Aug 23 2008
On August 22nd, a formal contract was closed between Quan Yi Xing (QYX) and Ormecon China (OCN).
With this contract, a transition period is finished during which OCN took over the Immersion Tin subcontracting from QYX during the past months. New approvals have been achieved and the technical and Quality assurance infrastructure been improved, an operators team was hired and trained by OCN's management and engineers.
In addition, a horizontal (former Immersion Silver) line will be modified and enabled to run the new OM CSN Nanofinish process, a process which allows to deliver an improved Tin surface finish for multiple lead free reflow processes with only 0.35 µm Sn thickness. This Nano-Tin will replace Tin finishes which are specified to need more than 1 µm up to now.
A first OEM has released to change the specification for one PCB part number from 1.05 µm Sn to 0.35 µm, and production for this part number is starting on Aug 22nd with a first lot of 3,000 pieces. An amount of 40,000 pieces per month is estimated. These will be finished on the horizontal line after the line's modification will be completed.
The OM CSN Nanofinish offers many advantages over the established Sn surface finishes:
- a much shorter immersion time (5 - 8 minutes instead of 20 - 30 minutes in Tin bath)
- at much lower temperature (between 40 and 50°C instead of 63 - 70°C)
- this allows to use almost any solder mask as no undermining / undercutting will occur (for the established > 1 µm Sn surface finishes, only a selected number of expensive solder mask could be used)
- adding up improved productivity, savings in solder mask and chemicals, the future Tin finishes will cost less than 40% of the former established Sn surface finishes.
OCN will have 3 lines available for subcontracting, one vertical line for ORMECON CSN (0.8 to 1.1 µm Sn according to specifications), one vertical line for Organic Metal Nanofinish, Top Grade, and the horizontal line for OM CSN Nanofinish.
QYX is a surface finish subcontractor in Shenzhen (China), mainly focussing on ENIG finishes, and is a subsidiary of Word Materials Group (WMG), one of Ormecon's distributors in China. OCN (Ormecon Nantong New Materials Inc.) is a 100% subsidiary of Ormecon International, Germany.