SMT Editorial Blogspot

SMT Tours REStronics ORPRO Vision Inspection Open House

2010-05-25T16:54:00.003-04:00

(May 25, 2010) — REStronics New England recently hosted an open house at their Billerica, MA showroom to demonstrate and discuss SPI and AOI. Inspection technology from ORPRO Vision was used to perform live PCB inspection demos.

The ORPRO Vision systems available for visitor demos included the Symbion S36 Plus component and post-solder AOI; Symbion P36 Plus 2D/3D solder paste deposition inspection (SPI) system; and the Spectrum prototype table-top AOI system.

Kenneth Lunde of ORPRO Vision presented “AOI for Defect Detection vs. AOI for Process Controls” during the open house. He discussed ways for electronics assembly to include post-paste and component inspections, and why this visual inspection benefits the bottom line. “Opinions regarding AOI are that it’s a tool to capture and report component defects incurred during the assembly process. AOI is an effective tool for this purpose when used at a post-soldering stage,” Lunde noted, saying that such implementations are intended as a “safety net to ensure that no defects are shipped out the back door.” Why use AOI before the soldering process? Lunde said that, without solder paste inspection (SPI), all the possible solder level defects proceed down the line unchecked. “If most issues are solder specific, then pre-solder inspection is not your best value placement for test. On the other hand, if most defects observed are component-level defects, then testing solder joints may not be the best option. It is a question of support time.” Lunde also compared the value of 2D SPI sampling to true 100% paste inspection, which functions as a process control. When SPI is implemented with AOI inline with SPI post-deposition and AOI pre-reflow, all data collected reflects process events, he added. Lunde reviewed the uses for AOI pre- and post-reflow, and what component- and solder-level defects can be captured. “There is a not a best solution for every line. It can be the application of AOI or SPI alone. It can be the implementation of both technologies,” he said. Assemblers should ask themselves: Where are the issues today? Where will they be in the days to come? and base their inspection strategy on their answers.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

For more information, visit http://www.orprovision.com/ or http://www.restronics.com/. Read more about inspection on http://www.smtonline.com/ in our Inspection center.

After the Show: APEX Deals Announced

2010-05-11T11:20:00.006-04:00

(May 11, 2010) — A few companies announced equipment sales and new customers from the show floor at IPC APEX EXPO, held in April 2010 in Las Vegas. (Check out our Twitter archive for a few of the sales announcements from ASYS Group Americas and others, http://twitter.com/SurfaceMount). Following the show, however, many more are announcing completed sales initiated at the exhibition. Here are a few of the partnerships; add your own in the comments section.

Aqueous Technologies Corp. sold a Zero-Ion g3 Ionic Contamination (Cleanliness) Tester to Vu Nguyen of Consysis (San Diego). The Zero-Ion g3 is designed to test electronics assemblies for ionic contamination. It automatically removes and detects contamination on an electrical assembly or bare board and provides quantitative contamination measurements. The Zero-Ion g3 uses a dynamic technology that provides automatic regeneration of the machine’s test solution, maintaining a high degree of test solution sensitivity. The Zero-Ion meets the requirements of military and commercial cleanliness testing standards including MIL 2000A, IPC test method 001, MIL-C-28809, MIL-P-55110 and IPC TM650-2.3.26. The Zero-Ion also has been determined to be 3.7 times more sensitive than the manual resistivity of solvent extract (R.O.S.E.) test. The Zero-Ion performs cleanliness tests automatically and features a Windows PC-based control platform with a 15" LCD touchscreen interface. http://www.aqueoustech.com/

Lenthor Engineering, a California-based designer, manufacturer and assembler of rigid-flex and flex PCBs, purchased a new Orbotech Discovery OLB Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) system. This new and improved AOI system by Orbotech boasts shorter set up times, faster scan times, and more accurate results, with the easiest user interface available. The user’s continuous access to the panel at all times during the scanning process allows for immediate, in-process repair of defects for maximum AOI throughput with the least false positive results. http://www.lenthor.com/

Aqueous Technologies Corp. sold a Trident III automatic defluxing and cleanliness testing system to Advance Circuit Technology of Rochester, NY. The Trident Series represents the next generation of lead-free-compatible, fully automatic post-reflow defluxing systems. Kevin Buckner, Aqueous Technologies’ sales manager sold the system to ACT’s Bob Kajfasz. Trident III is capable of removing all flux residues including rosin, no-clean, and water-soluble. Both leaded and lead-free flux residues may be removed using the system, and it is equipped with an automatic chemical injection system that automatically adds a programmable volume of defluxing chemical to the wash water. Trident III is equipped with a closed-loop wash solution recycling system. Wash solution is heated automatically and sprayed onto the assemblies. At the end of the wash cycle, the wash solution is directed back to the holding tank for subsequent reuse. It has a real-time cleanliness tester, and rinse water is sprayed onto the assemblies until the desired cleanliness level is achieved. All rinse water is directed through the pre-drain filtration system and then sent to drain. Assemblies are dried via the onboard convection and radiant forced air drying system. http://www.aqueoustech.com/

Chris Dodd of MIRTEC Corp. sold a 5 megapixel (MP) MV-7xi in-line AOI system to Aeroflex of Colorado Springs, CO, on the last day of the show. The MV-7xi in-line AOI system is configured to provide 1 high-resolution color digital top-down camera and 4 of the same fitted as side-view cameras. The Quad Angle Lighting System provides 4 independently programmable zones for optimal illumination of inspection areas. The Intelli-Scan Laser System provides lifted lead detection for gull wing devices, four-point height measurement capability for co-planarity testing of BGA and CSP devices, and enhanced solder paste measurement capability. A comprehensive Package Type Library provides simple “Drag and Drop” component programming. The Automatic Teaching Tool (ATT) software provides automatic teaching of component locations using CAD centroid data. http://www.mirtecusa.com/

Did you make a purchase, or a sale, at the IPC APEX EXPO 2010 in Las Vegas? Tell us about it in the Comments Section below.

Can Highest Reliability and Eco-Awareness Coexist? Cobham and TURI’s 20-Year Partnership Anniversary Demonstrates Success

2010-04-27T16:11:00.005-04:00

Military, defense, and other electronics products exempt from most environmental legislation are now oft produced with lead-free parts, a concession to the supply-chain-driven obsolescence of leaded materials. Add in deliberate reduction in hexavalent chromium usage; overhauls of facility waste, lighting/energy, and water management; and a focus on lead-free reliability, and you’ll be closer to what a successful environment strategy for the high-rel space looks like. SMT recently toured Cobham Systems in Lowell, MA, which has successfully collaborated with the Toxic Use Reduction Institute (TURI) for 20 years.

In recognition of Cobham and TURI’s 20 years of fruitful partnership, Massachusetts State Senator Steven Panagiotakos called Cobham an “example for other companies in safety and environmental care,” adding that the “concrete results” achieved in the facility were all the more impressive because Cobham’s high-rel status meant there was “no mandate for them to make these changes.”

Environmental Initiatives
From 2002 to 2004, there has been an 84% reduction in lead use at Cobham. “It was obvious to Cobham, even as a RoHS-exempt hi-rel company, that the world was going in the lead-free direction, and that lead-free was the right thing to do,” said Dick Anderson, senior principal engineer at Cobham. The company learned how to work with suppliers and assembly houses on a lead-free supply chain; how to test and inspect lead-free joints; and when lead-free is appropriate, and when it cannot be implemented.

“Removing hexavalent chromium and lead from their products has been good for workers at Cobham as well as customers,” said Gregory Morose, project manager at TURI. It is also a costly endeavor to undertake alone, which is why the Cobham facility has collaborated with 30 electronics companies in the New England Lead-free Consortium from an early phase.

When Cobham first tried to move from hexavalent chromium to trivalent, the results were terrible. Learning from TURI’s research techniques, they adapted the process. Now, Cobham has a zero-corrosion trivalent chromium process, and uses hexavalent chromium only when absolutely necessary.

Another prong of Cobham’s environmental responsibility approach is a facility-wide engagement with ISO-14001 (environmental management system — EMS). The Cobham environment, health, and safety (EHS) team — lead by EHS manager Bob Canedo — identifies controllable aspects of the process, rates the impact of said processes, and creates new methods or steps to counteract negative impacts. With complete employee involvement, Cobham’s EHS team has optimized cleanroom airflow and facility lighting to reduce energy usage. Methyl ethyl ketone use was reduced via a switch to ultrasonic cleaning. Simple procedural changes led to cutbacks on acetone and ammonia consumption, and increased waste recycling. Many of these steps can be undertaken at any hi-rel SMT assembly facility. For more on ISO-14001, read TFI's blog post on the subject here.

Cobham’s Reliability Lab: Proving Out Eco Processes
To build high-reliability electronics with the newer materials and processes of lead-free and trivalent chromium, etc., Cobham needs to perform in-depth and long-term analysis. The “problem solver” lab studies solder joints and chemical results in electronics assemblies. Using focused-ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM), scanning acoustic microscopy (C-SAM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and other analysis tools, they inspect for signs of lowered reliability or performance, right down to visually evaluating the eutectic structure of a solder. Counterfeit analysis is also possible in the lab.

Thermal shock atmospheric chambers replicate the harsh environments where hi-rel PCB assemblies will operate. Cobham performs highly accelerated life tests (HALT), shock tests, salt fog corrosion, drop tests, acceleration/pull tests, vibration, and temp/humidity tests, all with the goal of finding and measuring the assembly’s weaknesses. Cobham describes the lab as the place where they “beat up assemblies.” Testing can be as specific as dialing in vibration tests to match the environment of a certain helicopter, vehicle, etc. Without this degree of certainty in its manufacturing processes, Cobham would not be able to simultaneously inhabit the high-reliability and eco-friendly assembly markets.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Questions on moving to lead-free and other EHS projects in a hi-rel environment?
Contact Gregory Morose, project manager, TURI, at Gregory_morose@uml.edu
and
Robert Canedo, manager of environment, safety, and health, Cobham Sensor Systems, at Robert.canedo@cobham.com

New Standards Revision J-STD-001E Vs. New iPad

2010-04-16T11:23:00.005-04:00

During IPC APEX Expo 2010 this month, IPC released J-STD-001E on industry requirements for soldered electrical and electronic assemblies. This is the sole industry-consensus standard for soldering processes and materials, according to the IPC. It encompasses advanced technologies, provides updated criteria for three classes of construction, and expands support of lead-free manufacturing.

My hat goes off to those dedicated industry professionals who voluntarily worked on the 4.5-year revision process for "Requirements for Soldered Electrical and Electronic Assemblies." It took 3500 meeting hours involving voting, writing, revising, and consolidating soldering criteria. The changes in IPC J-STD-001E are significant, including hole-fill criteria for Classes 1 and 2, new SMT termination criteria with flattened post/nail-head, expanded area array, expanded staking, and adhesive criteria for bonding of through-hole and SMT components to boards. Information on thermal management for component attach, consolidated lead placement, and soldering criteria for each terminal type, and more. In other words, if you want to assemble PCBs, you had better become acquainted with the latest standards for doing so: J-STD-001E.

In addition to technical changes, the updated standard has four-color illustrations to make each point clearly, as well as other easy-to-use aids.

Thanks to all that work and countless edits, updated standards can make it so much easier for product developers to help bring a new product to market. Teresa Rowe, director of quality at AAI, chaired the task group responsible for the standard that should make a major step forward to develop new products.

At IPC APEX 2010 this month, Rowe and Daniel Foster, senior analyst with Defense Acquisition Inc. and vice chair of the task group, conducted a course called “The New J-STD-001 Revision E – Learn from the Leaders.” It’s an attempt to provide insight into the revision and reasoning behind these changes. In IPC-A-610E Broadens Scope, coming up in the May/June issue of SMT, Terry Costlow, IPC online editor, explains what you need to know about the streamlined IPC-A-610, "Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies," supplemented with flex circuits, board in board and package on package (PoP).

From Product Development to New Products Now

I looked for news about the electronics assembly standards revisions in the usual places: Business Wire, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal. Nothing there. What I did find was an abundance of heady press about the recently released Apple iPad as it hit the stores.

The iPad and J-STD-001E hit the marketplace and the relevant news sources at the same time, but with such a different style. Engineers wanted to take the iPad apart, of course, to gather insight into its design and the components inside that make it tick. In response, according to one Reuter’s report, Apple is making teardowns more difficult by stamping their microprocessors with the Apple logo to disguise the component OEM name. Ah, the creation of yet another counterfeit.

iPad teardowns: iSuppli iPad Teardown Reveals Interface-focused Electronics Design

Chipworks Teardown of the iPad: Few Changes in State-of-the-art Semiconductor Technologies

Other sources couldn’t apply enough superlatives to the new iPad. Walter S. Mossberg reviewed the product in the Wall Street Journal saying, “After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop.” A contender against not just for PCs, but laptops? Now that’s something.

The biggest difference between the two releases — the revised standard and the iPad — is that the standard tells one how to assemble a product, providing the knowledge that you need to do your work on future projects. The iPad is another exciting new thing to buy, a new way of doing things, a new marvel of ingenuity.

Both are valuable, but work comes first. When attending the APEX course on Revision E, I’ll bet you would like to have had a new iPad...just for taking notes.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

Check out other standards released at APEX:
IPC-A-610E Released: Industry Requirements for Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies Updated

Updated Materials Declaration Standard IPC-1752A Addresses Revolving Door of Environmental Regulation Changes

2 for the Price of 1: IPC APEX Expo 2010 Highlights SMT Assembly Machine Integration and Manipulation

2010-04-13T13:25:00.005-04:00

Recessions tend to squeeze the highly cyclical capital equipment market. Coming out of this recession, companies look more likely than in 2008 and 2009 to invest in new capital equipment for their manufacturing facilities. Combine these trends, and it’s not surprising that the printer and pick-and-place designs seen at IPC APEX Expo 2010 went beyond typical in-line improvements.

Pemtron and SJ Innotech showcased a printer/SPI combination that — to oversimplify — bolted Pemtron’s TROI solder paste inspection system to the end of an SJ Innotech printer. Milara and Mirea conjoined a printer and pick-and-place system. Siemens and Assembléon both showcased methods to transform their pick-and-place systems to higher capacities without a change in floor space; Europlacer morphed its iineo placement platform into a chipshooter.

