On-site data from the SMT Process Zone at the Shenzhen International Electronics Show on January 1, 2026 shows that the booths displaying new SMT Solder Samples from companies including Murata, Sumitomo Metal Mining, Sen Mao Technology, and Yunying New Materials were crowded with visitors. Among these, low-temperature lead-free Solder Paste, nitrogen-compatible no-clean solder paste, and high-wettability solder adapted for copper-nickel-gold thick-film substrates became the key products promoted by exhibitors. Multiple participating enterprises reported that their year-on-year growth in orders for eco-friendly SMT Solder in the fourth quarter of 2025 reached 34% to 41%, and the frequency of verification of solder RoHS 3 and REACH compliance documents during customer factory audits has increased significantly.

Industry research shows that, driven by the entry into force of the EU's revised Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation and the strengthened enforcement of China's "Management Measures for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Products" in 2025, downstream brand customers' environmental compliance requirements for the SMT solder supply chain have extended from front-end material declarations to in-depth verification links such as post-reflow residue ion chromatography test reports and measured thermal cycle life data of solder joints. This has directly pushed SMT Solder Manufacturers to accelerate the completion of IPC J-STD-005B solder paste performance certification and IEC 61249-2-21 substrate compatibility testing. Some enterprises have already introduced new low-silver SMT solder into mass production, reducing the silver content from 3.0wt% in traditional SAC305 to 1.8wt%, lowering material costs by approximately 12% while maintaining a thermal fatigue life of ≥2500 cycles at -40℃ to 125℃.

In terms of production line adaptation, during the upgrade of SMT Placement Line No. 3 completed by Foxconn's Zhengzhou Plant in November 2025, the supporting nitrogen-protection reflow oven and closed-loop solder paste mixing system were replaced simultaneously. All original medium-temperature solder paste containing rosin activators was fully replaced with eco-friendly SMT solder based on a plant-based organic acid activation system. The production line yield remained stable at 99.62%, the solder joint bridging defect rate decreased by 0.18 percentage points, and the concentration of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the workshop air was reduced by 43% compared to before the renovation, meeting the requirements of GB 37822, 2019 for VOCs emission limits in electronic manufacturing.

It is worth noting that the current technological evolution of eco-friendly SMT solder is not a single-point breakthrough, but is deeply coupled with process links such as stencil aperture optimization algorithms, SPI solder paste thickness closed-loop compensation, and AOI 3D solder joint morphology recognition. BOE's Hefei sixth-generation flexible AMOLED module factory reported that after improving the welding matching degree between the new high-thixotropy SMT solder it uses and 0.08mm fine-pitch FPC connectors, the micro-short circuit rate dropped from 0.023% to 0.007%. This combined solution has currently been promoted for verification to panel manufacturers such as TCL CSOT and Tianma.

According to the "SMT Solder Industry White Paper" released by the China Electronic Materials Industry Association in December 2025, eco-friendly products account for 69.3% of China's total SMT solder production capacity, a 22.1 percentage point increase compared to the same period in 2023. However, the localization rate of solder for high-reliability fields such as automotive-grade AEC-Q200 certified solder is still less than 35%, mainly relying on customized supply from Japanese Senju and American Indium. This structural gap is attracting enterprises such as Yunying New Materials and Keter Electronics to increase pilot investment in SMT solder dedicated for automotive LiDAR and 800V electric drive modules.