W. James Hall is a consultant to the PWB Assembly Industry and on the staff of ITM Consulting (Durham, NH). His area of responsibility includes working with OEM's and Contract Electronic Assemblers to solve assembly problems and optimize facility operations.
Mr. Hall, one of the pioneers of reflow technology, has been actively involved in electronic assembly technology for over 28 years. In the late 1970's he joined HTC a manufacturer of vapor phase soldering systems. As Senior Development Engineer, Jim was awarded Patents for the design of Single Vapor Batch, Vapor Phase Solder Leveling (an alternative to Hot Air Solder Level for PWB finishes), and Inline Reflow systems. These systems became the industry standard for reflow processing for several years.
Mr. Hall was also instrumental in the development of combined reflow system incorporating a solder wave within a vapor phase chamber. This unique system was used to solder Type II, mixed-technology assemblies in a single, simultaneous process.
As the surface mount process began to grow, Mr. Hall became involved in process development and was instrumental in establishing one of the first commercial SMT process development and demonstration laboratories. Jim's work in this lab included the development of the Reflow Soldering Process, starting with batch solder paste "drying", progressing to inline "preheat" and finally to the evolution of the Ramp-Soak-Spike heating profile. During this time he worked with some of the pioneers of the industry such as Charles Hutchins at TI, the IBM Austin facility and DEC corporate engineering.
In 1984, the insertion and placement equipment company, Dynapert, acquired HTC and Jim became part of the industry's first attempt to sole source a complete surface mount assembly line. In support of this concept, the demonstration laboratory was expanded to include both component insertion, pick and place, creating the first commercial demonstration facility to provide complete in-line assembly of surface mount assemblies.
During the industry's transition from vapor phase to convection IR reflow and forced convection, Mr. Hall managed Dynapert's development of completely new reflow system that incorporated medium-wave, panel IR and impingement-style forced convection with an adjustable edge-rail conveyor.
In 1989, Jim joined Vitronics Corporation as Senior Product Engineer. He assumed responsibility for the design of improvements to the existing convection product line. In the next three years, controlled exhaust/convection, low PPM nitrogen "clamshell" tunnel containment, and internal, forced gas, nitrogen cooling were developed and released.
Utilizing his experience in heat transfer and fluid dynamics, Mr. Hall assisted in the development Vitronics' cleaning systems. He was actively involved in the development of the pump, spray, and drying modules and with overall process integration.
In 1993, Jim assumed responsibility for advanced customer application. Specific projects included:
Jim also worked with the Universal Instruments SMD center (Binghamton, NY) on BGA reliability, flip chip assembly, reflow encapsulants and 0201 assembly processes.
Most recently, Jim was the Manager of SMT Process Technology for Vitronics Soltec, a worldwide supplier of reflow and wave soldering systems. He also was responsible for in-house technical training for reflow and SMT processes.
Shortly after joining ITM in 2000, Jim participated as one of three developers of the Process Engineer Certification Program for the SMTA, along with Phil Zarrow and Dr. Ron Lasky. Currently the principal instructor for the program, Jim has taught and certified over 200 engineers worldwide.
Most recently Jim has been awarded a 6-Sigma, Black Belt from Dartmouth College. This is a statistics focused Continuous Improvement Program for engineers and other technical staff. Jim developed several of the course modules including:
He continues to participate in this program as an instructor.
Jim's engineering expertise lies in process development and integration, fluid and thermodynamics, and computer control systems. He has delivered numerous papers and workshops on surface mount technology at technical seminars around the world including those for NEPCON, IMAPS, IPC, and SMTA.