Why are companies gluing two machines together? Consider the benefits on the SMT line, starting with adjustable-capacity component placement machines. Adding pick-and-place onto an existing assembly line via the traditional route means moving around other capital equipment to make room, setting up new conveyors, integrating the new placement system onto the ERP or MES software, etc. Line balancing is a chore. With the more modular idea of adding placement heads to the pick-and-place machine, floor space and set-up time are saved, machine calibration is done automatically within the placer, and companies are more flexible with balancing lines or ramping production. Assembleon states that True Capacity on Demand for the high-volume A-Series can save 20% of initial capital costs. Coming soon in the Assembly center of smtonline.com, watch a technician add a gantry to the Siemens SIPLACE SX placement system during APEX.

The XPii-II from Europlacer was designed to join the line with iineo systems, boosting production to medium-/high-volume. Unlike the set-footprint Assembléon and Siemens systems that hold fewer or more placement heads depending on need, the XPii-II is a separate system with different feeder capacity than the iineo. However, it is the same design, in a smaller footprint. Joined to the iineo, it boosts the throughput of a high-component-mix line.

In some situations, affixing one piece of capital equipment to another is a matter of quality. Pemtron brought the technology from its stand-alone TROI SPI unit onto the SJ printer, in a tighter chassis. Companies willing to pair their equipment — which would otherwise be the user’s choice — seem to be stating that this printer is best served by that SPI system, and so forth. With many assemblers foregoing the staff and expense of a purchasing investigative committee, this is one endorsement for a smoothly functioning new SMT line. We’ll see more detail on the Pemtron/SJ Innotech product in the video demonstration Pemtron gave SMT at APEX. Look for it soon in the Printing center on smtonline.com.

Milara’s paired printer and placement system, the P3, combines a Touch Print Digital TD2929 printer and Mirae’s Mx400LP pick-and-place system with tray and max feeders. Why? Milara says that the set saves floor space, actually adds flexibility, and is faster than working with two different systems. Milara will service the system in the Americas, with annual training from Mirae.

Are you squeezing every inch of floor space on the SMT line, or is machine footprint lower on your priority list? Do production volume changes or line balancing force you to reconfigure lines? Are you glad to see companies integrating two pieces of machinery into one, or do you find it limiting? Let us know your opinions in the comments section.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor, mcourtemanche@pennwell.com

High-Reliability and Low Toxicity: Lead-free Marches into the Military Sector

2010-03-31T15:52:00.006-04:00

SMT will be giving away copies of a new book on lead-free in high-reliability/mission-critical electronics at our APEX booth 1474.

Integrating environmentally friendly practices into high-reliability and high-security electronics assemblies is not only difficult and complex, but also technically unnecessary. While most electronics are subject to RoHS and similar restrictions on use of hazardous materials, medical, defense, military, and other critical sectors are exempt. For now. Companies face pressure from an increasingly lead-free supply chain on one side, and lessening exemption support on another. The good news is that the high-reliability electronics sector is taking an active, involved approach to environmental friendliness.

As part of the 20th anniversary of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act, Cobham Sensor Systems - Lowell has been selected by the Toxic Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Lowell as a "TURA 20th Anniversary Leader" for its environmental leadership. Cobham was recognized for its voluntary involvement in green practices, which are usually considered adversarial to military/high-rel electronics manufacturing. More on Cobham and TURI’s accomplishments — as well as SMT's tour of the reliability and analysis labs where Cobham studies lead-free, hexavalent-chromium- (CrVI-) free, and other approaches to electronics assembly — soon.

In the mean time, visit SMT’s booth 1474 at APEX to pick up a free copy of The Lead Free Electronics Manhattan Project – Phase I from the American Competitiveness Institute, Science and Technology Department of the US Navy, and the Benchmarking and Best Practices Center of Excellence. The Lead Free Electronics Manhattan Project team determined that lead-free electronics used in harsh environments pose technical risks that can lead to degraded reliability and reduced lifetimes, though quantification cannot yet be performed within valid statistical confidences. Further reliability data is needed to unite existing prediction methodologies and provide acceptable modeling accuracy. “Point solution” projects will not adequately address the gaps that exist in the current body of knowledge on lead-free electronics. The goal of the “Manhattan Project” is to ensure viable product design, manufacturing, test, delivery and sustainment at an affordable cost.

The book outlines best practices identified to mitigate the risks associated with lead-free electronics usage in high-reliability, high-performance aerospace and defense systems. The “Manhattan Project” approach is a best practice for addressing pervasive issues facing the manufacturing and customer community. The lead-free electronics best practices were compiled by nationally-recognized subject matter expert scientists and engineers.

Prepared concurrently by the Navy ManTech’s Benchmarking and Best Practices Center of Excellence (B2PCOE), the “Manhattan Project” framework addresses process aspects of dealing with complex, multi-disciplined technical issues. Skilled scientists and engineers collaborated within a real-time, concentrated working environment to synthesize their collective knowledge and experience into a practical set of findings and guidelines.

Phase II of the Pb-Free Electronics Manhattan Project will build on this current baseline and develop a three-year roadmap for the Phase III research and development required to deal with those issues.

Stop by Booth 1474 at IPC APEX EXPO, April 6-8 in Las Vegas, to get a free copy of this new publication, The Lead Free Electronics Manhattan Project – Phase I, as well as SMT issues and subscription update forms.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Learn about Halogen-free and the New RoHS

2010-03-23T14:09:00.003-04:00

Are halogens currently banned elements in electronics? What will RoHS II look like? Can I achieve the same performance with lead-free materials as I used to with leaded assembly products? These and other questions are answered in SMT’s free Webcast, Lead-Free/RoHS Materials for Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing, available on demand on SMT’s homepage, smtonline.com. Edson Ito, Vectra LCP technical marketing manager, Ticona Engineering Polymers; Rob Rowland, supplier engineering manager, RadiSys; and Jeff Bowin, technical service manager, Henkel Electronics Materials present.

Ito focuses on the Vectra liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and its application to lead-free assembly. This halogen-free material offers coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) stability (tight dimensional tolerances) and robustness advantages in the higher-temperature reflow environment of lead-free assembly.

Rowland then summarizes some of the major changes anticipated in the new version of the EU RoHS Directive, currently dubbed within the SMT industry as RoHS II. His presentation, based on his column in the January/February issue of SMT, EU's RoHS 2 on the Horizon, covers terminology changes, exemption expirations, and the complex layout of a single all-inclusive document that replaces the original RoHS Directive and subsequent Decisions

Bowin’s presentation concentrates on sustainability and specifying the right halogen-free solder paste now, meeting current standards and performance requirements, before legislation pushes you into halogen bans unprepared. Halogens are deliberately added to solder pastes and fluxes as activators, in addition to already existing halides and halogens that may be present. Henkel’s solder R&D focuses on creating a paste that prints and solders well (low voiding, good moisture resistance, etc.) with no deliberately added halogens. Reliability, reflow, and slump tests show that the balance of sustainability and performance characteristics can be achieved.

Register now for this free, on-demand Webcast at http://www.electroiq.com/index/webcasts/webcast-display/8371357768/webcasts/smt/live-events/lead-free_rohs-materials.html

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Predicting the Future: The Interrelationship between Technology and Politics

2010-03-08T11:39:00.004-05:00

Did you ever want to know the future? Invest in stocks that you knew would soar in value, start a venture at just the right time to take advantage of a new technology (as we did with SMT in 1986), and avoid pitfalls along the way.

I’ve recently been reading about trends — a brief history of the 21st century titled The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and The Next 100 Years, which forecasts the geopolitical future of the world and is written by an unrelated George Friedman.

Thomas Friedman talks about how technology has become global and how it has enabled the rise of China and India in manufacturing and services in the electronics supply chain. Bangalore, he points out, is one of the most wired places in the world, and rents and wages are less than one-fifth what they are in Western hemisphere capitals of London or New York. Economics follows technology and technology follows production in areas with an educated population that will work for low wages.

The world is now a global environment for technology and innovation spurred by scientific infrastructure. Where that innovation happens is the fuel that feeds the growth of a rising middle class, T. Friedman contends. If we want to keep innovating in the U.S., then we need to support university research and R&D efforts overall. The World is Flat is filled with Friedman’s findings of a flattened playing field as he visits electronics manufacturing (EMS) firms in India.

George Friedman, on the other hand, is not a journalist like T. Friedman. He is the founder and CEO of STRATFOR (http://www.stratfor.com/), a private intelligence firm. The major export of the U.S. in our recessionary crisis has been unemployment in China, to where the U.S. outsourced EMS industrial plants. G. Friedman predicts the political rise of Turkey and Poland, the decline of Germany, the instability of China, and the rise of Mexico to one of the major economic powers in the world. “By 2080, I expect there to be a serious confrontation between the United States and an increasingly powerful and assertive Mexico,” he writes.

By 2050, advanced industrial countries will be losing population at a dramatic rate. Birthrates will decline. “The shift will force the world into a greater dependence on technology — particularly robots that will substitute for human labor, and intensified genetic research (not so much for the purpose of extending life but to make people productive longer),” G. Friedman writes.

I highly recommend both books and both authors, if for nothing more than making you look at the world of technology through different eyes. In both books, the ability to innovate and educate are the keys to politics.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

Also Read:

EMS Outsourcing Strategy 2010: U.S. or China?
Is the Migration of Electronics Manufacturing to Asia Slowing?
TFI Calls Manufacturing Downturn Catalyst to Manufacturing Strategy
Indian Surface Mount Technology Market Report
New Manufacturing Relationships to Form as Economy Rebounds

If You Build It, They Will Come

No Die Code, No OEM Certification, No Service: How One Component Distributor Is Keeping Counterfeit Parts out of Your SMT Line

2010-02-09T10:55:00.005-05:00

Fusion, an independent component distributor based in MA, recently added an Anti-Counterfeit Screening and Analysis Laboratory to its Wilmington location; and SMT toured the new facility. While the lab is full of chemicals and equipment for exposing counterfeit components, Fusion’s Bill Masterson and Paul Romano say that a three-pronged approach of communication and investigation, experience and testing and smart supply management by the component OEMs will secure the electronics manufacturing supply chain against counterfeit components.

Fusion tests all components that come into the facility without original manufacturer certifications. These grey-market components may come from EMS surpluses or third-party distributors. “This is the first place to cut off the counterfeiters. It all begins with sourcing and we rigorously monitor our supply channels to exclude many companies we cannot trust.” said Masterson.

Fusion is on the authorized vendor list (AVL) of many major original equipment manufacturers and contract electronics manufacturers. As an open-market component broker, they serve Tier I EMS companies. “Our primary role is to fill chip shortages,” noted Romano.

As the semiconductor industry cut back drastically during the recession, Fusion was able to grow — adding 20% more staff and new equipment. As electronics assembly picked back up late in 2009, said Masterson, Fusion fielded demand from CEMs that shunned overstocking inventory only to find that chip makers made significant cuts in.capacity.

At its Wilmington lab, Fusion performs incoming inspection and quality checks for verification on all stock. Some components move on to the analysis lab because they cannot be traced to the OEM, while others are always tested due to customer specifications.

The lab features destructive and non-destructive screening and analysis. A real-time X-ray imaging system from Glenbrook Technologies is used for non-destructive die, wire bonds, and lead frame analysis. Fusion keeps a library of “golden” components, known-good samples from the OEM. If a component is still in doubt after X-rays, it moves to destructive tests, such as solvent tests for markings and decapsulation. Counterfeiters will often sand off the top layer of a package (pulled from a discarded PCB, taken from reject piles at assemblers, or otherwise acquired), roll on an epoxy globtop, and remark with laser or printing techniques. Solvent tests often expose this inferior marking. If the results aren’t conclusive, the product goes to decap.

The decap machine from Nisene exposes the interior of the chips through a process of acid stripping. The exact recipe for decapsulation varies with each component, said Lab Technician Rich Derum who operated the machine for us. They use a custom mold and gasket to hold the package, then subject it to various concentrations of sulfuric and nitric acids for a period of time until the leadframe and die are exposed sufficiently for microscopic analysis.

Technician expertise is key in all of these lab processes. “There is no Pass/Fail in these tests,” noted Masterson. It is more akin to detective work, requiring equal quality from the technicians as from the testing systems.

The decapped package is presented to high-power (2000×) optical microscopy, where the lab technician scrutinizes the die and leadframe under light and dark field contrasts to detect any type of handling and rework markings; and for comparison to known-good samples. This microscope has video recording functions as well and can save all part images to the company’s component picture library.

Prescreening and counterfeit testing are actions that companies can take for themselves, said Masterson and Romano. Beyond that, we need to communicate. When they discover any suspected counterfeit patterns (single source) or new counterfeiting techniques, they share the data with relevant associations. They also bring the issue to the component OEMs’ attention. “To solve this problem, the whole supply chain has to be involved,” pointed out Romano. Fusion is a member of The Independent Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA), which has developed standards for dealing with the threat of counterfeits.

It’s important to remember that no single part on a bill of materials (BOM) is safe. “They'll counterfeit any kind of part, from 1 cent capacitors to microprocessors worth hundreds of dollars,” Romano confirmed. “Communication is as important as this lab’s technology for detecting counterfeits,” explained Masterson. Communication is, in some sense, harder to institute. No one wants their name associated with counterfeits; however, when the specter of bad parts is allowed to loom over the industry without anyone discussing it, no one wins.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Contact Fusion's Romano and Masterson: promano@fusiontrade.com; bmasterson@fusiontrade.com

Financials, Entertainment Show Electronics Future Is Bright

2010-01-27T16:57:00.002-05:00

I started 2010 by looking at my investments, as I prepared material for the upcoming tax season. It has been a rocky year, with last December’s investments at the bottom of the chart, then slowly rising back up. The global economy has followed this same market path in coming out of the worst recession in decades — slowly — and those who held in with good, diverse investments are gradually seeing rewards.

