OPTICAL INSPECTION AND SIR MEASURING UNDER THE

COMPONENT BODIES USING A SIR GLASS TEST VEHICLE

VLADIMÍR SÍTKO; MIKE BIXENMANN
PBT Works s.r.o., 756 61 Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Lesní 2331, email: info@pbt-works.com
Magnalytics, 424 Harding Industrial Drive Nashville, TN 37211, email: info@magnalytics.com

ABSTRACT
This paper describes the practical usage of special Glass
Test Boards with component models, suitable for optical
inspection under components for not cleaned or cleaned
conditions. These boards can be tested to SIR at the same
time.
Figure 2: Special jig for testing daughter board soldered
Keywords: SMT process, bottom terminated as LGA
components, cleaning electronic assembly, Glass test
Boards, optical evaluation of cleanliness under We never use desoldering for this kind of check. Melting
components, SIR test solder joint causes opening voids with locked flux
residues and brings false fault calls.
The complexity of the state-of-the-art assemblies
Tearing components for cleaning process tuning is less
Current electronic assemblies work with low voltages and less popular. The reason is components shortage,
and high frequencies. They are very dense, so the long lead times, and climbing prices.
distance between poles will be smaller. At the same time,
Glass Test Boards
such assemblies work in a harsh environment.
Therefore, we work with Glass test boards.
The SIR (surface insulation resistance becomes one of
the leading quality criteria. We developed a test board with 400 chips already 10
years ago. We use it for pre-qualification studies for the
Challenges of the assembly process with BTC cleaning process:
This kind of package brings troubles for the assembly. • Flux/ cleaner matching
They have small dimensions IO´s close to large areas of • Process optimization
heat lugs with plenty of solder paste. Difficult degassing • Validation of changes in the cleaning process
of solder paste causes troubles with SIR values. A • Monitoring the stability of a running process
significant amount of flux makes these packages not Such Test Boards and Automatic optical tester are
easily cleanable. powerful tools for pre-qualification works in the cleaning
However, the main difficulty is that the solder joints are process.
not visible. The process must be tuned for soldering and
cleaning by using unique options. For soldering, the
excellent way is to apply an x-ray inspection. For
cleaning, however, the only practical option is tearing the
component.
There are many ways to do it for chip and leaded
components, but BGA, LGA, and QFP need higher share
forces. Dedicated pliers are not enough. We are using a
rigid machine with support. For a larger LGA matrix, Figure 3: Glass Test Board PBT
special hydraulic tooling is necessary.

Figure 1 Dedicated pliers for tearing components Figure 4: Automatic Optical tester for Glass Test Boards

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The introduction of BTC has brought further need. To
have a glass Test Board capable of being tested on SIR.
The SIR Glass Test Board.
After quite a complex development, we now have such a
tool.
3. Thoroughly cleaned (the criterium for cleaning
was no optical visible residues under most
challenging components)
We used a stand-alone cleaning machine with an
exceptionally uniform spray pattern. Uniformity is
essential for any similar study of cleaning parameter
influence on the cleaning result.

Figure 5: SIR GTB with QFN 44 for studies of

degassing

Figure 7: Spray-in-air machine HyperSWASH with

Linear Direct Spray Technology
We tested SIR on an automatic SIR test equipment
Magnalytics. Test was at 40°C, 90%RH, 169 hrs

Figure 6: SIR GTB for BTC process tuning and

evaluation
The SIR GTB in this study has:
• 1x QFN48
• 1x QFN DR 124
• 1x BGA 244 with heat lug
• 1x BGA 1020
Figure 8: SIR test equipment MAGNALYTICS
In this work, we like to demonstrate its capabilities. The
idea behind it is:
• To have a chance to tune the cleaning process Test results – not cleaned boards
easily and quickly. All tested boards showed a good level of SIR - no
• With the properly adjusted parameters, to make dendriters
a SIR pre-qualification.
• To save costs on real components ( here we use
FR4 models of components)
• To be able to see and measure so far challenging
to observe parameters (thickness of the gap),
changes in flux residues, and dendrites after
SIR.
Design of Experiment
We build several of SIR GTB. We used a ROL0 paste, a
standard lead-free profile.
Figure 9: Typical test result of Not cleaned boards
We split them into three groups:
1. Not cleaned Interestingly, two of the more simple packages ( QFN44
2. Fast cleaned (intention was to show uncomplete and BGA244) showed higher SIR than larger and more
cleaning ) complex packages ( QFN DR and BGAS 1020)

