Interconnections constrained by convention

Interconnecting components for high temperature electronic circuits by conventional solders has meant that alloys have had to be selected that melt at even higher temperatures than the operating temperature of the circuit. Further, to get these solder alloys to be sufficiently fluid the process temperature has to be considerably greater than the simple melting temperature. Thus the components must be considerably stressed simply to make the interconnections. This will impact on circuit reliability or simply these high temperatures will destroy the component. The author outlines an approach which, far from eutectic soldering, allows processing temperatures to be reduced and the solder joint to continue to develop as the circuit is operating at high temperatures. Indeed the melting temperature of the alloy should increase with exposure to high temperatures. This may lead to difficulties of reworking the joints but this could be overcome by flooding the joint with the low melting phase.