Looking at individual stocks in the electronics sector, companies are reporting encouraging quarterly results. Intel recently declared quarterly cash dividend of 15.5 cents per share on the company’s common stock, reflecting the previously announced 12.5% increase from the fourth quarter of 2009. Intel's fourth-quarter net income was at $2.3 billion, up 875%. Rival AMD reported fourth quarter and annual results in January 2010 as well, announcing revenue for the fourth quarter of 2009 of $1.646 billion, an increase of 18% compared to the previous quarter and 42% compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. AMD has transitioned to a fabless business model and has reached an antitrust settlement with Intel, both of which affected the bottom line.

There are markets that I expected to see grow quickly, such as the E-book reader — the ultimate Christmas gift this year. According to the Boston-based Yankee Group, the E-book reader market will spark $2.5 billion in revenue by 2013. This segment is still catching fire.

I never noticed much when nieces and nephews started going to 3D movies, thinking that it was just an expensive new way to hook children on a new trend. Now that I’ve seen Avatar, it’s easy to understand that this area can affect other areas. 3D movie technology is making its way into the home, opening up 3D TV for consumers, demonstrated this year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). 3D cameras are now being actively field-tested for use in TV production.

The only problem I had with Avatar was that the movie plot seemed to imply that technology development represents “the bad guys.” Since Avatar uses state-of-the art electronics for computer-generated 3D images, yet condemns technology as a threat to the environment, the theme is a bit contradictory.

Electronics manufacturers are very aware preserving nature, generally through materials restrictions on the industry. From lead-free solder to the elimination of halogenated materials, to using less of raw materials (the Occam process is one example), the electronics industry has certainly become one that is more compatible with the natural world.

Because of Avatar’s award-winning popularity, other 3D movies and 3D TV will certainly be contributing to the health of our economy.

Gail Flower, editor at large

Is Solar Cell Production A Viable Business Venture for PCB Fabs?

2010-01-21T09:54:00.005-05:00

If you’re a PCB manufacturer hoping to jump into the high-growth photovoltaics manufacturing industry, there’s good news and bad news. The good news, according to Don Cullen, managing director of photovoltaics at MacDermid, is that photovoltaic cells, especially once assembled into a module, are heavy and fragile. This means that they benefit from geographic pairing, where the assembler and customer are in the same region and shipping is minimized. Solar cell assembly is also a highly automated in-line process, so labor costs are minimal. The bad news? Despite similar processes such as chemical etch and electroplating, circuit board fabricators will likely need to re-tool from the ground up to convert to solar cell manufacturing.

Cullen spoke to a joint meeting of IMAPS, SMTA, and ACerS in Boston. He outlined several areas for improvement in solar cell manufacturing and highlighted three in particular — the screen printing, conductor metallization, and imaging processes — where PCB fabrication expertise is welcome. Silicon solar cells are made from thin wafers with screen printed silver paste conductors, and the force of screen printing can lead to breakage. Printed paste covers 7% of the average cell, shadowing areas that could be absorbing light. Compare that to electroplated nickel and copper where shadowing is less than half than 7%. Also, the silver conductor paste is both expensive and difficult to work with; opens are a problem. Right now, about 90% of solar cells are screen printed, said Cullen, who calls solar cell manufacturing an “inelegant process, compared to circuit board and semiconductor manufacturing.” Some methods to improve screen printing include electroplating silver on top of a narrow conductor path, augmenting it. Other technologies call for an electroless bath to embed silver into the nooks and voids of the sintered silver paste. Plated metal conductors of all sorts are also in early stages of implementation. Metallization expertise is needed, as various combinations of silver/nickel and copper layers are still under development. Plating can create a 40-µm-pitch conductor, whereas screen printed conductors are 120 µm wide.

The decision to manufacture with screen printing or with a different metallization system impacts costs. The capital equipment investment for metallization technologies is steep; however, it eliminates the waste (breakage), consumables cost (silver paste), and efficiency problems (shadowing, wide conductors) of screen printing. Factor in the huge scale of solar cell throughput, and the equipment costs aren’t terribly overwhelming.

Electronics manufacturing is a mature market, as Cullen noted, but it is built on solid expertise, automation, and cost-sensitivity. It experiences about 5% annual growth. The solar energy sector sees roughly 40% growth annually, with solar technologies persevering through the recession. Right now, capacity outpacing demand, as new entrants are getting poised to produce 2012 demand. The 3 gigawatts of excess production drives retail costs down, increasing demand, leading to extra capacity. This is all typical of a fast-growing industry.

Is there profit to be made in solar cell manufacturing? Make-where-you-use means PV manufacturing could become a major industry in the U.S. and other developed nations. Module prices are falling, Cullen reports, but this is mainly due to a drop in the price of silicon and other raw materials, so PV maker’s profits remain intact. There is room for cost reduction in PV manufacturing, Cullen adds. Profitability looks more sustainable in solar than ever before. Challenges for entry into the photovoltaics manufacturing field will come from the investment side, as capital is harder to obtain during this recession. Cullen compares the growth rate of PV to that of semiconductor manufacturing from 1981 to 1994. The PV growth predictions from analysts mirror this historic growth path of semi.

Different solar applications require different manufacturing processes and emphasis, so consider niches such as space applications or military applications in solar. While experience in military PCB manufacturing may not translate directly process-to-process for military solar panels, an understanding of the use environment, reliability expectations, and mobility requirements will prove valuable. Similarly, if you are accustomed to manufacturing high-volume, thin, consumer-product PCBs, this knowledge can be ported to solar cell manufacturing with low cost/cell and minimal waste. To covert from circuit board manufacturing to solar cell production (or extend your electronics business into the solar sector), you need capital, guidance from experts in the solar field, a strategic plan for implementing solar production, and possible partnerships in the sector.

:: Click Here to View Cullen's Presentation on the IMAPS Website ::

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

About Don Cullen
Don Cullen is the managing director of photovoltaics at MacDermid (Waterbury, CT). His group is responsible for interacting with the worldwide photovoltaic manufacturing supply chain to ensure the correct development, deployment, and use of chemical processes. The Photovoltaics Solutions division was formed from MacDermid’s New Business Opportunities review team in 2008. Cullen previously served as director of OEM & assembly applications within the Electronics Solutions business. He acted as a liaison between the OEM sector, PCB manufacturers, EMS providers, and MacDermid’s Electronics Solutions worldwide business. Cullen helped found the Final Finishes group in MacDermid Electronics Solutions, which includes nickel/gold, silver, tin, OSP, and palladium processes for PCB technology. He holds three patents, and authored the latest edition of Coombs’ PCB Handbook chapter on Surface Finishes, among over 100 other publications and industry papers. Cullen holds a degree in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Microscan Opens Northeast Technology Center: Electronics Major Focus

2010-01-15T16:34:00.005-05:00

(January 15, 2010) NASHUA, NH — Renton, WA-based Microscan opened its Northeast Technical Center in Nashua yesterday. The company provides technology and hardware for data acquisition and control, including machine vision and go/no-go inspection applications. Microscan acquired the Machine Vision business of Siemens in late 2008, gaining a 20,000 sq. ft. facility in Nashua, NH. This Technology Center now includes a product demonstration room, engineering labs, training space for customers and distributors, as well as offices. Microscan president Jeff Timms notes that the electronics industry will be one of their top three end-use sectors, where Microscan’s vision systems can be used to improve incoming inventory management, tracking and traceability, inspection, and counterfeit prevention.

The Nashua, NH facility will be used for R&D on machine vision, machine vision lighting, direct part mark (DPM) reading, and verification technologies. The company currently holds 85 patents, with 30 more pending. Its Northeast Technology Center will have four PhDs on staff.

The East Coast location was dedicated by Vision Systems Design editor Andy Wilson (seen at left with Timms), who referenced the region’s long history with machine vision innovation, welcoming another chapter in this technology evolution. Timms echoed this sentiment, stating that talented employees have been continuously joining the organization even through the economic recession. New employees include Mark Ragard, regional sales manager; John Macrena, VP of sales; Al Silva, director of Latin America; and John Cooley, strategic accounts. Microscan also recognized VP of Engineering William R. Riley Jr., who passed away after a battle with cancer, by dedicating the new facility’s conference room in his honor.

In the training room, customers and distributors are able to see firsthand the technologies in use. Things like lighting and geometries are difficult to describe over the phone or online, explained Microscan staff, and this East Coast location will enable more in-depth training on new products and applications. In the electro-engineering labs, R&D personnel work with challenging parts marks, such as a data matrix code on clear plastic, miniaturized labels on components, already assembled on a PCB, codes on shiny copper foil, and other applications, such as steel automotive parts, pistol bodies, dental implants, and more. Different markings on different surfaces require different colors and types of light for accurate reading. In the product room, interactive displays demonstrate this point. From simple ring and dome lights, the products advance to mobile scanners that cycle through several lighting options to get the best read on a particular part, visual inspection stations that track fiducials and areas of interest on a PCB, for example, regardless of the product’s rotation when placed under inspection.

The Electronics Sector
Microscan will focus on end-user applications in electronics manufacturing, life sciences, and automotive, in the interest of developing products as driven by these markets. In electronics manufacturing, assembly/part verification, robot guidance, and PCB traceability can benefit from machine vision systems and controlling software. Microscan offers product-level readers for barcode/DPM data as well as middleware, such as its Track, Trace, Control (TTC) software co-developed with Cogiscan. This allows users to find where a specific product is, where it has been, and where it should go based on the information collected. Al Silva, director, Latin America for Microscan, noted that electronics manufacturers are adding TTC to satisfy strict quality standards in automotive and military electronics manufacturing, to reduce inventory waste, and to improve beat rates of SMT lines. With data from every step synthesized in a software environment, an assembler can ensure lead-free solder is being used on the correct printer, with the correct PCB, which is then populated by the correct components for the job. Through-hole components, often manually inserted, can be scanned quickly for correct placement and polarity with a go/no-go machine vision system. With 5 or 6 product flow control scans on a line, the user can manage assembly with capital-equipment-independent machine vision.

Counterfeit component control was another electronics application, described by Dr. Ludlow, who noted that the more information and detail put into a part marking, the more difficult it is to replicate. UV-light markings can also be used as a non-visible data label, adding more security in the authenticity of parts. This can improve incoming inspection for any electronics manufacturer working in high-reliability sectors.

In addition to machine-independent applications, Microscan’s vision systems can be embedded into in-circuit testers (ICT) and functional test (FT) systems, optically verifying presence of components and augmenting the test processes.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Printed Electronics, a High-growth Future

2010-01-07T13:18:00.003-05:00

Early in December 2009, I attended Printed Electronics USA 09 sponsored by IDTechEx.

Held in the San Jose Convention Center, the printed electronics show was touted by the sponsor as the largest event on the topic in the U.S.

A review of the printed electronics market showed lots of healthy growth statistics. IDTechEx’s CEO, Raghu Das, who unfortunately fainted on the stage as a result of flu, presented impressive numbers for printed electronics in 2010. For example, the market for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) will reach $900 million, photovoltaics will reach $400 million, inks will extend to $400 million, sensors come to $120 million, and electronic paper will stand at $100 million this year, according to his figures.

Peter Harrop, IDTechExpo chairman, finished up the talk as Das recovered. Some of the leading drivers to supporting high growth in the industry are not low cost so much as form factor, he stated, since flexible substrates fit well in smaller devices. Even with flex substrates and barrier films, though, there are basic challenges such as water and oxygen contamination. Progress continues with E-paper displays, point of purchase displays, organic electroluminescent displays, thin film photovoltaic products, and in other areas.

Ken McGuire, principal scientist at Proctor and Gamble, talked about consumer electronics applications and why printed electronics is important to P&G. As an $80 billon consumer products company, P&G looks for ways to differentiate their products from others on the shelf. Before considering printed electronics as one of these methods, each must be evaluated for low cost, rugged survivability though the delivery chain, eco-friendliness, and usefulness. I had to imagine what that might look like — a large, orange container of Tide glowing, blinking, or somehow acquiring a printed-electronics-driven advantage on the shelf at the local Kroger store here in Cincinnati. McGuire invited the audience to discuss how P&G could use printed electronics creatively as a marketing tool, and the response was enthusiastic.

It was a really exciting show that brought back the foment and creativity that the SMT industry saw in the 1980s. Approximately 900 attendees, representing more than 25% growth from the previous year, enjoyed the Printed Electronics USA show this year. There were 85 exhibitors, 100 speakers, 8 tutorials, a tour at Applied Materials and a demo at Kovio’s plant. Some exhibitors brought new product introductions to the floor, such as Novacentrix’s PulseForge 3100, which is effective with widely used print methods including inkjet, flexo, gravure, aerosol, and screen printing. Fujifilm Dimatix won the show’s commercialization award for its inkjet printer platform, DMP-2800. So far 450 of these printers have been sold worldwide for printed electronics.

Visit the IDTechEX Website for more information: http://www.idtechex.com

Gail Flower, editor at large

Continuous Improvement and Understanding Lean's Role at Your Company

2009-12-15T14:51:00.005-05:00

Editor's Note, update May 19, 2010:
Society of Manufacturing Engineers member and author, Mark Hamel, has been awarded The Shingo Prize Research & Professional Publications Award for the Kaizen Event Fieldbook. Given out in May 2010 in Utah at The Shingo Prize Annual Conference, the Shingo Research Award recognizes and promotes research and writing regarding new knowledge and understanding of lean and operational excellence.

SMT recently received a copy of Mark R. Hamel’s Kaizen Event Fieldbook for review. Hamel is a consultant to the manufacturing industry, facilitating the transition to Lean. Lean manufacturing has been a noteworthy electronics assembly strategy for many years, raised to a necessity level by the profit-margin, supply chain, and quality strains of the recession that began in 2008. While manufacturers must work to be lean, they also must make lean principles work for them. “Learn by doing” is the mantra of Hamel, encouraging readers to apply the lean principles that best improve their business. Hamel explains kaizen as “small, cumulative continuous improvements.” While some may be tempted to engage Lean as an abrupt overhaul of their business, these incremental changes will likely result in a more successful and sustainable manufacturing environment. Read a brief description of the book from its publishers here.

