A number of new soldering techniques are being developed to tackle the challenges of modern materials and specialised electronics assembly operations. Now advances are being made in robotic soldering and in solder jetting. 

Wave and reflow soldering operations for mass production of electronics have made assembly much faster and more economic compared to labour-intensive hand soldering techniques. However, although these can process the majority of components on a circuit board there will often be so-called 'odd-form' components that have to  be added on afterwards, often by hand. Sometimes these are components that are more easily heat-damaged, perhaps by the increased process temperatures used for lead-free soldering, for example.

Selective soldering can be used to automate these processes. One conventional example of this technique is a small probe with a mini 'fountain' of molten solder that can be moved to apply solder to particular component joints. Much newer robotic systems use laser soldering in which the laser is programmed to directly heat specific joints on the board. Major benefits of laser soldering are that because it is non-contact thermal stresses are reduced and joints are consistently of high quality.

Robotic systems now have a new member of the family - robotic ultrasonic soldering. In this technique the molten solder is agitated with an ultrasonic wave that is able to remove oxides from the surface without using a chemical flux. Fluxless soldering is particularly important in applications such as medical electronics where flux residues are undesirable. Ultrasonic technology is already widely used in welding and its application to soldering means that difficult operations like soldering to ceramics and glass can be achieved much more easily.

Solder jet printing is based on inkjet technology that can jet molten solder directly onto surfaces to form solder bumps and other solder structures. Solder droplets 25-125um diameter can be deposited at up to 400 per second. The basic technology was developed many years ago but is now being driven by the advent of digital printing as a cleaner and more efficient alternative to conventional processes. Recent research in Taiwan has studied the droplet formation behaviour of lead-free solders in an inkjet printing process.