Electronics Manufacturing Technical Articles

What Makes Flex Circuit Assembly Different?

Feb 18, 2018 | Tuan Tran

Flex circuits allow manufacturers to be more creative than ever....

Publisher: Power Design Services

Design Rules For Selective Soldering Assemblies

Feb 14, 2018 | Vitronics Soltec Oosterhout

This document describes general guidelines and attention points for PCB design regarding selective soldering. The guidelines can be applied for Select Wave and/or Multi Wave soldering process in both leaded and leadfree alloy. When a PCB is designed according to these guidelines, a stable and solid solder-process can be guaranteed....

Publisher: Vitronics Soltec

Mixed Voltages And Aluminum Conductors: Assesing New Electrcal Technology

Feb 07, 2018 | Olivier Neuman

The architecture of vehicle electrical systems is changing rapidly. Electric and hybrid vehicles are driving mixed voltage systems, and cost pressures are making conductor materials like aluminum an increasingly viable competitor to copper.

This paper presents tradeoff studies at the vehicle level, and how to automatically generate an electrical Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (FMEA) report, as well as how to optimize wire sizes for both copper and aluminum at the platform level....

Publisher: Mentor Graphics

Electronic Does Not Equal Smart: Service Documentation and Brand Quality

Feb 01, 2018 | Muhammad Askar

This paper briefly summarizes the technologies underpinning the evolution in electrical system diagnosis and repair, which include schematic layout automation using prototypes and rule-based styling, instant language translation, 2D/3D view links with schematics, interactive diagnostic procedures, and dynamically-generated signal-tracing diagrams. These technologies empower after-sales service teams with state-of-the-art capabilities, which not only reduce costs but also improve brand quality in the eyes of its customers. ...

Publisher: Mentor Graphics

Fine Pitch Cu Pillar with Bond on Lead (BOL) Assembly Challenges for High Performance Flip Chip Package

Jan 17, 2018 | Nokibul Islam, Vinayak Pandey, KyungOe Kim

Fine pitch copper (Cu) Pillar bump has been growing adoption in high performance and low-cost flip chip packages. Higher input/output (I/O) density and very fine pitch requirements are driving very small feature sizes such as small bump on a narrow pad or bond-on-lead (BOL) interconnection, while higher performance requirements are driving increased current densities, thus assembling such packages using a standard mass reflow (MR) process and maintaining its performance is a real and serious challenge. (...)

In this study a comprehensive finding on the assembly challenges, package design, and reliability data will be published.

Originally published in the SMTA International 2016...

Publisher: STATS ChipPAC Inc

High-Performance Ink-Jet Printed Graphene Resistors Formed With Environmentally-Friendly Surfactant-Free Inks For Extreme Thermal Environments

Jan 11, 2018 | Monica Michel, Chandan Biswas, Anupama B. Kaul

Ink-jet printing is poised to impact the manufacturing of devices that are particularly attractive for flexible electronics, as more suitable and printable fluids become available. The addition of surfacants in the preparation of the inks usually results in additional process steps, potentially increasing cost, as well as material waste, where the surfactants also often have a negative impact on specific properties of the printed features, such as comprising electrical conductivity of metallic structures. (...)

In this work, we have successfully formulated a suitable ink derived from a mixture of terpineolin cyclohexanone as a more environmentally friendly option for the exfoliation of bulk graphite, which we elaborate upon in more detail here....

Publisher: University of Texas

IPC-1782 Standard for Traceability Supporting Counterfeit Components

Jan 04, 2018 | Michael Ford

Traceability has grown from being a specialized need for certain safety critical segments of the industry, to now being a recognized value-add tool for the industry as a whole. The perception of traceability data collection however persists as being a burden that may provide value only when the most rare and disastrous of events take place. Disparate standards have evolved in the industry, mainly dictated by large OEM companies in the market create confusion, as a multitude of requirements and definitions proliferate.

The intent of the IPC-1782 project is to bring the whole principle and perception of traceability up to date. Traceability, as defined in this standard will represent the most effective quality tool available, becoming an intrinsic part of best practice operations, with the encouragement of automated data collection from existing manufacturing systems, integrating quality, reliability, predictive (routine, preventative, and corrective) maintenance, throughput, manufacturing, engineering and supply-chain data, reducing cost of ownership as well as ensuring timeliness and accuracy all the way from a finished product back through to the initial materials and granular attributes about the processes along the way. ...

Publisher: Mentor Graphics

Top Reasons to Outsource IC Reworks on PCB

Dec 30, 2017 | Tuan Tran

Reworking printed circuit boards may require certain skills and tools to ensure quality results. When is it appropriate to outsource this work? ...

Publisher: Power Design Services

SMT Line or Manual PCB Assembly? When Hand Assembly Makes Sense

Dec 29, 2017 | Tuan Tran

Although PCB assembly is a highly automated process, there are times when manual PCB assembly makes sense for prototyping innovative tech products. ...

Publisher: Power Design Services

Article Design and Experiment of a Solder Paste Jetting System Driven by a Piezoelectric Stack

Dec 27, 2017 | Shoudong Gu, Xiaoyang Jiao, Jianfang Liu *, Zhigang Yang, Hai Jiang and Qingqing Lv

To compensate for the insufficiency and instability of solder paste dispensing and printing that are used in the SMT production process, a noncontact solder paste jetting system driven by a piezoelectric stack based on the principle of the nozzle-needle-system is introduced in this paper, in which a miniscule gap exists between the nozzle and needle during the jetting process....

Publisher: Jilin University