The workbook is divided into three sections, an education on the foundations of lean: kaizen, leadership, definitions, and ways to get started; four phases for developing, deploying, and maintaining kaizen events and strategy; and a final section on customizing these principles and actions for the specific business. Perhaps the most valuable resource of the Kaizen Event Fieldbook is appendix of worksheets: forms that can be used for audits, event planning, tracking initiatives, and more. The book is also closely synched with its Website, http://www.kaizenfieldbook.com/, where readers are welcome to ask the author questions, download the blank forms for their employees, and link to related resources suggested by Hamel.

For most electronics manufacturers, aspects of the Lean system are familiar, while others are not. The Fieldbook includes many clear definitions for the terms employed in the lean concept, while Hamel continuously points out that readers should come to the system with an idea of their own goals and interests. There is a difference between memorizing the system and terminology and learning it. Hamel encourages readers to learn the system and adapt it for their individual needs.

To quote Hamel, “the Fieldbook can be applied in several ways: at a corporate level as a framework for developing (improving, if the developing is done) and deploying standard work throughout the organization, and for the personal development of motivated kaizen practitioners. Kaizen’s role within a lean business structure is defined, and the point is frequently made that kaizen is a daily and weekly application of lean, not a single-event makeover. Detailed descriptions of how a kaizen event is planning, how it functions, and how best to maintain its effect are provided.

Contrary to the hype, lean systems can create plenty of waste, when communication lags, implementation is too ambitious, or when follow-up is lacking. Hamel points out that, while the main thrust of the kaizen event is kick-off, training, storyline, leaders’ progress meeting, work strategy, reporting, and recognition, this event is worthless without planning and follow-up. The Fieldbook’s suggestions for communicating include reporting methods as well as input methods to gain fresh ideas from employees. Suggestions even include visual communication, such as different colored shirts for people involved in different parts of a project.

Lean manufacturing demands continuous investment in making the production flow work; eliminating waste; and increasing your business’s performance through higher throughput, fewer errors, faster turn-around, or other metrics. With the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ seal on this workbook, it looks to be a valuable addition to, or starting point for, a Lean initiative at the manufacturing facility.

For more information, read SME Releases the Kaizen Event Fieldbook

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Technology for a New Year

2009-12-04T15:39:00.002-05:00

Each year brings its own challenges and opportunities. During a recessionary period, people get creative. Though we have struggled for financial security, new ideas and applications in electronics will bring forth growth in the upcoming year.

For example, the new refrigerator in my kitchen has a bright Energy Star symbol on the front and a written estimation of operation cost for the year. The thermostat on the wall came with an Energy-Star-approved program recommended by the EPA for energy efficiency.

The grid system of energy usage in the U.S. is slowly evolving to smart electronics control as well, as we adapt to reduce power consumption. Lowering our carbon footprint will march right along in 2010.

RoHS Directive rules (2002.95/EC) are expected to apply to medical electronics in 2010, and many medical monitoring equipment makers are already converting to lead-free parts. This presents more challenges in a steady manufacturing sector that didn’t have the initial burden of RoHS that most board assemblers experienced. For more on REACH and RoHS, as well as new environmental legislation, read advisory board columnist Laura Turbini, Ph.D., RIM, in Our Relationship with the Environment.

One area that has been developing all along, and will see healthy support in 2010, is printed electronics. This should save on costs and fabrication steps as well. New circuit printing processes promise lower-cost ICs than conventional printed circuits.

Printed electronics on flexible substrates will affect many markets, adding RFID tags, OLEDs, and LEDs to traditionally non-electronic items. As I write this, I’m en route to California, where I’ll visit Kovio Inc. in Milpitas, CA. This company has been active in printed electronics since 2001. It manufactures RF barcodes from specialty inks using a printing process. Read a 2007 interview with the company from SST's WaferNews.

What will the new year mean for SMT? Market shipments are up and the North American PCB book-to-bill, published monthly by IPC, is strong. For some applications, PCBs will have printed RF on them for tracking; expect this higher level of traceability to become increasingly common.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

Eastern European Near-sourcing on the Rise

2009-11-16T14:57:00.002-05:00

Much has been made of the attendance numbers at productronica 2009 this year in Munich, Germany. As economic reports have trumpeted a better 2010, and electronics manufacturers have started to see a ramp in RFQs and orders, productronica’s attendance numbers jumped higher than anticipated. What kind of attendee visited the November electronics manufacturing show? From SMT’s informal poll of exhibitors, the attendance base was more European and, of those, more German than in prior years, with fewer attendees from Asia and the U.S. Many exhibitors pointed to Hungary and other Eastern European countries as sending motivated attendees — those sourcing equipment and materials to purchase.

Eastern Europe has a well-trained workforce for electronics manufacturing, according to many companies that sell equipment into the region. It is also linked via a strengthened infrastructure to the EU, with cultural similarities outpacing Euro-Asian business partnerships, and lower transportation costs than the Asia outsourcing model. The difference in labor costs between Eastern Europe and Asia can often be offset by transportation costs, time-to-market, and collaboration abilities. Several large EMS providers run facilities in Eastern Europe as well as Asia: Elcoteq operates in Hungary and Estonia, in addition to its China and India locations. The EMS provider states that it is interested in a broad range of customers, and this diversity of manufacturing bases can help achieve this. Flextronics recently made an acquisition in Slovakia to bolster its medical capabilities.

While none of this is new, productronica 2009 bore out the proof of Eastern European electronics manufacturing surviving the 2008–2009 recession, with companies selling equipment to Eastern European manufacturers, and many exhibitors saying that their most solid potential-customer interactions came from assemblers in this region. The proportion of foreign visitors to the show fell slightly to 42% (2007: 45%). However, there was a further increase in the expertise of visitors. The number of decision-makers rose from 88% in 2007 to 91% this year. The proportion of visitors from the top management level in their company increased from 15% in 2007 to 19% in 2009.

What drove the higher pan-European attendance at productronica 2009? Many possibilities exist, and it was likely a play of many factors coinciding. Travel budgets are limited for virtually every company, making international attendance more challenging. Asia has 4 major tradeshows coming up from end of 2009 through mid-2010, including Nepcon Japan, Nepcon China in Shanghai, Nepcon South China in Shenzhen, and Bohai Electronics Week in Tianjin. Asian manufacturers looking to add capacity or source new materials could likely wait for these regional shows to peruse the market, especially as investment budgets are still cautiously guarded. However, the increasing desire for smaller lot sizes, more reliability, and increased OEM/EMS interaction sets the stage for Eastern Europe to gain importance on the global manufacturing scene. With better trans-European infrastructure, cultural similarities, and a limited-cost workforce, near-sourcing to Eastern Europe is an attractive option for companies seeking those aforementioned qualities. For more on the shift away from Asia outsourcing, read Is the Migration of Electronics Manufacturing to Asia Slowing? from Charlie Barnhart Associates.

The next productronica will take place at the New Munich Trade Fair Center from November 15 to 18, 2011. Read the full report on productronica attendance on SMT’s Website, Demographics of productronica 2009

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

IPC Midwest: Friends, Fellowship, and Live SMT Assembly

2009-10-19T12:48:00.004-04:00

It was a better-than-expected IPC Midwest tradeshow and conference in Schaumburg, IL this September. The A-Line live electronics assembly line attracted interest as each piece of automated equipment performed its task to build a mixed-assembly board with both through hole and SMT components. The process of assembly on a tradeshow floor never fails to draw a crowd, and this year the A-Line at Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center drew a line-up of visitors following the operation and waiting for a chance to snap up a finished board, still a bit warm from solder reflow.

As in last year’s A-Line, The Morey Corporation, long known for electronics manufacturing services (EMS), organized the set up. The Bare Board Group PCB distributor donated the boards. Microscreen stencils were used for paste deposition. The Capital Equipment Exchange Company set up a Speedline MPM AP Excel screen printer. Qualitek International donated the solder paste and flux, adding their support. PROMATION’s conveyors and handling equipment connected the equipment. Fuji America operated its XPF small-footprint pick-and-place system that can be flexible even at high speeds and with a wide range of components from 01005s to 68 mm². Ace Production Technologies donated their KISS-104 automated selective soldering machine to solder through-hole components. ASYS used their BLS 01 laser marking system to mark codes and images into solder resist. Aqueous Technologies operated the Trident III automatic defluxing and cleanliness testing equipment, using Kyzen’s Aquanox A4241 aqueous cleaning solution to clean the assemblies.

It’s always amazing that a full assembly line works together so cooperatively and efficiently, even in the fast and temporary set up of a tradeshow floor.

There were plenty of new products and news at the tradeshow as well. Asymtek had the DispenseJet DJ-100 high-speed equipment for jet dispensing. CyberOptics showed the SE500, a fast, accurate solder paste inspection (SPI) system. Fuji America had its large-board all-in-one placement system XPF-W at the show. Juki demonstrated the FlexSolder W510 selective solder machine, said to handle dual mini waves for simultaneous use. MYDATA showed its MY100SX pick-and-place. Panasonic had a NPM (Next Production Modular) line. Zestron America highlighted its VIGNON N 501 pH-neutral defluxing agent.

IPC Midwest wasn’t the huge show of yesteryear, but it was quite productive, exciting and enjoyable. Hey, a great event in the Midwest just shouldn’t be missed.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

25 Years of SMT, and 25 More

2009-10-06T10:28:00.004-04:00

At the SMTA’s 25th anniversary dinner, held during SMTA International in San Diego, Ken Gilleo, Ph.D., ET-Trends LLC, demonstrated the reliability of a decades-old flex circuit by throwing the assembly against a wall. He turned it on, and it worked. This symbolized much of the resiliency of our industry, where, as Gilleo put it, technologies and processes have been evolving since IBM made the first SMD in 1963.

Much of what we have achieved was derived from mistakes, such as dropping assemblies, ruining prototypes in countless ways, reflowing a moisture-absorptive material without drying, etc. As Gilleo put it, the industry has seen “a lot of embarrassment along the way.” Of course, we’ve gained knowledge at every step, and the SMTA gathered at SMTAI to celebrate this acquisition and dissemination of knowledge that has propelled the SMT industry to where it is today.

Although lead-free, laser soldering, nanosilver, flip chips, and other aspects of “modern” SMT have been used and refined over tens of years, technology is not the sole focus of the SMTA. As SMT Editorial Advisory Board member Jennie Hwang pointed out, the SMTA realized early that China would become the world-leading region for electronics assembly, and pushed to establish an SMTA program abroad. SMTA’s work continues to focus on developing chapters in other countries, with the most recent being Penang, Malaysia. The SMTA’s range of knowledge to propagate is a confluence of technological advancement and the business of manufacturing.

What is the result of this technological and international endeavor? Ron C. Lasky, Ph.D. PE, senior technologist, Indium Corporation, in his presentation, “SMT: The Next 25 Years,” provided a glimpse into the electronics products enabled by our work. In the 1950’s, televisions and radios were the personal electronics known to many Americans. In the 1980’s, personal music players, laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, and other familiar devices were in their infancy. Lasky pointed out that many of these products, in today’s form, are reaching their size limits for human use. Could we make a computer small enough for a wolf spider to use? Probably. But do we really want those guys using the Internet? Lasky dangled the possibilities of virtual electronics, wherein the computer is miniscule, but the screen and keyboard are virtual reality projections for ease of use. The portability and features limits in electronics are yet to be reached.

Lasky also pointed out the synthesis of electronics manufacturing and biology, with bioelectronics meeting defined needs (vision, prosthetics, advanced surgical processes) for betterment of human conditions. No matter how much we adapt our lives to the ubiquitous electronics in them, Lasky notes that humans are unique, and will continue to be so for the next 25, and more, years.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

Want more news from SMTAI? Follow SMT’s Twitter feed, updated live from the show, at Twittter.com/surfacemount.

SMT Assembly Shows Steady Growth in Medical and Military Markets

2009-09-28T15:26:00.004-04:00

In the beginning, when SMT assembly first began penetrating the board assembly market, it was thought that surface mount would work for office computer production, but never in critical areas such as military and medical applications. Today, it seems that these are two of the rock-steady areas to be in if you’re an EMS provider.

Much progress has occurred along the way to increase SMT assembly. In 1999, the FCC opened up bandwidth frequencies, spurring development of new markets for miniature low-power RF devices and specialized communication protocols for monitoring medical conditions and delivering medication to patients. Implanted medical devices, such as heart monitors, could communicate with external devices, uploading data to doctors for review without physically transporting patients to the hospital. In drug delivery, new electronics-controlled equipment allows patients to deliver their own medicine but with the added safety of dose and frequency control.

As assemblies shrink, board real estate becomes an issue. Especially with mixed-technology (through hole and SMT) boards, tight spacing makes soldering through-hole and SMT assemblies difficult for small medical devices. Selective soldering can resolve this challenge. This latest soldering development handled the density issue and met high heat requirements for soldering. For those connectors, capacitors, and digital displays still requiring through-hole plus SMT components, selective soldering fits.

Some mixed-technology PCB designs can still be wave soldered with carriers and masking, but stacked and double-sided assemblies are too intricate to be given this individualized approach to mass interconnection. Most assemblies using RF components are too complex to hand solder all of the through-hole devices without errors. Selective soldering equipment can be programmed to handle both in- and off-line programming. The equipment integrates easily with the rest of the automated production equipment.

The selective soldering process — with mini solder wave nozzles beneath the circuit boards, handling precise dip, drag, and small wave actions while flux is handled by spray, drop jet, or ultrasonics — is now a familiar sight. Through programming, the equipment can control the process and maintain line speeds.

Radio (RF) technology has grown at Merrimack-N.H.-based BAE Systems, where the firm recently completed its first real-time test of improved wireless communication technology. War fighters can now dispense critical communications without interruption during battle. The technology allows more traffic on networking systems. It gives users an advantage during air-to-air, air-to-ground, and soldier-to-soldier communications.

Under a $15.5 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract, BAE is developing wireless radios that can untangle interfering digital communications signals. The DARPA Interface Multiple Access (DIMA) program aims to increase network capacity and performance in highly congested mobile networks. The radios will allow multiple transmissions to occur simultaneously on one frequency and can support as many as five simultaneous conversations into the same time and frequency slot, even in the presence of severe near-far interference.

“With current technology, bandwidth is shared through assignment of unique time slots, frequency slots, or code words for each user, significantly limiting network performance,” said Brian Pierce, Ph.D., DARPA. “DIMA buys back the capacity loss caused by those limitations with technology that separates multiple, interfering digital signals.”

