Semiconductors and heat

[flippineck]

The first time I ever attempted an electronic construction project would have been around 1979 as a young lad. It was a beat frequency oscillator metal detector. The guy next door who was an electronics egghead decided to show me how to do it over the garden fence.

My first several attempts failed miserably & I'd have given up pursuing electronics as an interest had it not been for his intervention.. he came round our house and sat with me & my Dad showing us how to solder properly, using good technique, speed & heatsink pliers etc. Finally it worked.

I learnt from this how easily heat destroyed semiconductors if you weren't careful.

Decades pass, & I'm now watching youtube videos showing people desolder and resolder tiny WSON chips, by pointing a heat gun directly at the chip for a really quite extended time.. 4 separate times in a row (off one board, onto an adapter, off the adapter, back onto original board) with no apparent loss of function.

Are modern semiconductors intrinsically more resistant to heat damage than their 1970's counterparts? Why?

 

[Externet]

Modern semiconductors may have better construction for heat resistance; but their much smaller size may counteract their heat dissipation capabilities and if I have to guess, not much better after all put together.
Heat is one thing, different to temperature. Do not confuse them. In 1979, soldering tools rarely were temperature stable and tips were more heat massive yielding different results. Flux techniques were non existent. What you have learned lately and you did not decades ago, counts too.

-A house on fire and a lit match head may be at near the same temperature; but their amount of heat are greatly different-

Go and enjoy your soldering skills learned.

 

[dave9]

Remember heat gun is air so not quite as efficient a conduction to the chip, a more gradual rise where the moment of solder melting is more easily detected before temp rises much more, plus the chips are necessarily designed to survive manufacturing processes using an oven or wave soldering.