International Business Machines Corporation
Non-destructive identifying of plating dissolution in soldered, plated through-hole

Abstract:

Fabrication of a reliable circuit board assembly with soldered, plated through-hole structures is facilitated by characterizing plating of a plated through-hole of the circuit board using time-domain reflectance to obtain a base reflectance measurement, and applying solder to the plated through-hole. Based on applying the solder, the plating of the plated through-hole of the circuit board is re-characterized using time-domain reflectance to obtain a new reflectance value. Based on a deviation between the new reflectance measurement and the base reflectance measurement exceeding a threshold, dissolution, at least in part, of the plating of the plated through-hole due to applying the solder is identified.