2
Pictures comparing details before and after the SIR test Interestingly, even very short washing times (5 min is
show non-negligible changes in the flux residue structure about the 0,5 ft/ min speed at an average inline cleaning
(loss of volume and bubbles). This observation may machine) showed good SIR at all types of components
confirm that BTC cannot degas flux residues completely on the test board.
during soldering. Staying at a higher temperature in the
SIR test chamber may cause additional degassing. We
assume that extra degassing may influence higher values
of SIR positively. Smaller outline components probably
degass more intensively.

BSIR

ASIR Figure 13: SIR values of fast-cleaned samples

Small flux residues under components did not negatively
distort these good values of SIR.

Figure 10: Structural change of flux residues before and

after SIR test – QFN 48 (BSIR= before SIR)
At more complex components, visible changes are better
related to surface tension.

BSIR ASIR

Figure 14: rest flux after cleaning - QFN 48 ID17 17

Figure 11: Structural changes of flux residues before and

after SIR – QFN DR 244

Test results – fast-cleaned boards

We intended to show cleaning with these parameters as
incomplete, which would show some dendritic structures
after SIR.

Figure 15: rest flux after cleaning QFN DR124 ID18

Generally, the SIR values of the fast–cleaned samples

were higher than at not cleaned boards, especially at
Figure 12: Cleaning parameter set for fast cleaning
QFN components

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cleaned
Figure 16: Comparison of SIR results of not cleaned and
cleaned samples QFN 48
cleaned
Figure 17: Comparison of SIR results of not cleaned and
cleaned samples QFN DR 124
Test results – thoroughly cleaned boards
We finished cleaning after the residues were negligible.
(Cleanliness was inspected visually between individual
cleaning attempts.)
Figure 18: Cleaning parameters for thorough cleaning
Because of the visual inspection to clean, all samples had
good results on the SIR test.
Figure 19: SIR values of some samples after thorough
cleaning
However, these promising results were always achieved
after a very different time of wash (=first phase of
cleaning – spray with cleaner).
We have investigated possible reasons and found, thanks
to using glass test boards, different gap sizes on different
sides of components.
Glass Test board enables easy to measure gap size by 3d
optical measuring features of the digital microscope.
Figure 20: Record of 3D gap size measurement
We observed different amounts of flux residues at
different sides of QFNs: Regularly, these areas were
more difficult to clean ( cleaning took up to 10 times
longer than easy- to clean areas).
We found quite a substantial gap size difference.
150um 20um
Figure 21: QFN DR124 after 50min of cleaning. Gaps.
We assume such differences are generated during reflow
when the paste is degassing.
Because we have observed and measured such
“component tilting” at several components, we have a
theme for further more deep study
Conclusion
We found using SIR Glass Test Boards very useful for a
detailed study of flux residue behaving after soldering,
for optimizing cleaning process conditions, and so far not
recognized factors of cleaning efficiency, like tilted
components.
Also, our subsequent studies should address tilting and a
more general definition of the acceptable amount of
residues for good SIR readings.
Literature:
[1] Douglass Pauls (Rockwell Collins May 2017) –
An Overview on Global Change in Ionic Cleanliness
Requirements
[2] Mike Bixenmann, Mark Mc Mean, Vladimír
Sítko: (Conference APEX 2021 – professional
development course, March 2021) – Design Reliable
Electronics in accordance with IPCJ- STD-001H Section
8 Cleanlinnes