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The recent researches have shown that adding an appropriate amount of foreign reinforcements to lead-free solders can improve their wettablity, reduce their melting points, optimize their microstructure, and reinforce their mechanical properties. Moreover, it also inhibits the coarsening and growth of intermetallic compounds (IMC) and matrix microstructure under aging conditions such as high temperature aging or current stressing. However, there are still many limitations in the preparation and practical application of composite lead-free solders. By reviewing the existing research results, this paper summarizes the main problems in the preparation and applications of composite solder and analyzes the future research directions of this field.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of fullerene (FNS) reinforcements on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 96.5Sn3Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) lead-free solder joints under isothermal ageing and electrical-migration (EM) stressing. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, SAC305 solder alloy doped with 0.1 Wt.% FNS was prepared via the powder metallurgy method. A sandwich-like sample and a U-shaped sample were designed and prepared to conduct an isothermal ageing test and an EM test. The isothermal ageing test was implemented under vacuum atmosphere at 150°C, whereas the EM experiment was carried out with a current density of 1.5 × 104 A/cm2. The microstructural and mechanical evolutions of both plain and composite solder joints after thermal ageing and EM stressing were comparatively studied. Findings A growth of Ag3Sn intermetallic compounds (IMCs) in solder matrix and Cu-Sn interfacial IMCs in composite solder joints was notably suppressed under isothermal ageing condition, whereas the hardness and shear strength of composite solder joints significantly outperformed those of non-reinforced solder joints throughout the ageing period. The EM experimental results showed that for the SAC305 solder, the interfacial IMCs formulated a protrusion at the anode after 360 h of EM stressing, whereas the surface of the composite solder joint was relatively smooth. During the stressing period, the interfacial IMC on the anode side of the plain SAC305 solder showed a continuous increasing trend, whereas the IMC at the cathode presented a decreasing trend for its thickness as the stressing time increased; after 360 h of stressing, some cracks and voids had formed on the cathode side. For the SAC305/FNS composite solder, a continuous increase in the thickness of the interfacial IMC was found on both the anode and cathode sides; the growth rate of the interfacial IMC at the anode was higher than that at the cathode. The nanoindentation results showed that the hardness of the SAC305 solder joint presented a gradient distribution after EM stressing, whereas the hardness data showed a relatively homogeneous distribution in the SAC305/FNS solder joint. Originality/value The experimental results showed that the FNS reinforcement could effectively mitigate the failure risk in solder joints under isothermal ageing and high-current stressing. Specifically, the FNS particles in solder joints can work as a barrier to suppress the diffusion and migration of Sn and Cu atoms. In addition, the nanoidentation results also indicated that the addition of the FNS reinforcement was very helpful in maintaining the mechanical stability of the solder joint. These findings have provided a theoretical and experimental basis for the practical application of this novel composite solder with high-current densities.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of nickel-plated graphene (Ni-GNS) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 96.5Sn3Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) lead-free solder joints before and after an electro-migration (EM) experiment. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, SAC305 solder alloy doped with 0.1 Wt.% Ni-GNS was prepared via the powder metallurgy method. A U-shaped sample structure was also designed and prepared to conduct an EM experiment. The EM experiment was carried out with a current density of 1.5 × 104 A/cm2. The microstructural and mechanical evolutions of both solder joints under EM stressing were comparatively studied using SEM and nanoindentation. Findings The experimental results showed that for the SAC305 solder, the interfacial intermetallic compounds (IMC) formulated a protrusion with an average height of 0.42 µm at the anode after 360 h of EM stressing; however, despite this, the surface of the composite solder joint was relatively smooth. During the stressing period, the interfacial IMC on the anode side of the plain SAC305 solder showed a continuous increasing trend, while the IMC at the cathode presented a decreasing trend for its thickness as the stressing time increased; after 360 h of stressing, some cracks and voids had formed on the cathode side. For the SAC305/ Ni-GNS composite solder, a continuous increase in the thickness of the interfacial IMC was found on both the anode and cathode side; the growth rate of the interfacial IMC at the anode was higher than that at the cathode. The nanoindentation results showed that the hardness of the SAC305 solder joint presented a gradient distribution after EM stressing, while the hardness data showed a relatively homogeneous distribution in the SAC305/ Ni-GNS solder joint. Originality/value The experimental results showed that the Ni-GNS reinforcement could effectively mitigate the EM behavior in solder joints under high current stressing. Specifically, the Ni particles that plated the graphene sheets can work as a fixing agent to suppress the diffusion and migration of Sn and Cu atoms by forming Sn-Cu-Ni IMC. In addition, the nanoidentation results also indicated that the addition of the Ni-GNS reinforcement was very helpful in maintaining the mechanical stability of the solder joint. These findings have provided a theoretical and experimental basis for the practical application of this novel composite solder with high current densities.

Reverse engineering technology has been widely recognized as a crucial strategy for innovative design of products. However, currently one of major problems for its application is that huge amounts of digitized points cloud data need to be processed for geometrical surface modelling, especially for unknown free-form surfaces which are widely used in industry fields such as aircraft, automobile, shipbuilding, steam turbine, etc. In order to digitize unknown free-form surfaces accurately and efficiently, an adaptive sampling approach based on advanced path detecting has been presented. The method is characterized by integrating one touch- trigger probe and two laser probes onto the same Z axis of Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM), and the two laser probes are located on both sides of the touch probe. During sampling, the CMM scans the free-form surface line by line. At the scanning direction, the laser probes are applied to collect the measuring path information in front of the touch probe. And the data acquired by the laser probes is processed and fitted into B-spline curves real-timely, and then the curvature feature of the measuring path is extracted. The obtained path information is used to generate a new measuring path for touch probe to achieve adaptive sampling. While at the cross-section feeding direction, curvature analysis algorithm based on the angle variation between measuring sections is employed to subdivide the cross-sections when needed. Repeating this procedure, the measuring sections will be distributed adaptively. Simulation and experiment results indicate that the sampling points generated by the touch probe are laid out rationally according to the curvature of the surfaces, therefore the sampling efficiency and accuracy can be improved significantly by the proposed approach.

Laser scanning is widely applied to reverse engineering. Nonetheless, the involvement of scanning equipment and laser probe, as well as the measurement environment itself renders the process more vulnerable to noise which will cause failures in boundary detection, data segmentation and reconstruction of smooth curves and surfaces, thus putting forward the demand for noise reduction. Among the methods used in noise reduction of laser scanning data, the angular method is particularly suitable for scan line data. However, this method as well entails threshold that largely relies on the experience of engineers, which may introduce unwanted uncertainty. In this paper, an algorithm based on self-estimated angular threshold for reducing noise of laser scanning data is proposed. Firstly, the factors affecting angular threshold are analyzed and a mathematical model for SAT is established. Then the concrete algorithm that consists of judgment of impulse noise, modification of the coordinates and average filtering is described. Finally, a simulation test and an experimental case are employed to evaluate the performance of the algorithm on noise reduction of laser scanning data.