Mike Konrad will be the course instructor for the two-hour Cleaning and Cleanliness Quantification Masterclass at the SMTA High Reliability Strategic Technology Advancement Research (STAR) Forum in Olathe Kansas.

Electrochemical migration, ionic contamination, and residue-related failures can jeopardize the integrity of your circuit assemblies. Are you confident your cleaning process is up to the challenge?

The Cleaning and Cleanliness Qualification Masterclass (a Professional Development Course) will transform the way you think about cleaning and reliability in circuit assemblies. Whether you're an engineer, a quality professional, or a technician in the electronics manufacturing industry, this course will give you the tools you need to ensure long-term reliability and compliance with industry standards.

Course Topics

• The History of Cleaning – How we got here and why it matters.

• Our Contract with No-Clean – Understanding its limitations.

• Electrochemical Migration (ECM), what it is and why it’s the silent killer of reliability.

• ECM Prevention Strategies – Proactive steps to mitigate risk.

• Beyond ECM – Additional reasons for cleaning in today’s environment.

• The Relationship Between Harsh Environments and Ionic Contamination and how improper thermal management can create harsh microclimates within the electronic assembly’s enclosure, leading to ECM failures.

• Real-life ECM Case Studies – Lessons learned from real failures.

• Cleaning Equipment Selection Considerations – Finding the right fit for your application.

• Chemical Selection Best Practices and how to optimize for performance, materials compatibility, and safety.

• How Clean is Clean (the new IPC-J-STD001-J cleanliness testing and process monitoring requirements).

Thermal, power and signal integrity requirements can present challenges when on devices that operate within harsh environments. Component integration, paired with a growing complexity of the package architectures, larger form factors and higher interconnection densities increase the risk of in-field failures. Over powering or over heating of a device can have serious consequences including internal package failure, down-stream device errors and second level interconnect solder joint failures. Soldering residues are more problematic, and if not understood, can result in both intermittent and complete device failure. 

This conference tackles the challenges and best practices for building reliable electronic devices that will perform to design standards when used in harsh environments. Specific topics include building reliable high density assemblies, power electronics, electric hybrids, product assembly challenges, cleaning, coating, process control, and monitoring and tracking production hardware. Challenging areas such as high temperature soldering, solder material advances, and new standards are presented.

Mike Konrad will present “The Relationship Between Thermal Management and Localized Harsh Environments” on Tuesday, May 20 at 1:15 PM.

Abstract:
The electronics industry has long focused on designing devices capable of withstanding harsh external environments, but what happens when the design of a PCB inadvertently creates a localized harsh environment inside the enclosure itself? This presentation explores the critical intersection of thermal management and environmental stress within electronic devices. 

 Poor thermal management can lead to condensation and moisture accumulation on a PCB’s surface, triggering electrochemical migration (ECM) and other reliability failures. Through real-world case studies, including the billion-dollar recall of a popular video game console due to ECM failures, this session will illustrate how improper heat dissipation can create failure-prone conditions, even in devices designed for controlled environments. 

 By examining design strategies that mitigate localized harsh conditions, this presentation will emphasize the importance of holistic thermal management in safeguarding reliability. Engineers and designers must not only consider external climatic factors but also ensure that the device itself does not become its own worst enemy.