Does HyperPFS-5 support flow soldering?
Hi,
Could you tell me if HyperPFS-5 supports flow soldering?
My customer often uses single-sided boards, so they use flow soldering.
Is there any problem with flow soldering?
Comments
This is a suggestion that may enhance solderability. You can add an array of plated-through holes on the layout to gain access to the heat sink trace from the back side of the board, and run the board both top and bottom sides on the wave machine. It partially defeats the purpose (I'm assuming cost here) of having a single-sided board in the first place, but there is at least the possibility of the solder wicking up through the plated-through holes to wet the PCB heat sink trace as well as the bottom-side heat sink pad on the PFS-5. It adds some cost to the PCB, but the enhancement in solderability may be worth it.
Thank you for your detail explanation. I understood.
I introduced HyperPFS-4 to my customer instead of HyperPFS-5.
Thank you！
Thank you for considering PI products.
I assume here that you mean wave soldering - please correct me if I am wrong. The PFS-5 has a bottom-side pad used for heat sinking the device to a PCB trace. PCB trace heat sinking is absolutely necessary for heat removal to exploit the full power capability of the part. It would be difficult to get adequate solder flow under the PFS-5 part to wet both the PFS-5 heat sink pad and the PCB heat sinking trace using conventional wave soldering, especially on a properly designed PCB with solder mask.
A single-sided board will also not be as effective for heat sinking the part compared to a double-sided board using vias to interconnect the two heat sinking traces.
In our lab, we actually hand solder PFS-5 parts for limited prototyping runs using an assist from a hot-air gun, but that method is tedious and time-consuming, likely not useful for high volume production, also requiring highly skilled production technicians.
I would say that if your customer is committed to using a single-sided board, infrared reflow would be the only option open for automated production. With proper settings on the ramp-up, dwell, and cool-down cycles, this is the only way of assuring solder wetting between the PFS-5 bottom side heat sinking pad and the PCB trace used for heat sinking the part.