SOLDER ASSEMBLY TEMPERATURE MONITORING PROCESS

An apparatus according to the invention may include one or more fuses placed on a printed circuit board on which an printed circuit board assembly is formed. Each fuse changes in response to ambient thermal conditions beyond a threshold temperature. The change can be detected with a testing apparatus such as in in-circuit tester after a process such as a solder assembly process to determine whether the process was performed within the desire temperature range. Fuses may be positioned at different locations on the printed circuit board to provide localized and differentiated temperature measurements. An array of fuses may be designed to change at a progressing sequence of ambient temperatures to enable trends in the process temperature to be recorded. Temperature data may be recorded and linked to an identifier on the apparatus such as a product serial number.