Manufacturing / Production Technology, Hardware & Services


Ionic contamination tester

30 March 2022 Manufacturing / Production Technology, Hardware & Services

The Zero Ion ionic contamination tester from Aqueous Technologies measures harmful ionic residues on circuit assemblies, including those unseen by the human eye. The new IPC J-STD001H standard now requires ionic process monitoring and the Zero Ion fully meets these requirements and the necessary ionic contamination test method TM650 2.3.25.

Designed to meet the cleanliness testing challenges associated with modern circuit assemblies, the machine is capable of extracting and quantifying assembly contamination levels per IPC J-STD001H TM650 2.3.25, NASA-STD-8739.1B sections 7.2 to 7.5 and other military specifications.

The Zero Ion was determined to be the most sensitive tester available by the US Navy. In fact, it was chosen to be the benchmark machine in military testing of all ionic contamination testers. Because any cleanliness tester can only quantify contamination it extracts from an assembly, the system utilises a unique and effective cross-flow extraction process, subjecting the circuit assembly to rapid fluid currents, assisting in the extraction, solubilisation and quantification of both polar and non-polar (water soluble and non-water soluble) ionic assembly residues.

The machine utilises dynamic measurement technology which increases the accuracy of the test by maintaining test fluid sensitivity throughout the testing process. This means the test solution is continually re-deionised during the test. The continual re-deionisation process assures a high degree of solvent sensitivity during the entire test and eliminates the possibility of saturation limit effects suffered by other technologies. In addition, the Zero-Ion utilises an aggressive spray-under-immersion ‘flow-stream’ to dislodge contamination from under low-standoff components.

The Zero Ion performs accurate cleanliness testing without needing to heat the test solution. Ambient temperature testing eliminates the need for heaters, eliminating warm-up times while increasing equipment and operator safety. Because it performs ionic contamination testing at ambient temperature, the requirement for nitrogen inerting and fire suppression systems is completely eliminated.


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