TRUMBULL, CT – SMTA China recently awarded Artesyn Embedded Technologies and Enthone the “Best Paper of Technology Conference Two,” at the SMTA China South Conference. The paper, “Going Live with an Organic Metal^® PCB Final Finish – PCB Assembly Implementation,” examined how a new, organic metal-based process was determined to be superior to other PCB finishes that were evaluated.

The paper detailed a two-year joint project between Artesyn’s Advanced Manufacturing Engineering group and the Enthone OEM and global development and applications teams. The project included intensive evaluation comparing existing PCB final finishes currently available on the market today with an emerging platform of finishes, including the ENTEK^® OM organic-metal-based process, which was selected by Artesyn for final verification testing.

Tory Chen, Artesyn’s Supervisor of Advanced Manufacturing Engineering - Embedded Computing & Power, CDE, and Sunny Mu, OEM Marketing Manager, Enthone Asia, presented the paper, which was also co-authored by WM Cheng, Senior Technical Manager, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, of Artesyn and Ken Chow, OEM & Business Development Director, Enthone Asia. Chow said, “We are grateful to Artesyn for allowing us to closely collaborate with them. As witnessed by our joint project, selection of the right lead-free PCB final finish is critical to PCBA reliability.”

ENTEK OM is a distinctive, new class of PCB final finish that unites the high reliability and cost-effectiveness of an organic solder-ability preservative with the desired attributes of a metallic finish. Specifically, the process delivers solder-ability that exceeds traditional organic solder-ability preservatives and is comparable to metallic finishes. ENTEK OM exhibits low contact resistance that substantially reduces false failures at assembly.