Thermal Cycling Failure In Electronics


Each time a device is turned off and on, its temperature changes. (Just think about how often your phone lights up all day.) Energy flowing through several layers of tightly stacked materials causes devices to heat up, then rapidly cool down. This repeated oscillation between temperatures over the lifetime of a device is called thermal cycling. Why thermal management is important Thermal cycl... » read more

The Race To Zero Defects In Auto ICs


Assembly houses are fine-tuning their methodologies and processes for automotive ICs, optimizing everything from inspection and metrology to data management in order to prevent escapes and reduce the number of costly returns. Today, assembly defects account for between 12% and 15% of semiconductor customer returns in the automotive chip market. As component counts in vehicles climb from the ... » read more

A freeze-thaw molten salt battery for seasonal storage


New research paper from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Abstract "Grid-level storage of seasonal excess can be an important asset to renewable electricity. By applying the freeze-thaw thermal cycling strategy, here, we report Al-Ni molten salt batteries with effective capacity recovery over 90% after a period of 1–8 weeks as a proof-of-concept. We explore three activation methods... » read more