Electronics Manufacturing Technical Articles

Signal Transmission Loss due to Copper Surface Roughness in High-Frequency Region

Apr 30, 2015 | Elaine Liew, Mitsui Copper Foil Malaysia, Shah Alam Malaysia Taka-aki Okubo, Toshio Sudo, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo Japan Toshihiro Hosoi, Hiroaki Tsuyoshi, Fujio Kuwako, Mitsui Kinzoku Co., Ltd, Japan.

Higher-speed signal transmission is increasingly required on a printed circuit board to handle massive data in electronic systems. So, signal transmission loss of copper wiring on a printed circuit board has been studied. First, total signal loss was divided into dielectric loss and conductor loss quantitatively based on electromagnetic theory. In particular, the scattering loss due to surface roughness of copper foil has been examined in detail. And the usefulness of the copper foil with low surface roughness has been demonstrated....

Publisher: Mitsui Kinzoku Group

True Height Measurement in Solder Paste Inspection

Apr 29, 2015 | Dr. Subodh Kulkarni

SPI equipment is routinely used in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturing to monitor and control one of the most crucial steps affecting the finished quality of circuit board. Solder paste deposition is the key process in board assembly operations using SMT techniques. Our LSM™ system was the industry's first popular method of manually inspecting solder paste; our SE systems revolutionized SMT production by offering an automated method for performing in-process 3D inspection on the assembly line. SPI systems measure the height and volume of the solder pads before the components are applied and the solder melted, and when used properly, can reduce the incidence of solder-related defects to statistically insignificant amounts. Critical to the SPI measurement is the accuracy of the height measurement because that has a direct correlation with solder volume and defects....

Publisher: CyberOptics Corporation

Advanced modelling technique achieves near to zero set up time and minimal tuning

Apr 29, 2015 | Sean Langbridge

Statistical Appearance Modelling technology enables an AOI system to “learn real world variation” based on operator interaction with inspection task results. This provides an accurate statistical description of normal variation in a product. With modelling technology, the user does not have to anticipate potential defects as the system will “flag” anything outside the “normal production range”. And, since the system is programmed with real production variation, it is sensitive to small subtle changes enabling reliable defect detection. Autonomous prediction of process variation enables an AOI system to be set up from a single PCB with production-ready performance. Setup time can be < 15 minutes from data input to first PCB inspection making it an ideal solution for NPI and first-off verification....

Publisher: CyberOptics Corporation

Rework Challenges for Smart Phones and Tablets

Apr 23, 2015 | Paul Wood Advanced Product Applications Manager APR/ BGA Products OK International / Metcal.

Smart phones are complex, costly devices and therefore need to be reworked correctly the first time. In order to meet the ever-growing demand for performance, the complexity of mobile devices has increased immensely, with more than a 70% greater number of packages now found inside of them than just a few years ago. For instance, 1080P HD camera and video capabilities are now available on most high end smart phones or tablet computers, making their production more elaborate and expensive.

The printed circuit boards for these devices are no longer considered disposable goods, and their bill of materials start from $150.00, with higher end smart phones going up to $238.00, and tablets well over $300.00....

Publisher: Metcal

Stereo Vision Based Automated Solder Ball Height Detection

Apr 16, 2015 | Jinjin Li, Lina J. Karam; School of Electrical, Computer, & Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Bonnie L. Bennett, Jeff S. Pettinato;Intel Corporation.

Solder ball height inspection is essential to the detection of potential connectivity issues in semi-conductor units. Current ball height inspection tools such as laser profiling, fringe projection and confocal microscopy are expensive, require complicated setup and are slow, which makes them difficult to use in a real-time manufacturing setting. Therefore, a reliable, in-line ball height measurement method is needed for inspecting units undergoing assembly. (...)

In this paper, an automatic, stereo vision based, in-line ball height inspection method is presented. The proposed method includes an imaging setup together with a computer vision algorithm for reliable, in-line ball height measurement....

Publisher: Intel Corporation

Good Schematics Lead to GOOD LAYOUTS

Apr 08, 2015 | Advanced Assembly

An electronic schematic describes the electrical connectivity of a piece of equipment or an entire system. It is made up of symbols that represent individual components and contains electrical and mechanical information and their related connectivity, along with other important data. Information contained within the schematic is packaged into a printed circuit board (PCB) where the mechanical footprint is placed onto the board and connectivity information is graphically displayed. The more accurate the information contained in the schematic is and the clearer it is presented, the more it contributes to a robust printed circuit board....

Publisher: Advanced Assembly, LLC.

Fix The Process Not Just The Product

Apr 03, 2015 | Mary Elmallakh, M. Sc. and Paul Groome Digitaltest Inc. Andy Shelton Pulse Communications, Inc.

Understanding your process and how to minimize defects has always been important. Nowadays, its importance is increasing with the complexity of products and the customers demand for higher quality. Quality Management Solutions (QMS) that integrate real-time test and inspection results with engineering and production data, can allow the optimization of the entire manufacturing process. We will describe the cost and time benefits of a QMS system when integrated with engineering data and manufacturing processes. We will use real examples that can be derived from integrating this data. This paper also discusses the aspects of Quality Management Software that enables electronic manufacturers to efficiently deliver products while achieving higher quality, reduce manufacturing costs and cutting repair time. Key words: Quality Management Software, ICT, Repair workstations, First Pass Yield, Pareto analysis, Flying Probe, QMS. ...

Publisher: Digitaltest Inc.

Jetting Strategies for mBGAs a question of give and take...

Apr 02, 2015 | Gustaf Mårtensson; BioNano Systems Laboratory, MC2, Petter Svensson, Thomas Kurian; Micronic Mydata AB

The demands on volume delivery and positioning accuracy for solder paste deposits are increasing as the size and complexity of circuits continue to develop in the electronics industry. According to the iNEMI 2013 placement accuracy for these kinds of components will reach 6 sigma placement accuracy in X and Y of 30 um by 2023.

This study attempts to understand the dependencies on piezo actuation pulse profile on jetting deposit quality, especially focused on positioning, satellites and shape. The correlation of deposit diameter and positioning deviation as a function of piezo actuation profile shows that positioning error for deposits increase almost monotonically with decreasing droplet volume irrespective of the piezo-actuation profile. The trends for shape and satellite levels are not as clear and demand further study. ...

Publisher: Mycronic AB

How to process C4 (FLIPCHIP)

Mar 29, 2015 | Jason Wu

Application Notes – C4 (FLIPCHIP) Category Description of the category The C4 category is used to describe certain area array devices which have solder bumps (bumps) distributed over the surface of the device. The C4 category is also referred to by the name flipchip. In contrast to the BGA devices, C4 devices do not necessarily have the bumps arranged on a regular grid. The C4 algorithm was originally developed for very fine pitch devices. It has since been extended to find (center) larger components....

Publisher: Shenzhen Southern Machinery Sales and Service Co., Ltd

The best way to merger 2 SMT lines in one production line

Mar 28, 2015 | Jason Wu

Saving power consumption more then $30K per year, ROI less 6 months. please contact: jasonwu@smthelp.com or w25605@gmail.com if you are interested....

Publisher: Shenzhen Southern Machinery Sales and Service Co., Ltd