in that time it has become widely recognized for its superior qualities.”
The technical attributes of SN100C make its continued growth in popularity clear. However, as manufacturers are working to increasingly tight margins another reason to select SN100C is that the alloy is cheaper to buy in the first instance, and once in use the running costs also are greatly reduced due to its lower drossing properties. Because the solder alloy produces smooth shiny joints with a low copper dissolution, this results in an extremely stable process. Customers have benefited from the cost advantage of not containing expensive silver and with the ease of recycling.
SN100C is proven to provide increased reliability for solder joints over those made using silver containing SAC alloys and it was recently reported in a Circuitnet article by commentator Dr. Craig Hillman, CEO and MD of DfR Solutions, “The problem with SAC305 is that it is a brittle material. What you are definitely seeing on the wave side and on the solder-ability coating side is that Tin-Nickel-Copper alloys (SNC) seem to be gaining significant ground.” These facts, combined with SN100C’s lower rate of copper dissolution over SAC alloys, puts the SN100C alloy at the forefront of wave soldering technology.
Nihon Superior was founded in 1966 when it began marketing unique flux products imported from the United States. Since then, the company has made its mark by developing its own soldering materials and supplying them to the electronics industry.
On the basis of its expertise in these technologies, Nihon Superior has developed a global business, establishing manufacturing and sales centers in Asia and forming business partnerships with companies in Europe, America and Asia.
“We have made our mark on society by gathering the most advanced soldering and brazing technologies and products from around the world, and supplying them to companies in the metal-joining industry.
Backed by our knowledge of these technologies, we developed into a global company by establishing manufacturing and sales centers in Japan as well as in Asia and Europe, and by forming business partnerships with overseas companies,” Nishimura concludes. “We are committed to earning our customers’ highest level of trust by taking full responsibility for every product we deliver, and we are ready to meet their rising demands for diversification, increasingly sophisticated technologies, and environmental protection.”
Happy Birthday SN100C and congratulations to Nihon Superior on reaching this tremendous milestone!
For more information, visit http://www.nihonsuperior.co.jp.
