Summary

Co-authors and contributors

  • Dr Lee Hitchens, Nexus

Parylene is a conformal coating that is deposited as a gas in a vacuum chamber.

It is a completely different process to the liquid conformal coatings and its properties offer advantages and disadvantages in comparison.

For Parylene there are six key areas to consider.

These are:

What is Parylene?

Parylene is a conformal coating that is deposited as a gas in a vacuum chamber.

Parylene is a dry process compared to the standard “wet” liquid conformal coatings.

It is a completely different process to the liquid conformal coatings and its properties offer advantages and disadvantages in comparison.

Since it is deposited as a gas its thickness is uniform across the circuit board.

Find out more about What Parylene is?

Where is Parylene used?

Parylene is used in a variety of areas both in the electronics industry and wider fields.

These areas include aerospace, medical, telecommunications, automotive, military, LEDs, industrial, optics and many other sectors.

Find out more about where Parylene is used?

Why is Parylene used?

The Parylene conformal coating process is a specialised vapour deposition application technique.

This offers unique material properties that give a lot of unique advantages compared to other conformal coatings.

find out more about Why Parylene coating is used?

The Parylene process

The Parylene process can comprise of four Stages.

They are:

  • Stage 1: Vapourisation
  • Stage 2: Pyrolysis
  • Stage 3: Coating Deposition
  • Stage 4: Cold Trap

Find out more about the Parylene Coating Process.

Production requirements

A typical Parylene coating flow production process looks similar to a conformal coating line with a few extra areas added in.

Nexus examines each of the stages.

Find out more about the Parylene production requirements.

Removal and repair

Parylene conformal coating removal can normally be achieved by three main techniques.

These are:

  • Thermal removal (soldering through)
  • Mechanical abrasion by hand
  • Machine abrasion

Standard liquid stripping techniques used in the area of liquid conformal coatings tend to be unsuccessful due to the inert nature and high chemical resistance of the Parylene coating.

Find out more about Parylene coating removal and repair