Known as multi-user detection, BAE Systems’ real-time technology enables users to communicate simultaneously on the same channel without centralized control or infrastructure. Recent experiments validated the technology in a mobile, ad-hoc network environment and demonstrated the vehicle-mounted DIMA radio’s ability to receive up to five simultaneous transmissions from different users while traveling at 15 mph.

“By next March, we expect to operate at speeds greater than 30 mph in highly interfering scenarios, and may even operate as high as 60 mph,” said Joshua Niedzwiecki, manager of BAE Systems’ communications and signal exploitation research group. “This would further validate the technology in more operational scenarios. If fielded in Iraq, for example, it could prove vital in areas where interfering electronic transmissions reduce the amount of transmittable military communications.”

With new applications and specialized equipment, both medical and military markets hold steady for EMS assembly inside the U.S. Both serve a growing need for RF communications in monitoring and communications.

Gail Flower, editor at large

Read Editorial Advisory Board member Craig Hunter's take on SMT in rugged applications: SMT Components Toughen Up for Rugged Applications

eWaste: Establishing an Environmental Program

2009-09-23T09:28:00.004-04:00

In the past several posts of this eWaste series, we’ve looked at electronics recycling and end of life (EOL) management from the EMS company’s and recycler’s perspectives. Today, we’ll look at the idea from one OEM’s viewpoint, and follow this networking and security vendor's internal and external initiatives to construct and implement an environmental program. David Cox, senior VP of Blue Coat Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), describes how the BluePlanet program started, their method for laying out an environmental roadmap, and other steps that any company can take to shape their reduce/reuse/recycle program for sustainability and profitability.

The BluePlanet environmental program, designed in partnership with consultants from TFI (see Pam Gordon’s Do’s and Don’ts in the first eWaste post), operates on a company-wide level, interconnected between different departments. For example, the company implemented a take-back program when customers upgraded to new models, recycling the legacy products into their spare parts program. This required coordination between account managers in the field, channel partners, the rework and repair team, and shipping, as well as a marketing push to get the word out to customers. A simple “swap mentality” didn’t yield many returns, and since upgrades occur on the customer’s schedule, not coordinated across the customer base, distribution was highly fragmented. Logistics were difficult at first, Cox admits, but incentives for success included reduced cost of replacement/refurbished units for customers, reduced excesses in component build, and satisfying the many green info requests that come through in a request for quote (RFQ). “This program pushed us to really study our installed base, and there are additional benefits reaped from that,” Cox adds.

As much as the environmental program is global in scale and a company-wide project, it also is reliant on the individual employee. Blue Coat created an E-Heroes program, wherein employees submit ideas for how Blue Coat can become more green. This includes anything from designing products for ease of rework (reducing scrap and waste), considering the impact of raw materials used, designing for the environment (DfE) in new product introductions (NPIs), carbon footprint in travel and shipping, and more — even the kind of ink used on packaging. Since the company’s products enable increased application response times in consolidated server environments, it was only natural to execute a server consolidation internally, going from 85 servers to 3 and conserving energy as a result. Cox said these internal suggestions led to a solid program from the start, with a comprehensive approach and clear goal. As with the take-back program, secondary benefits like boosted employee morale and a recruitment edge were realized.

Blue Coat, like many EMS providers we interviewed for previous posts, chose to partner with a dedicated recycler for some of its EOL needs. “We found that 98% of some products were recyclable or recoverable,” Cox notes. Blue Coat’s hardware, manufacturing, and process engineers took a workshop on design for recyclability (DfR), which can boost this materials reuse even higher in the next product generation. Cox suggests performing due diligence on a potential recycling partner and looking for specs like a global footprint, commitment to correct practices, and satisfied clients. Read more about choosing a recycling program in the eWaste post, “Which Electronics Recycling Model Fits Your Business?”

Blue Coat is over the first few hurdles in establishing an environmental program. The company is now at a point where it can see and understand all of the future opportunities available, and can leverage the steps it's already taken. With the unifying and company-building power of the BluePlanet implementation, Cox now looks forward to determining longer-term goals for the company’s environmental strategy.

Meredith Courtemanche, executive editor

eWaste: Which Electronics Recycling Model Fits Your Business?

2009-09-16T11:32:00.004-04:00

Electronics recycling comprises several end of life (EOL) processes, from disassembly to data destruction to metals salvage and other steps. Some companies are one-stop-shops, smelting, grinding plastics, recovering useable components, and reselling raw materials. Others partner with recyclers, perhaps performing data protection and initial disassembly then handing over waste to dedicated processing centers. Beyond this are a myriad of brokers, specialists, and other processing/resale points that can make the reverse logistics of EOL more complicated than the traditional assembly supply chain. It is through this multi-tiered network that broken computer parts become flower pots, for example.

Celestica is an EMS provider entrenched in the design, assembly, ship, and after-market support of electronics. However, as Mike Andrade, senior VP and GM, North America, Celestica, points out, the company is not a major physical recycler. Instead, they use their experience with supply chains to design a network of reverse supply chain partners. Today, Celestica handles initial breakdown of waste electronics for some customers and then sends the eWaste to certified recycling partners in the U.S. and Canada. As customer interest and the company's EOL management program grows, Celestica will work to expand with a secondary network of partners globally. “We’re in the middle, orchestrating sustainability, from design for environment (DfE) to EOL,” explains Andrade. Kimball Electronics, also an EMS provider, has a repair depot, which incorporates its recycling operations. The Kimball employees are especially trained in their products, more than a recycling partner can be, so they are uniquely able to manage eWaste components, including repairing parts to avoid recycling entirely.

Li Tong Group is a dedicated recycler based in Hong Kong. The company partners with EMS providers like Elcoteq and Foxconn globally. Electronics recycling can be done correctly and make money, if you have a long-term business model, say Li Tong’s Phil Cruickshan, director, ICT. The company generally buys waste electronic products, processes them down to the raw components, and resells these metals, plastics, etc. This is different than the traditional model of charging a rate or fee for electronics recycling services. Another key to their business model is global, long-term partnerships. Much like the long-term EMS/OEM partnership, this is based on trust, total costs, traceability, and a good track record.

For those about to enter the recycling field, either as a supervising partner or as an involved recycling company, the waters can be murky. Not only are there an estimated 1,100 small recyclers in the U.S., selling to a range of brokers, but the regulatory environment is fragmented and vague. While the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive gives EU recycling rules, these are still unclear in some areas and unenforced, or enforced without uniformity, across Europe. In other regions the laws are even less standardized and enforced. Regulations differ from state to state, says Ed Grimes of Kimball Electronics, and many of these regulations are changing. Without security and enforcement, “recycled” electronics end up in dumps in places like China and Pakistan, creating human-safety violations, fueling the counterfeit components trade, and damaging brand reputations. With electronics infiltrating new sectors, from children’s toys to displays on washing machines, eWaste recapture requires a wider net and serious supply chain management capabilities. Every piece of eWaste should, ideally, be accounted for and traced. Recyclers like Li Tong combine Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000) and OSHA compliance with extreme traceability and quality (IS0 9001) regulation to avoid these pitfalls.

Next week, the eWaste series concludes with a look at one OEM that is nearly 2 years into their environmental program. The company used internal (employee) and external (customer) input, along with green-program consulting from TFI to shape their program, and shares their perspective on starting the green program and where they plan to take it.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Read the rest of the series:
eWaste: Turning the EOL Burden into Profitable Revenue Streams
eWaste: Is Recycling a Value-add EMS?

eWaste: Is Recycling a Value-add EMS?

2009-09-09T10:22:00.005-04:00

Electronics manufacturers differentiate themselves in the marketplace and for contract customers with value-added services, traditionally design, final assembly and ship, or quality testing. As end of life (EOL) management gains importance — poor EOL control takes on a specter similar to that of an in-field recall — EMS providers and OEMs are considering recycling and environmental programs when signing contracts.

Ted Gardham, director, sales and business development for EMS provider Elcoteq, notes a 10× increase in OEM interest in electronics recycling. “This will spike coming out of the recession, as environmental programs will meet government and consumer demand,” he adds. A recent survey of manufacturers by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) reveals that nearly 20% have been asked to provide “environmental footprint” information to their OEM. As far as end markets go, Celestica’s Mike Andrade, senior VP and GM, North America, notes that while consumer demand/awareness and non-government organizations (NGO) pressure has led consumer electronics manufacturers to be the first companies heavily focused on green, other electronics companies such as those in the server, storage, and communications space are quickly catching up. Regional differences are also prominent. For European OEMs in particular, electronics recycling is an expected service, not necessarily a value-add. Therefore, the quality of your recycling program is evaluated against peers’. Elcoteq partners with Li Tong, a recycling company based in Hong Kong. I’ll cover the various recycling models, and what to look for when partnering with a dedicated recycler, in next week’s segment.

For an EMS provider managing the EOL process, traceability on the back end mirrors the look of a front-end supply chain. Customers are demanding this level of visibility to avoid damaging PR after botched recycling jobs and also to closely monitor costs and resources. The damage poor disposal does to a brand is yet to be fully understood, but the EMS providers I spoke with all saw it as comparable to a product recall: bad press, negative brand recognition, and a destroyed EMS/OEM relationship. Kimball Electronics pays special attention to the recycling of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) due to the high lead content, and cold cathode fluorescent tubes used in LCD displays. Celestica also focuses on data protection when products they manufactured enter the waste stream.

“A recycling strategy is not a stand-alone,” notes Andrade of Celestica. Design for the environment (DfE), modular products that can be upgraded rather than replaced, use of less toxic materials in product build, and limiting the transport involved in the supply chain are all environmental initiatives that should be promoted along with EOL disposal. An environmental management service was a “natural outgrowth of RoHS” for Celestica. The knowledge that EMS providers have built up through lean initiatives is easily transferable to environmental programs, such as eliminating waste (this time, carbon or energy waste) in operations. “A lot of suppliers need to understand that implementing lean to green practices can also help with the bottom line by eliminating waste,” says Mark C. Tomlinson, executive director and general manager of SME. The Society runs the Lean to Green Manufacturing Conference, September 28 to 30 in Austin, TX.

Reduce, re-use, recycle programs are consistently cited by OEMs as a service either expected or desired from their contract electronics manufacturing partners. Environmental initiatives are on many OEMs’ roadmaps, though it will not become a buying criterion for a few more years, Andrade says. “It’s clear that being a green manufacturer will be the entrance fee for suppliers in the years to come,” agrees Tomlinson, SME. Since OEMs face internal and outside pressure to implement green initiatives, they are turning to those partners with a demonstrable skill at managing supply chains, tracing multiple products through multiple use stages, and controlling costs. In many ways, the supply chain overhaul that started with RoHS ideally prepared EMS providers to take this next step and add EOL to their offerings. Once you have a sound, functional system in place, be sure to promote your program and the benefits it can provide for the customer. If you are competing in a market where the other EMS providers also have green programs, note the differentiators in your system, whether that be global reach, monetary returns, data protection, etc. Avoid “green washing,” where the client doesn’t get any tangible data on the benefits of your environmental program.

In the next segment of this eWaste series, I’ll look at different electronics recycling business models and the reverse supply chains involved. Finally, we’ll examine the environmental program one OEM implemented, and how they involved the internal workforce in shaping their green initiatives.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Miss the first post? Read it here: eWaste: Turning the EOL Burden into Profitable Revenue Streams

Ubiquitous Electronics

2009-08-27T14:06:00.002-04:00

This summer has been one of slow improvement for electronics, and also of high growth despite a recovering economy. I spent a good part of July focused on SEMICON West in San Francisco, the major chipmaker and packaging tradeshow in North America.

When I flew out to San Francisco, I noticed that American Airlines offered Internet connectivity for notebook users while in flight. There were many other unexpected changes too, such as having to pay for my checked bag, food, and earphone buds for listening to the movie. But, hey, at least I could check my e-mail. American Airlines now uses Gogo Inflight Internet service on 318 of its domestic carriers, allowing fliers wireless access to the Internet. GoGo’s supplier, IL-based Aircell, also provides wireless connectivity service on 80 Delta/Northwest aircraft, and some Virgin America planes as well. United and others plan to follow suit shortly.

The network operates with an air-to-ground system with three antennae on the aircraft connected to Aircell’s mobile broadband network, and 92 cell towers in the U.S. The equipment weights 125 pounds and costs approximately $100,000. At 3.1 megabits per second, it’s also fairly fast.

After arriving on the coast, I spent one Saturday introducing my three-year-old granddaughter to the public library. In the library, we walked through security walls and finally found the information that Bella wanted to know about: the location of the café and lunch patio. Next, we viewed meeting rooms and met the teachers who used video and passed out flash drives to older students.

Whereas written books are important, the jungle gym of equipment and doughnut-hole seats made the library a fun place to be, even for those too young to sit still and read. “There are the computers for adults, Grandma Gail. I’m too little,” Bella proclaimed. But these rows and rows of desktop computers were on low-level desks, much too short for adults.

“These computers are for children from 2 to 12 year olds...kids just like you,” I said as I watched her face light up. The rows of computers took up more space than the rows of children’s books. We spent 45 minutes using various drawing tools and looking up YouTube videos.
We left the library with an armload of books checked out using the barcoded library card without a librarian’s assistance. It amazed me that Bella accepted the push-button elevators, sensor-enabled walk-throughs, and computers for all ages, teaching with video and flash, barcoded self-check out, and other electronics devices. What she didn’t accept was the fact that she could not keep the books permanently. Sharing remains an issue.

I spent that week attending SEMICON West. At the Moscone Convention Center, in the Extreme Electronics presentations, I found several developments in the printed electronics area. Novacentrix presented information on their PulseForge Tools, which use coated PET and Metalon ICI-001 copper ink and an Epson C88 inkjet printer. In the flex circuit area, using bulk copper for conductivity and pulse-forge processing (an excimer laser plays a role) can lower the cost of printed circuits, produced at the speed of 1,000 feet/min., according to Novacentrix.

Electronics remain a ubiquitous backdrop and focus that continues to change our lives in every imaginable aspect.

