Cleaning is an essential process within electronics manufacture and has been used for many years to remove potentially harmful contaminants during PCB manufacture.
Such contaminants include flux, solder and adhesive residues, and other more general contaminants such as dust and debris present from other manufacturing processes.
The purpose of cleaning, specifically within the rapidly expanding electronics industry, is to essentially improve product lifetime by ensuring good surface resistance and by preventing current leakage leading to PCB failure. This developing market sees modern and future electronics becoming smaller and smaller and the requirement for high performance and reliability is stronger than ever. In order to achieve good insulation resistance and ensure adequate adhesion of conformal coatings and encapsulation resins, the cleanliness of the electronic assemblies is essential.