Recently, Workingbear received a complaint from R&D asking us to increase the solder paste volume on the MLCC (Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor) component pads to improve a capacitor cracking issue. R&D said they had verified that the capacitor footprint in the PCB design was correct and followed the manufacturer’s design guidelines. However, they suspected that there was not enough solder paste to form a proper heel fillet on the capacitor terminals. The question was: Could the insufficient solder paste volume be causing the solder joint to crack?
Recently one of my top manager ask to mount the shielding-can or call shielding-cover directly on the Printed Circuit Board to instead of mount the shielding-clip or call shielding-frame on the board first then cover the shieling-can. He said this “new process” is more cheap and can reach better RF (Radiation Frequency) performance. Also most of current popular cell phone board apply this solution.
One day, my manager asked me a question: “Will changing the components from SMDs (Surface Mount Devices) to THDs (Through Hole Devices) and using the PIH (Paste-In-Hole) process affect the process and design?”