Gail Flower, Editor-at-Large

eWaste: Turning the EOL Burden into Profitable Revenue Streams

2009-08-18T10:24:00.006-04:00

What does a garden pot have to do with your electronics assembly operations? In fact, you may have manufactured it, or parts of it. This pot, created by TerraCycle Inc., is a composite of 100% electronics waste (e-waste) like circuit boards and computer parts. Directives like RoHS and WEEE were implemented with the idea that less-toxic electronics would be more easily recycled into the consumer and industrial cultures. Recyclable electronics are the focus of many new product introductions (NPIs), primarily in the consumer electronics segment.

In several upcoming segments, I’ll explore the OEM demand for end of life (EOL) management, how suppliers are meeting this demand, what the “reverse supply chain” looks like, pitfalls of bad recycling strategies, and different electronics recycling business models, with the help of top EMS providers like Elcoteq and Celestica, electronics recyclers like Li Tong, and others involved in this growing industry. Let’s start with top 10 do’s and don’ts of electronics recycling, provided by Pamela J. Gordon, president, Technology Forecasters Inc. and TFI Environment. Pam contributes regularly to TFI’s blog, which often has an environment-conscious take on electronics manufacturing. Here are her Do’s and Don’ts for electronics recycling.

EOL Do
1. Before you even think about recycling, design solutions for your customers with minimal hardware — substantially (e.g., 50%+ by weight) or even completely (e.g., software on existing hardware platforms) reduce hardware. After all, your customers are buying “hardware,” they’re buying a means to meet their needs. (The EMS providers interviewed for this series on eWaste agree — the first step in EOL management is designing for it.)

2. “Postpone recycling” by designing products and your business model for reuse. Your products can live useful lives again and again with upgrades (especially via net-based software) and efficient refurbishing. Consider a leasing model.

3. Collect products that your customers are no longer using, and mine them for hard-to-find and/or valuable parts for refurbished units. Reap hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars savings. (Look for more on this Do in our recycling models segment.)

4. Design your products also for high-value recycling. Train engineers in design-for-environment (DfE) principles, including easy-to-disassemble modules for reuse and materials that are worth something.

5. Minimize the cost and environmental burden of product collection; design “reverse logistics” according to minimal distance traveled and lowest carbon emissions.

EOL Don’t
1. Don’t assume that the photos you’ve seen of unsafe “casual” recycling in under-regulated regions are exaggerated; this practice really is as bad for human and environmental health as it looks.

2. Don’t use a recycler that does not offer proof of where and how your products were recycled; the product has your name on it and publicity is given to brands whose companies irresponsibly recycle products. (Those interviewed all agree — no matter who is at fault, when photos show up of dumped electronics, only your brand is visible.)

3. Don’t wait until the end of your product’s design/manufacturing cycle before creating a reverse-logistics and recycling plan; design products for high-value recycling. (This is where the expertise of EMS providers can really make a difference, as they have done this before.)

4. Don’t think that no one wants products at the end of their first use; second- and third-hand sales are multimillion-dollar businesses for someone; it may as well be for your company than a broker.

5. Don’t choose a recycler that outsources the recycling to some unknown-to-you entity. See the first “don’t” above.

In coming weeks, you’ll see more interviews, with information on allocating resources to provide recycling as a service, how to promote this service with clients, how to select a recycling partner or run the program in-house, and the impact of EOL management.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Review Materials Enabled Designs: The Materials Engineering Perspective to Product Design and Manufacturing

2009-07-28T13:29:00.005-04:00

Most of electronics assembly is achieved in non-mechanical bonding processes: lamination, plating, soldering, underfill, encapsulation, and so on. Even mechanical joining — such as board-to-board connectors — is based in one or more material-based interconnect. I promised a review of a materials-focused text in the blog post, New Materials for an Evolving Industry, and Michael Pfeifer's text delivers the well-rounded, prototype-to-production viewpoint of materials usage we were looking for.

Pfeifer’s new text book, Materials Enabled Designs: The Materials Engineering Perspective to Product Design and Manufacturing, published by Butterworth-Heinemann, an imprint of Elsevier, covers design, materials, manufacturing processes, reliability, quality and process control, yield, and cost management with materials as the focus. Engineers should “better understand the risks and rewards associated with…materials used in a product; the manufacturing processes used to produce the product; and the suppliers of materials, components, and subassemblies used in a product,” Pfeifer asserts.

The book also has sections focused on total product design practices and smart operating procedures, which requires most companies to specify components without strict controls over all materials used. Pfeifer offers these tips:
“Start with materials that offer a high probability of success. Do not consider the entire world of materials, components, and subassemblies for use in a product. Work out all details of a strategic custom component or subassembly before using a low-cost supplier. Consolidate materials within and across product platforms. Develop design guidelines. Include a budget for materials engineering support.”

Flow charts and matrices throughout the chapters are visual prompts to readers, asking them to consider product design with discipline and constructive creativity.

While a large portion of the text is devoted to material properties and materials science, the theme throughout is about perspective. The reader should emerge with a stronger background in properties of solders, surface finishes, etc., and — more importantly — with a concept of the role materials play in a product’s success, from design to sourcing to manufacturing and test. As Pfeifer states, poor understanding of materials science can lead to “delayed product launch, field failures, poor customer satisfaction, and poor sales.” He encourages “understanding the relationship between the properties of a material, its compositions, its microscopic structures, and how it was processed.” For example, a high-volume assembly may be dense and small with high computing power, but if the solder specified is easily degraded by the print process, frequent downtime at the printer will kill expected yields. Materials ignorance can be costly.

The text is available from Elsevier. Pfeifer is president of Industrial Metallurgists LLC. He wrote the book based on materials compiled for a Manufacturing and Design Engineering (MaDE) program course at Northwestern University.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

SEMICON West: Top Topics at the Show

2009-07-21T11:55:00.003-04:00

Now that I live in the San Francisco area, I’ve noticed that each day starts out slowly with cool fog, and then gently warms up to a predictably sunny day. SEMICON West in the Moscone Convention Center, July 14-16 was a bit like that: warmer and more enthusiastic and upbeat than I expected. Major discussion points included the recession, supplier/customer interaction, 3D packaging, and solar energy.

Of course, what everyone wanted to talk about was when the recession would end. George Burns, president of Strategic Marketing Associates said that, in the fab area, increasing chip sales and activity will drive equipment and related capital equipment spending up in the remaining months of this year and for all of 2010. Capital spending is predicted to be at $24 billion this year, a decline of 41% from 2008, and next year it will be at $31 billion, a growth of 30%. Semi projects 2009 semiconductor equipment sales to reach $14.14 billion, according to the mid-year edition of the SEMI capital equipment forecast. “We expect 2010 spending to show double-digit improvement off of extremely low levels in 2009,” said Stanley T. Meyers, president and CEO of SEMI. Watch the archived Webcast of Meyers' SEMICON presentation here.

The Intersolar North America hall at Moscone West was hopping with activity. In that area, where many of the solar module interconnect paths are screen printed, traditional methods used for printed circuits can expand into the solar area, providing growth opportunities for our industries.

I spend quite a bit of time with the materials providers for SMT companies, and in this space, industry has begun to pick up. Henkel, for instance, reported profitable growth in each of the past five months. Heraeus had booths in the West Hall with Intersolar and in the more traditional semiconductor assembly South Hall, and couldn’t have enough to say about specialty metals, solders, bonding wire, and ribbon.

Kyzen’s Tom Forsythe reported that the cleaning consumables company didn’t cut jobs or salaries during this economic down time, but found other efficiencies and waste-cuts to remain profitable with precision cleaning chemistries for advanced packaging and other electronics applications. Testing cleaning in systems at Kyzen’s lab offers a way to get close to customer’s specific problems as well.

Tom Mealey of Virtual Industries Inc. showed us the smallest vacuum-handling tweezers and accessories imaginable. He also had spatula-like vacuum devices for picking up large BGAs or even whole wafers.

At Finetech’s booth, we talked about the next challenge for advanced rework systems, now that rework systems can handle small passives, such as the 01005, and difficult bonding challenges with placement accuracy as low as 0.5 µm.

At Asymtek’s booth, they were talking precision dispensing, jetting, and automated fluid dispensing. Asymtek engineers are working on a range of precision applications in LED assembly, FPD assembly, and biotech product manufacturing.

All in all, SEMICON West was a great show. Senior managers need to make tough bets during difficult times, said keynote speaker Ananad Chandrasekher of Intel. Every economic crisis over the last 40 years has resulted in significant innovations. “Toward the tail end of the oil shock of the early 1970s the first cell phone emerged, produced by Motorola. The second oil crisis in the 1980s eventually led to IBM’s PC,” noted Chandrasekher.

Perhaps stacked 3D packaging or solar energy will emerge as the innovations of the recent recession. For now, we are beginning a healthy climb back up out of poor economic conditions, and that climb was evident at SEMICON West.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

SEMICON West Week: Products and Predictions

2009-07-14T14:21:00.005-04:00

SMT assemblers are the middle ground between chips' computing power and end-product functionality. The week of SEMICON West, co-located this year with Intersolar North America, brings together semiconductor manufacturers and packaging and test experts to evaluate new products, confer over technical issues, and make educated predictions for the short- and long-term future. SMT group editorial director Peter Singer is Twittering from the show. SMT editor-at-large Gail Flower also will be reporting from the show floor. What is celebrated, panned, and decided upon at SEMICON will affect SMT assemblers immediately and down the road.

Check out the new products at SEMICON with this booth guide from Advanced Packaging: SEMICON West Exhibitor's Products

Preview the Mentor Graphics keynote, "World Semiconductor Dynamics: Myth vs. Reality"

Get into the technical aspects of next-generation wafer inspection with this product preview from KLA-Tencor

Check out the MEMS, LEDs, and other emerging electronics technologies at the Extreme Electronics section of SEMICON

Learn more about 3D wafer metrology at SEMATECH's workshop

and get more information about the show on the SEMICON West homepage.

Assemblers Weigh in on Pick-and-Place Systems

2009-07-07T13:40:00.003-04:00

SMT’s September/October issue will include a pick-and-place round-up article, the third annual component placement round-up article I’ve written. Overall, it has been an interesting experience working with worldwide users of placement equipment. Judging by their workload, and current news, I’d say that the industry is gaining strength.

Users complain about the cost of nozzles, and that pick-up nozzles don’t always match the size of miniaturized packages, nor do their vacuum and shape fit for large dense connectors. Custom-made nozzles from a third-party supplier may work for the components, but the machine software might fail to recognize these custom ID markings. Assemblers also say that many manufacturers are hesitant to provide access for custom nozzle markings to be input into placement programming by the customer. Also, there are not enough nozzle connections for many jobs, especially with facility’s the existing equipment, which may be older.

Some SMT line operators have complaints about feeders and trays: the changes coming from the package design world are not in sync with pick-and-place systems. This forces users to buy custom feeders at a high price. Different weight of components may require a different rate of vibration, so in some cases a stick feeder is required for a single IC — taking out up to 8 positions on a placement machine for a single part.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Some parts require too much time to program into vision software because image data is not available to suit the configuration, especially with ball grid arrays (BGAs), chipscale packages (CSPs), and fine-pitch quad flat packs (QFPs).

The more I study the pick-and-place sector, the more interesting this round-up cover story becomes. Though most users acknowledge that business is not booming, all said that economics have not stopped or slowed their business. Responses came from the Ukraine, from China, from U.S. military contractors, and other widely dispersed production engineers.

Looking at the current news, some areas show fairly steady growth. Amsterdam-based TomTom said that Q’02 shipments (and prices) are up. As a user, I can certainly understand that. Even my new Nokia E71x phone has a GPS in it, just in case. How did we ever find our way around without GPS devices? Intel has had a pretty good year, since mobile internet devices (MIDs) and other small computers using their Atom processor have sold well. LG is considering additional LCD production for flat-screen TV panels as the LCD industry slowly recovers with healthy TV sales.

All of these products have SMT components in them. Though engineers using pick-and-place may have legitimate complaints, the complaints are usually because they want more efficiencies, better software, more nozzles, and up-to-date component handling. Perhaps they’re anticipating future growth.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

Read the 2007 and 2008 Round-Up articles on Pick-and-Place:

Annual Pick-and-Place Round-up 2008

Pick-and-Place: Users and Vendors Speak Out

Look for the 2009 Round-up on Pick-and-Place in the September/October issue of SMT

How Do You Use The SMT Website?

2009-06-23T13:21:00.008-04:00

Electronic information delivery — through digital magazines, e-newsletters, Websites, RSS feeds, etc. — is essential to the modern business world. Global and instant availability via the Internet has made information accessible, useful, and impactful in a way as momentous as the advent of the printing press. SMT is redesigning our Website, smtonline.com, to better fit you, our readers. While we engineer this Website, we’d like to hear what you want.

We’ve organized our technical features into focused categories, where you can find an article about lead-free rework easily, and click straight from that article into a section about cleaning residues from lead-free assemblies. All the while you’ll have recent news and product releases updated daily and accessible throughout the Website. The goal is to make information as easily accessed as if you had editors sitting with you, suggesting an article to meet your needs.

SMT usually polls its readers about industry challenges, such as lead-free, or business direction, such as capital equipment investments. Today, we want to know how you use the Internet, and what you’d like to see on the new-and-improved smtonline.com. Click through to our survey, “What do you want more of on smtonline.com?” and let us know what you want. We’ll keep the survey open through to the launch date of the new SMT Website, incorporating as many of your suggestions as possible. Got an idea for the site that isn’t on the survey? Leave a comment here on the blog.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Cleaning Electronics Assemblies — How Far We’ve Come

2009-06-16T08:44:00.003-04:00

In the May/June issue of SMT, I wrote a round up of comments on cleaning, but there just wasn’t enough room to include everything. And, in the desire to say it all, here are some important facts that weren’t covered in the article, “Cleaning Equipment and Materials Trends.” The history of SMT cleaning helps us understand modern cleaning technologies as well as what’s in the research pipeline.

We have come a long way from the 1985 Montreal Protocol to methods of improved cleaning that have less of an environmental impact. The cleaning trend since the 1980s has shifted from a no-clean process to an emphasis on cleaning, especially with lead-free pastes/fluxes and higher processing temperatures. Defluxing used to be reserved for military and medical manufacturers, and now even boards for commercial products require defluxing.

