Peek for Lead-Free Soldering Processes and Electronics Applications

The electronics industry is moving from lead-based solder systems to lead-free solder systems. This change increases the processing temperatures used to melt and flow the new lead-free solders. This is causing many of the traditional polymeric materials used for electronic components to fail. Therefore, the polymers with high temperature resistance, such as VICTREX^reg PEEK (poly (aryl ether ether ketone)) polymer, are getting very important in the manufacturing processes using lead-free solders. In this paper, the performance of PEEK polymer and other plastic materials are presented from a lead-free soldering process viewpoint. This paper also describes some applications in which PEEK polymer has been successfully applied, including mobile phone secondary battery gaskets, speaker diaphragms, connectors, and so on.