Feb 08, 2021 
Nihon Superior Co. Ltd. is pleased to announce that Senior Technical Advisor Keith Sweatman received an Honorable Mention from the SMTA for the “Best of Proceedings” Award for SMTA International 2020. The members of the conference technical committee selected his paper, “Behavior and Strengthening Effects of Sb in a Low Bi-Sn-Cu alloy” on the basis that it represented the integrity and technical quality for which the SMTAI International program is known.
In acknowledging this award, Keith Sweatman accorded due credit to Dr. Sergey Belyakov and Professor Chris Gourlay of Imperial College London, who obtained the data on which the paper was based, and to the president of Nihon Superior, Tetsuro Nishimura, who has been supportive of such research as a basis for solder alloy development.
The work reported in this paper is part of an ongoing program of research directed at the development of lead-free solders that have reliability in harsh environments that is more stable over time that those that depend to a large extent on particle strengthening by the silver intermetallic compound Ag3Sn. The starting point is a well-established alloy, Sn-0.7Cu-0.05Ni-0.006Ge, that is listed in J-STD-006.
Official recognition of this award will occur as part of the Annual Meeting and Recognition Dinner to be held during the SMTAI 2021, which is scheduled to be held November 1-4, 2021 in the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Nihon Superior continues to offer solutions to the challenges facing the electronics industry, such as improvements in reliability, thermally stable joining, and lead-free die attach. For more information about Nihon Superior’s new alloys, solder pastes and lead-free products, please visit us at www.nihonsuperior.co.jp/english.
Nihon Superior was founded in 1966 when it began marketing unique flux products imported from the US. The company made its mark on society by gathering the most advanced soldering and brazing technologies and products from around the world, and supplying them to companies in the metal-joining industry. A turning point for the company came when it started developing its own soldering materials and with the success of its unique SN100C lead-free solder alloy Nihon Superior has become a major player in the global market. To support the growing demand for its products, Nihon Superior has established manufacturing and sales centers in Japan, China and other Asian countries, and the United States, and formed business partnerships with companies in other markets.