Modern cleaning equipment generally performs faster with less power, less water, and fewer chemical additions. Strict quality control tolerances and traceability via statistical process control (SPC) data recording are expected from the latest equipment. As operators place assemblies into defluxing equipment, barcode information is immediately scanned, and one more step in the assembly process is recorded.

Technology has moved upstream. Conventional SMT assemblies use low-residue, no-clean soldering practices. Modern challenges for PCB cleaning hinge on high-density miniaturized assemblies with lower standoff heights and decreased area-array pitches. I also discussed the training and education necessary for the modern cleaning processes in "Spring Cleaning: Facility Implementation Is Key.”

There are a variety of ways to clean: aqueous, semi-aqueous, plasma-based, sonic-based, or through specialty chemical formulations that fit the particular paste/flux/component combination.

We didn’t talk enough about the amazing research work being done in this field. Ning-Cheng Lee is one of the researchers working on the best cleaning method to fit each lead-free material/flux application. He has tested many methods and materials and has come up with a best-fit system for many materials and equipment. His research will be presented at SMTAI this year in San Diego.

The High Performance Electronics Cleaning and Coating Symposium is a premier conference focused soley on cleaning to be held September 30, 2009, in Coventry, England. All types of presentations — from high-reliability and high-performance electronics assembly cleaning to case studies from manufacturing experts in aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer telecom, and medical products industries — will be heard in Coventry.

Finally, what I didn’t get a chance to say in my round-up cleaning article was thank you to all the great suppliers, researchers, and users in our industry who helped me put together this piece. I would like to thank all of you who contributed your time and effort including the Mikes:

Mike Konrad, Aqueous Technologies
Mike Jones, MicroCare
Mike Bixenman, Kyzen

And many other experts:
Harald Wack, Ph.D., Zestron America
Steve Stach, Austin American Technology Corp.
Doug Winther, Technical Devices
Chris Merow, Blue Thunder Technologies
Scott Symanski, March Plasma Systems, Inc.
Bill Schreiber, Smart Sonic Corp.
Yeqing Su, Freescale
Jun Choi, SII NanoTechnology USA, Inc.
Maurice Collins, Ph.D., Stokes Institute
Ning-Cheng Lee, Indium Corp.

Gail Flower, editor at large

What Are Flex Circuits, and How Do We Use Them?

2009-06-08T08:12:00.006-04:00

Flex circuits are a minority sector of the North American PCB fab market — rigid PCBs represent an estimated 90% of the current PCB industry in North America, according to IPC's World PCB Production and Laminate Market Report — but this 10% of the market can be found in every end-use sector from medical to consumer. Mark Finstad and Mark Verbrugge, from Minco, recently spoke to the IPC and SMTA chapters here in New England, providing design and manufacturing best practices for those that are, or would be, using flex circuits in an electronics assembly. Some of their advice may surprise you.

Design best practices are of utmost importance with flex, not least of all because most OEMs and ODMs have only a passing familiarity with the capabilities and limitations of flex circuits. The bend ratio is the fundamental principle of flex design. It describes the ratio of circuit thickness to radius of the circuit bend. Bad bend ratios lead to field failures from rippling and cracked copper. Some other helpful design tips? Design elements that are good for a circuit mechanically are bad for it electrically, so find a balance. Copper thickness and shielding materials can make the difference between a bouncy flex circuit, like that in a flip cell phone, and a flex-to-fit circuit, that will not bend once installed. Finstad and Verbrugge recommend placing small conductors on the inside of the bend; keeping plated thru-holes away from bend areas, and debonding substrates for more flexibility.

Once the flex circuit is fabricated, it must be shipped to the electronics assembler, who will handle and install/form the circuit. Every effort in design and materials specs can be wasted by improper shipping and installation procedures. Forming and handling are the two main causes of flex disasters, according to the Minco engineers. Switching from bags to formed hard plastic packs for shipping will protect circuits from scratches, ESD, and other damage, Finstad and Verbrugge explained, showing us the damage mounted components will do to neighboring flex pads in transit. This method applies to storage and cleaning as well. Have you ever taken a $400 thick, multilayer flex circuit, and bent it over a table edge to form it for assembly? Even if the circuit is $4, this is an undesirable technique. Forming tools, which range from simple to complex, apply uniform and repeatable force and create the specified bend radius every time. ROI is all but guaranteed.

Finstad and Verbrugge have many more tips for successful flex use, and if you’d like to hear them, email mark.finstad@minco.com and mark.verbrugge@minco.com. Since flex circuits are often misunderstood or foreign to electronics assemblers, I’d like to go over a few of the definitions Finstad and Verbrugge presented.

Does a flex circuit really flex? All flex circuits can be exercised, or bent, but the spring in a circuit varies from case to case.

IPC 6013 breaks flex circuits out into four types: single layer (Type 1), double layer (Type 2), multi layer (Type 3), and rigid flex (Type 4).
Type 1 single-layer circuit.

Type 3 multi-layer circuit.

Types 1 and 2 circuits are generally very dynamic, meaning they can be exercised many times without performance-affecting damage. However, layer count isn’t the only determinant for how dynamic a circuit is. Layer thickness differences and materials specs can make two double-layer circuits as different as a Type 1 and Type 3.

Rigid-flex
Rigid-flex PCBs are a combination circuit, and they are expensive. Some applications, like double-sided surface mount, require the rigid-flex construct; however, the Minco engineers see a lot of unnecessary specs for rigid-flex. If the application calls for single-sided surface mount with flex, mounting a stiffener will do the job. It also will give you a 25–30% cost reduction from rigid-flex.

Stiffener used instead of rigid-flex.
Materials for the laminates of flex circuits include polyimide/acrylic — which dominates the North American flex market — LCP, and FEP. The copper in a flex circuit can be rolled annealed or electrodeposited, each with pros and cons.

No matter how small flex circuits’ slice of the overall circuit board market is, they can make or break a design. Spending some time familiarizing yourself with the terminology and methodology of flex can lead to better assemblies and smarter budgets, as well as deeper PCB fab relationships. One trade association meeting, or one class at a tradeshow conference, can pay exponential dividends.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

*All images courtesy of Minco.

Adjusting to the Market: Merix Repositions for Mil/Aero Growth

2009-06-01T14:32:00.004-04:00

It’s remarkable how some companies can adjust quickly to take advantage of a changing environment. In 2007, Merix Corp. (Beaverton, OR), saw an opportunity to expand from an under-diversified PCB manufacturer working mainly in networked communications to a company providing high-volume military and aerospace PCB manufacturing. Now, the company, which has been in operation for more than 40 years, has completed the transition to mil/aero PCB manufacturing house.

Michael Burger joined Merix as president and CEO in 2007, bringing with him the experience of many years with Flextronics. “We committed to a strategic realignment with a focus on expanding our technology and manufacturing capability to increase market share in the defense and aerospace sector,” said Burger. Now, the company has completed that phase, which Burger says will position it for long-term growth and profitability.

The military market has remained strong compared to the rest of the PCB market space. Nine percent of overall sales at Merix today come from military contractors, up from two percent in the past. One reason for the deluge in defense/aerospace business is that 16 new and potential clients have pushed the company to get qualifications going in the mil/aero space in just the last quarter. Merix San Jose is MIL-PRF-55110F certified and applying for MIL-PRF-31032 certification. Customer demands and increased business in this area have prompted growth in this market.

Read more about the transition to military/aerospace products in this news story: Merix Strengthens Defense and Aerospace Capability

Merix started as a board house for Tektronix more than 40 years ago. In 2004, the company expanded, buying Data Circuits, a quick-turn (10 days or less) operation in San Jose. Today, quick-turn prototyping of standard and advanced PCB technologies can be performed in 24 hours at Merix’s San Jose facility. A fully reconfigured 250,000-sq.ft. facility in Forest Grove, OR, also offers quick-turn prototyping to full-volume production, handling advanced technology options as high layer counts and high density interconnect (HDI) solutions. The company has always been a PCB manufacturer with a lot of prototyping business around communications (about 40% of sales) with the remainder in auto, computer and peripherals, medical and telecom.

Merix has two Asian facilities. A Huiyang, a 450,000-sq.ft. facility designated for high volume, low-mix PCB assembly and one in Huizhou, at 135,000 square feet. Approximately 40% of its business comes out of the North American customer base, starting out in quick-turn prototypes and then moving to high-volume production in the Asian facilities as designs prove robust enough for high-volumes. “Helping customers go from prototype in North America to volume production in Asia works well for us,” said Mike Zelman, VP of marketing.

Electronics manufacturing suppliers have to listen to what the market demands, relate to a variety of customer concerns, and keep in touch with technology trends to grow larger, no matter the market sector.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

Stocking Up: Component Orders During Turbulent Times

2009-05-27T09:38:00.010-04:00

During the 2000-2001 technology bubble burst, inventory was a looming evil that hung over the assembly houses, dragging the sector under and preventing fast recovery. The notion of lean manufacturing, regardless of company size or end-market, took hold, and electronics assemblers have been wary of building up chip inventories ever since. With the current recession battering other sectors more brutally than it is hitting technology companies, we can ask, Did we learn a valuable lesson nearly a decade ago? One indicator is the monthly chip buying indices from the Electronic Components, Assemblies, and Materials Association (ECA) and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

“I think we are seeing adjustment of inventories from manufacturers and distributors based on market slowdown,” said Bob Willis, ECA president, adding “The industry learned a lot from the train wreck of 2000. There is more transparency in the supply chain, enabling companies to better anticipate changes in demand and adjust accordingly.” To measure the success of supply chain management, we can examine the numbers for component orders in 2009. In January, orders were in freefall, as the global recession slashed consumer demand, corporate spending, and auto sales. New projects were put on hold, and volumes decreased. Did this lead to overstock? It seems not, as component orders continued to fall in February, but not as sharply as in January, according to the monthly index compiled by the ECA. The 12-month average, comparing 2009’s results to last year’s, continued a descent that began last summer and has continued through the present. By March, orders ticked up slightly.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors were $14.7 billion in March, a gain of 3.3% from the prior month when sales were $14.2 billion, the SIA reported. ECA’s numbers confirm that component orders bounced back slightly in March from lows in the first two months of the year. “The modest sequential rebound in worldwide sales in March suggests that demand has stabilized somewhat, albeit at substantially lower levels than last year,” said SIA President George Scalise. For SIA's geographic breakdown of orders, see the above charts. So demand was lower than the prior year, but without the stocking hangover experienced in the last recessionary period.

Electronic component orders dipped again in April, ECA reported (see graph). Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $15.6 billion in April, SIA saw, an increase of 6.4% from March. April sales were 25% lower than April 2008 when sales were $20.9 billion. ECA's Willis thinks that many OEMs, wary of continuing uncertainty in the market, are only buying parts for which they have firm orders from customers. “As stimulus programs begin kicking in, the consumer electronics industry could see some stabilization,” said Willis. “If so, this should be reflected in new orders that would bring a slow recovery beginning in late summer or early fall.” Economic stimulus measures in the U.S. combined with other countries’ stimulus plans will begin to impact sales as we enter 2010, was Scalise’s SIA assessment.

SIA reports that sales for Q’01 2009 amounted to $44.0 billion, a 29.9% decline from the first quarter of 2008 when sales were $62.8 billion. Sales declined by 15.7% from Q’04 2008 when sales were $52.2 billion. Sales in all geographic regions except Japan showed month-to-month gains. Sales in Japan were sharply lower, reflecting a drop in the country's economic output. All geographic regions reported lower first-quarter sales compared to the same period of 2008 (see graph).

Smaller volumes and longer consumer purchasing cycles are hallmarks of recession and truly are destroying some giants of industry, particularly in the automotive sector. With component purchasing at levels below those pre-recession, no one can claim surprise. However, seeing demand rebound so quickly as to be measured in months rather than years impresses upon us that the electronics sector has made good use of hard lessons learned earlier in the decade.

REFERENCES:
Beginning with July 2008, ECA made two major changes in its monthly order index. The first change was to update the index baseline year from 1996 to 2006 to better reflects today’s market realities. The second change is to report numbers for North America only, which is expected to improve the consistency of results from reporting companies. The index has proven to be a leading indicator of market movement and sales trends. Actual sales numbers tracked by several marketing firms have shown that the index provides a four- to six-month glimpse of potential ups and downs in the market. The new index reflects more dramatic movement in the adjusted four- to five-week order trending. Results from the 12-month moving average are expected to be similar to previous reports based on the 1996 baseline. ECA Website: http://www.ec-central.org/

The SIA Global Sales Report (GSR) is a three-month moving average of sales activity. The GSR is tabulated by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, an independent, non-profit organization established by the global semiconductor industry to compile industry statistics. SIA Website: http://www.sia-online.org/

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Keeping up with RoHS

2009-05-18T11:17:00.003-04:00

Although is estimated that the U.S. electronics industry consumes less than 2% of the world’s lead, efforts to comply with the ever-changing RoHS Directive from the EU have disproportionately affected our industry.

Design engineers should watch their bill of materials (BOM) costs because of new changes to RoHS, as overseeing governments phase out and expire some of the RoHS exemptions in the near future.

The European Commission (EC) has followed the guidance of two consultants: Fraunhofer IZM and Oko Institute. The EC allowed exemptions to RoHS when no technical alternative to the current technologies is possible. However, a general pattern is for the EC to eliminate exemptions.

At present, the EC proposes to withdraw the following six exemptions from the Directive’s list of 29:
1. Lead as an activator in fluorescent powder
2. Lead in linear incandescent lamps with silicate-coated tubes
3. Lead with lead/bismuth/tin/mercury and lead/indium/tin/mercury in specific compositions as the main amalgam or with lead/tin/mercury as the auxiliary amalgam in compact energy-saving lamps
4. Lead oxide in the glass envelope of black-light blue lamps
5. Lead oxide in the glass for bonding front and rear substrates of flat fluorescent lamps in LCDs
6. Lead alloys as solder for transducers in high-power loudspeakers.

These exemptions are projected to be in place by 2010 with an 18-month grace period, but what’s the next step? Most expect that more substances will be added or have exemptions lifted over time.

