Technical Education Webinar Series

Title: Impacts of Solder Reflow on High Bandwidth RF Connectors: Everything’s great until you apply solder!

Date: September 14, 2022

Time: 8am PT / 11am ET

Sponsored by: Samtec

Presented by: Michael Griesi, RF Design and Simulation Engineering Manager and Chris Shelly, Senior RF/SI Modeling Engineer

Abstract:

What happens when you take a high bandwidth precision RF connector with an optimized PCB launch and solder them together? The result can be anything from catastrophic failures and severely degraded electrical performance to perfectly acceptable results. Identifying and then addressing the root causes of these failures and variations is challenging, particularly when the solder joints are not visible, and frequencies are high enough that literally every mil matters. Which is why this webinar will share some of the interesting results of the solder reflow process on RF connectors mounted to PCBs, correlate this behavior with measurement and simulation, and explore ways to better control and predict unwanted solder flow which can destroy the electrical performance of a precision RF connector.

Presenter Bios:

Michael Griesi received B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering focused on signal integrity from the University of South Carolina and has 19 years of experience across a broad background in electromagnetics spanning design, simulation, validation, and automation in digital high speed, wireless, and passive RF applications.

Chris Shelly has a B.Sc in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering. 33 years in the connector industry with experience in High Voltage connector design and testing, with a primary focus on RF connector design, RF connector simulation and PCB RF launch design and optimization.