Metal Stencil Surface Treatment
Aculon® NanoPearl™ Kit is a safe-to-use, next-generation metal stencil surface treatment that forms a durable, oleophobic film that repels solder fluxes and significantly improves stencil print performance.
Reduce costs. Improve productivity. Produce better quality prints.
Building on the legacy of our Aculon NanoClear® Stencil Treatment, NanoPearl Stencil Treatment provides enhanced durability and pearlescent appearance for easy visibility.
Features
- NanoClear performance with visual coverage
- Easy to apply with pearlescent appearance
- Repels solder pastes and fluxes
- Increased aperture sidewall coverage
- Improved resistance to chemical cleaning and mechanical abrasion
Benefits
- Better quality prints with improved yields
- Higher productivity with less maintenance
- Lower rework and reduced consumable costs
- High-fidelity printing for fine features
Application in Six Easy Steps
Clean stencil
Spray Primer
Cure Two Hours
Spray Finisher
Cure Two Hours
Apply Rinse
Better consistency & robust performance
NanoPearl stencil treatment uses proprietary nanotech to create a durable, sub-micron barrier that strongly repels fluxes and oils. This level of repellency enables cleaner solder deposition, reduces defects, and minimizes equipment downtime. NanoPearl stencil treatment provides a more robust and durable coating than NanoClear stencil treatment and its competitors, maintaining less than 10% loss of oil contact repellency after 50,000 cycles.
Designed for Ease
Unlike conventional stencil coatings, NanoPearl stencil treatment delivers a visible, long-lasting solution that improves performance and reliability without the need for complex surface preparation or specialized application equipment while still giving you uniform deposition across the surface of the stencil and the aperture walls.
Precision Coverage for Precision Printing – Results You Can See
NanoPearl stencil treatment has a pearlescent coating due to its thickness, which is only a few hundred nanometers. This thing coatings provides you with visual cues to confirm uniform coverage of the stencil, even on stencil sidewalls. Notice the contrast in color between the reflective uncoated stencil surface and aperture walls (left), which is less contrasted on the treated stencil (right).
Stencil Print Tests & Solder Paste Statistics
When depositing solder paste, Transfer Efficiency (TE) is assumed, but CONSISTENCY is key. Solder paste TE varies with the size of the aperture and the thickness of the stencil. Variation creates defects, and it only takes one bad deposit on a BGA or LGA to cause rework of the entire device. Therefore, the Coeffeicient of Variation (CV) is the preferred quality metric, because it normalizes the spread of the data to the actual mean, as opposed to an arbitrary 100%. CV is calculated as the standard deviation divided by the mean.
Coefficient of Variation (CV)
Less than 10%: Desired
Plenty of room for common variations
10 - 15%: Acceptable
Leaving little room for variation
Over 15%: Unacceptable
Almost no room for variation
Test Procedure
- Used SMTA Miniaturization Test Vehicle and masked off specific areas on stencil. Ran test prints on same board with and without coating on stencil for direct comparison.
- Performed at PARMI using MPM Momentum printer and PARMI Sigma X SPI.
Visual Comparison of NanoClear, NanoPearl, & Uncoated Stencils – Demonstrated Improved Consistency of TE with NanoPearl Stencil Treatment!
These results indicate that NanoPearl significantly stabilizes paste transfer by improving paste release from stencil apertures, resulting in more uniform solder deposits, tighter process control, and reduced defect risk for fine-pitch features such as 0.4 mm BGAs and 01005 components.
Uncoated - Type 4 Solder Paste, 4 mil Stencil
NanoClear Stencil Treatment - Type 4 Solder Paste, 4 mil Stencil
NanoPearl Stencil Treatment - Type 4 Solder Paste, 4 mil Stencil
