Technical Articles From Assembléon

Why Sacrifice Throughput For Change-Over Time?

Mar 01, 2012 | Eric Klaver, Senior Product Manager

The struggle to survive in the world of manufacturing is prompting many volume-driven manufacturing sites in the west to specialize in small batch manufacturing. The aim is to bring value to their customers with fast-turnaround prototyping and reduced int...

Are Separate Solder Flip-Chip Bonders Still Required?

Oct 13, 2011 | Eric Klaver, Senior Product Manager, Assembléon. Patrick Huberts, Product Manager Semicon Market.

Increasing miniaturization is now encouraging manufacturers of handheld devices to stack bare dies or packages. As the process of manufacturing modules requires placing both passives and (stacked) bare dies, these two types of placement are merging very quickly into a single platform. That raises the question of whether SMT equipment will take over from traditional die bonders....

Production Line Dynamics: What Count Is What Actually Comes Out Of Your Line

Jul 21, 2011 | Eric Klaver, Senior Product Manager

In high-volume production, it is the price of the end product that matters. Purchasing decisions for production equipment therefore usually boil down to price divided by output modified by some efficiency factor....

Improve Margins By Reducing Rework - A Benchmark Comparison

May 19, 2011 | Sjef v. Gastel, Manager of Advanced Development, Assembléon

Electronic equipment manufacturers know that rework and scrap cost them money, but rarely know just how much. Calculating it is relatively straightforward knowing the production line’s First Pass Yield (FPY), though....

Assembling the Next Electronic Equipment Generations.

Nov 12, 2010 | Sjef v. Gastel, Manager of Advanced Development, Assembléon

Product roadmaps can look like largely theoretical constructs, but assembly requirements five or ten years down the line have very practical importance. Pick & place machines have a life of seven years or more, so they should be working up to 2017 or beyo...

01005 Production Goes Industry Wide

Jul 29, 2010 | Satoshi Kataoka, Eric Klaver

The introduction of the 01005 chip components in 2004 was a challenge to the whole electronics equipment assembly industry. The components’ miniature size made them difficult to see, let alone place reliably with high accuracy. Designers were reluctant to...

Sustaining a Robust Fine Feature Printing Process

Nov 24, 2009 | George Babka; Assembléon, David Sbiroli, Chris Anglin; Indium Corporation, Richard Brooks, Christopher Associates

With the introduction of 01005 chip components and 0.3 mm pitch CSP devices, electronic component packaging is pushing surface mount technology to the limits of its potential. Miniaturization is driving the electronics industry to implement the smallest and tightest pitch components in order to meet their customer demands. But how much miniaturization is possible before there is a paradigm shift in the technology? At what point is solder paste no longer viable? How small of a feature can be printed with solder paste, and can this process be implemented into a production environment?...

Model Management for Predictive Accuracy

Sep 02, 2009 | Accuracy Competence Management, Assembléon BV.

The current trend of miniaturization in products and substrates is expected to continue in most advanced electronic products. Telecommunication and computer applications typically need high density connection boards incorporating smaller passive components, finer pitch IC’s and area array packages. The key factor in the technically successful evolution is the development of new interconnection processes, such as the use of conductive adhesive with very fine grained inter-connection materials....

The Environmental Impact of Pick-and-place Machines

Aug 12, 2009 | Sjef van Gastel

Energy labels are a key part of global attempts to reduce consumption of environmental resources. They inform customers of the future consequence of their purchases. There are now many national and other energy labels covering houses, cars, lamps, washing machines and dryers, air conditioners, etc. The EU Energy using Products (EuP) directive also is working on classifying industrial applications to set rules for future energy reductions. These rules are at least three years away; until then, there are no energy labels for industrial manufacturing equipment....

A New Angle on Printing

Jun 25, 2009 | George Babka, Scott Zerkle; Assembléon Americas, Frank Andres, Rahul Raut, Westin Bent; Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials, Dave Connell; Research in Motion.

Although blade contact angle is a critical stencil printing parameter, screen printers have so far been unable to vary it "on-the-fly", in software. The recently released Assembléon/Yamaha YGP printer has changed this, and has made new application research possible to study a crucial 01005 process variable for feature printing that previous researchers have ignored.

We have designed the first robust solder paste printing process for 01005 components that uses only a single printer and stencil. We have studied transfer efficiencies across all the major parameters, with important results for reliable high-density equipment assembly. Our findings show that a variable blade contact angle can print fine features with wider process window, and reduce overall process variation between boards produced from a line....

0201 Placement - Only With The Right Team and Tools!

Sep 17, 2003 | P.Gerits / A.Mandos

It appears very logical that the successor of the 0402 size SMD would be the 0201. Curves showing the life-cycle of a body size, from introduction to most used to only for special cases, are very similar for the 1206, 0805, 0603 and 0402. So there is reason to expect that the same will happen with the 0201. Until now there is only little evidence for this, but most technologies come later than expected but faster than expected!...

Line Balancing The Route To Profit in Electronics Manufacturing

Oct 25, 2001 | Paul Gerits, Anton Mandos

The electronics business has been a rather heated, if not over-heated, environment for many years. This has lead to a forgiving climate regarding inefficiencies, as resources have not been stretched and getting products out has been top priority. It might now be time to invest in some reflection on the strategies and tactics applied to the production environment in order to be prepared for the ‘heat’ of the future. Focusing investment in the right resources, and not sub-optimising, is the way to go....

Odd or SMD?

Aug 17, 2001 | Paul Gerits, Anton Mandos

Odd or SMD? At one time it was clear. An SMD component was placed on the surface of a PCB and all others were defined as 'odds' or 'specials'. This article discribes the changes and how equipment manufactorers react on it....