Many electronic products, or boards that go into end products, are produced with a reliance on exemptions today. Especially for products designed with long life cycles — such as medical and aerospace electronics — keeping up with the latest changes in RoHS is critical.

To discuss the latest inclusions and shrinking exemptions in RoHS, contact the IPC at http://www.ipc.org/ or the EU at http://www.rohs.eu/.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

New Materials for an Evolving Industry

2009-05-12T14:07:00.008-04:00

Materials innovations are helping to reshape our industry in the post-RoHS, halogen-free era. Environmental constraints, usability requirements, cleaning issues, and other factors are bearing down on solders, conformal coatings, underfills, and all the other “goo” that helps construct and protect an assembly. Check out this week’s soldering products roundup to see some of these innovative chemistries. At APEX 2009, I sat down with Doug Dixon, global marketing manager, at the electronics group of Henkel, to discuss materials trends in the industry, and how suppliers are shouldering the burden.

Henkel has been busy since last year’s acquisition of Emerson & Cuming and Ablestik. Now that the majority of integration tasks calendared in since last year’s APEX have occurred, this year’s event found the company releasing new materials resulting from these collaborations. Henkel had two products in the show’s Innovative Technology Center: Multicore LF700 lead-free solder paste and the Hysol UF3800 underfill.

Henkel brought in the Emerson & Cuming team while developing UF3800, Dixon noted, and the collaboration proved fruitful. The product won an SMT VISION award this year. UF3800’s benefits include underfilling that flows at room temperature and cures at low temperature, halogen-free, rework-capable, high T_g, lower energy use (due to eliminating pre-heat to flow and cure), and compatibility with many flux formulations. LF700 offers a long abandon time even when printed onto 0.4-mm CSP apertures, reduced voiding in BGA solder joints (due to the flux chemistry), humidity resistance, and high tack force. Its halide- and lead-free ingredients label should also encourage global use regardless of regional environmental restrictions, such as RoHS, China RoHS, and other state-by-state directives.

Both the paste and underfill satisfy externally imposed requirements — lead- and halide-free. They also meet internal manufacturing requirements — reworkability, fine-pitch printing, broad flux compatibility — to ease the manufacturing and reporting burden on electronics makers. Dixon said these “hybrid chemistries” are advancements marked on the company’s product roadmap.

Acquisitions may seem like a dangerous move in a tight economy, but Henkel’s method of adding units that complement existing product groups is sound: Some products may overlap, but the overall trend is expanding in an application area — not stacking similar products on top of one another. “We go through all our projects and combine resources where it will make a positive impact,” Dixon said. Some projects have natural crossover, like the CSP underfill or certain die-attach products. Others, such as conductive inks, are a new area for Henkel since the National Starch acquisition.

Emerson & Cuming has a developed base in the defense sector, so Henkel is working to combine potting/encapsulation and conformal coating IP into new products. The result is a conductive film product called CF3366, which provides RF grounding in PCB-to-housing interconnections. The high-adhesion-strength electrically conductive film is formulated for electrical, thermal and mechanical assembly applications and targets harsh environments with high temperature resistance. It enables thermal release as well as adhesion, tackling two system-level challenges.

Beyond acquisitions, Henkel’s business development group partners with universities and research groups for product development on a longer timeline. Joint ventures are another area of interest. A colleague of mine recently returned from a tradeshow with a clear message: Collaboration is king in the new economy. For project developments occurring now to 5 and 0 years down the road, the balance of collaboration and mergers & acquisitions will bring in investments from interested customers, fueling continued R&D in this cautious economic climate.

Continuing on this theme of materials evolution, SMT just received a copy of the new publication, Materials Enabled Designs: The Materials Engineering Perspective to Product Design and Manufacturing, written by Michael Pfeifer, president of Industrial Metallurgists LLC. The 12-chapter book covers product design, materials selection, materials reliability and performance considerations, costs and market ramp-up strategies, and other aspects of the process, from the materials engineer's perspective. Look for a review of the text in an upcoming blog post.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

How EMS Providers Use Manufacturing Quality Management Systems

2009-05-04T13:11:00.003-04:00

At APEX this year, we met up with Bruce Isbell, senior strategic marketing manager; Michael Dreyer, sales manager in the manufacturing team; and Tal Shachar, senior software engineer, at Valor Computerized Systems’ booth.

Shachar, who works out of Yavne, Israel, introduced us to Ronit Shalev, marketing and sales manager and Uzi Rozenberg, the entrepreneur owner and chairman of U.S.R. Electronic Systems (1987) Ltd., an Israel-based EMS provider offering outsource and turnkey services internationally to high-tech communications, video, security, medical, industrial and cosmetics sectors. U.S.R. implemented Valor’s vCheck quality management software to trace defects along with work-in-process (WIP), reduce costs, and attract new customers based on its quality monitoring and improvement capabilities.

“We’re a privately owned EMS company with approximately 700 employees specializing in turnkey solutions. For example, we are producing medical equipment, cardiologic monitoring equipment, portable ultrasound devices, and respiratory equipment for GE HealthCare,” said Shalev.

Because U.S.R. manufactures boards for medical and military OEMs, quality verification and tracing capabilities are important. “When we were asked to be a beta site for Valor’s vCheck quality management software, we decided to accept the challenge,” continued Shalev.

U.S.R. implemented Valor’s vCheck software to minimize the probability of errors and drive the manufacturing process to optimal performance by balancing quality, throughput, and cost. vCheck’s multi-dimensional quality system is designed to increase profitability by making all aspects of quality testing and inspection visible to any decision maker. It functions as a stand-alone application or as part of a larger manufacturing execution system (MES) suite, monitoring quality for manual and automated inspection and test. vCheck handles WIP tracking at the PCB and box-build levels, and offers repair-loop management and tracking, knowledge-based guidance of failure diagnosis, quality reporting and analysis, enforced process routing, and automated alarms.

“Before implementing vCheck, we did manual data entry with handwritten notes that were incomplete and error-prone, not to mention time-consuming,” said Shalev. “Handling quality data had become a burden,” she added. “After we began using vCheck, reports and analysis were easy to collect and analyze.”

One problem that U.S.R. had with a customer’s design was completely invisible to management for some time because the defect was continuously repaired by operators as if it was part of a standard process. vCheck created visibility and transparency to all the defects at each specific reference designator and at the exact place in the process. The root of the problem was a connector located too close to the board edge. U.S.R. engineers isolated the design issue by using Valor DfM tools and suggested that the customer change the design. That accomplished, confidence in U.S.R.’s manufacturing skills and in vCheck’s ability to track down the root cause of the problem increased.

“We added new customers because of vCheck and have made several technological stretches,” said Shalev. “There are many reasons that we use a quality management software tool,” she added. “It can help create new business, cut engineering time, reduce rework, and provide quick response to a customer’s questions.”

U.S.R. has weekly quality review meetings with customers to discuss real-time reports on quality data from all PCB manufacturing perspectives including DPM analysis for looking at defects per product, day, month, or year. Defect analysis presents defects by category, defect, type of technology, and which side of the board shows the defect (top or bottom).
“Once you collect the data and have the quality report, what you do with it is the important thing, and that’s what we discuss in our weekly meetings,” Shalev said. “Within minutes, U.S.R. is able to generate work order traceability status in a professional chart or graph and interactively drill into details. Before vCheck, collecting this data and building reports was a real nightmare and could take hours or even days.”

Using vCheck starts with board-level registration as barcodes and laser-marked unique part identifiers are compared to the work order and placed in the database. For boards without identification, the engineer can attach one on-site. Next, test and inspection data are assembled for all areas: ICT, AOI, WIP tracking, routing control, X-ray, flying probe, manual data collection, functional test and manual inspection. Customized reports show yield, DPMO, first pass and second pass yield, and DPM analysis in a multi-language available report. Repair loop management and tracking with guidance from knowledge-based failure corrections makes certain that defects are corrected before allowing the board to pass through the manufacturing process.

“When we look at where we should spend our time to make improvements with the greatest impact, the reports are key,” said Shalev.

The quality management system fully integrates into U.S.R.’s manufacturing process, collecting data from test and repair stations. Using the consolidated data, problems are easier to pinpoint and automatic suggestions of solutions from the software’s database can provide shorter paths to problem corrections. Through weekly contact with customers regarding quality improvement, relationships and communication are improved as well. Shalev concluded, “Eddie Guez, the CEO of U.S.R. who has been with the company for 19 years and was himself in the quality/engineering field before that, decided to invest in vCheck. We are now seeing ROI as we offer more potential to aid our customers’ success by adding more value to our service, and create a better position and differentiation for ourselves in a very competitive industry.”

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

SMT and Emerging Markets: Photovoltaics at APEX

2009-04-28T14:17:00.007-04:00

The most-uttered phrases at APEX this year including the expected “surface mount,” and “BGA,” and the like, but another vocabulary set is rapidly gaining traction with exhibitors and OEM/EMS attendees. “Solar cells” and “photovoltaics” were on many people’s minds, as the mature SMT industry reaches into the emerging markets available to exchange information and develop processes. Solder suppliers, printing companies, chemists, and oven manufacturers are a few of the companies promoting solar manufacturing technology for the electronics manufacturing crowd.

Electronic Trend Publications (ETP) reports that capacity of photovoltaic modules (panels) sold in 2008 exceeded 4.9 gigawatts, a nearly 25% increase over 2007. The market is expected to grow to more than 15 gigawatts in 2013 and 44 gigawatts by 2023, and be a leading vertical market for product assembly for both OEMs and CMs, ETP notes.

The factory cost of producing photovoltaic modules was $9.8 billion in 2008 and will grow to $52 billion in 2023, a compound annual growth rate of 11.8%. Photovoltaic cell producers are looking to outsource module assembly to capable industry suppliers and EMS providers. Outsourcing will grow to 4% in 2013 and 25% in 2023, as OEMs seek a competitive cost advantage, ETP predicts.

Virtual Industries, which makes vacuum tweezers for handling components and wafers, offers custom applications for the solar market. Many customers will purchase vacuum handling tips to integrate into automated systems, making handling equipment an easy retrofit from electronics components to solar wafers. Retrofits are also an option for dispensing systems, and companies like Techcon Systems, a division of OK International, are expanding into the photovoltaics manufacturing sector. “We’ve had three successes for valves and pumps in the solar market in the past six months,” noted Bryan Gass, VP of the OEM division at Techcon.

In the field of metals and chemicals, distributors like K.R. Anderson Inc. see solar as a yet-untapped manufacturing market. It is the future of our industry, and yet a great deal of companies entering the photovoltaics manufacturing market don’t have a solid understanding of the materials involved, said Jeff Wagner, sales manager, K.R. Anderson. As a distributor with a narrow focus — carrying less than 10 core lines — the company feels it can partner with materials suppliers and new solar customers to understand and troubleshoot problems and develop easier to use, better performance products. This requires an investment in technical staff that is difficult for assemblers facing tight margins and reduced personnel resources, added Wagner. This “middle man” position of the distributor actually can benefit the electronics assembler, much like an outsourced R&D/failure analysis lab.

Major equipment manufacturers also are pointing electronics manufacturers' attentions to familiar equipment with applications beyond PCBs and ICs.

Assembléon, a capital equipment supplier, is immersing itself in the green energy concept, from its own machines to the products its customers manufacture. Among the promising innovations is the YGP screen printer, which uses a servo-controlled single-sided squeegee blade. This design keeps solder paste in front of the stencil at roll-in, which reduces sheer and maintains solder paste composition. This technology will prove beneficial for solar cell manufacturers trying to achieve taller, narrower metallization fingers on solar cell surfaces. By preserving the integrity of the metal materials, the stencil enables users to implement smaller apertures and thicker stencils.

Reflow oven supplier BTU International has increasingly developed products for the solar manufacturing market in recent years, both silicon and thin film. The company is also rolling out new products for the traditional electronics market. Paul Van Der Wansem, chairman, president, and CEO, BTU, explained that solar makes the electronics sector stronger, both with R&D sharing to enhance products in both markets and with global infrastructure improvements to the electronics supply chain. Aspects like better temperature control and oven power can benefit electronics manufacturers and photovoltaics producers, perhaps in the same EMS or OEM factory.

Look for DEK’s cover story in the upcoming May/June issue of SMT for more on the convergence and collaboration between electronics and solar manufacturers, including how solder print technology can be adapted to improve metallization on the surface of photovoltaics, improving current-carrying capacity and minimizing the shading effect on cell efficiency.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Lean Facilities: Workspace Utilization in Electronics Production

2009-04-20T12:48:00.005-04:00

Every inch counts on the manufacturing floor, and waste — be it spoiled solder paste, overstocked components, or wasted space — is not tolerated in a working lean production facility. This year at the IPC APEX Expo in Las Vegas, we saw several approaches to saving space, cutting down inefficient work in progress (WIP) bottlenecks, and increasing productivity in electronics assembly and test. For electronics manufacturers who will be scaling back expansion plans, trying to utilize existing space rather than invest in additional facilities or buildings, smarter conveyors, workstations, and storage solutions are in order.

Workflow
Movement of product through a facility can make or break lean goals. PROMATION Inc. demonstrated a dual-operator hand insertion solution with programmable slide shuttles for auto routing and PCB introduction into a selective soldering system with underside return (see image). The design enables higher utilization of floor space and personnel, said Gary Goldberg, president. It eliminates waiting time for the operator and is flexible. For optical inspection, the PCBs come in to an operator workstation. If it passes the board is sent to reflow. If it fails, a conveyor will take the board to rework. They automatically return for post-solder inspection. An AOI system can replace the operator workstation, activating pass/fail without operator intervention. The wrap-around design can be modified to suit any volume or number of operators, and all of the lifts, conveyors, and workstations involved are PROMATION components. Considering how many facilities have inspection, rework, and soldering in three distinct areas, with parts moved from one to another, this smart design can eliminate wasted time and space.

Ken Bliss, president and Shana Bliss, sales manager at Bliss Industries Inc., discussed the FLEXconveyor, a flexible box build factory on wheels has multiple patents pending on its flexible platform. The conveyor is designed to be able to bend up to 90° and features quick-clamp connectivity, the ability to support a 19" rackmount chassis, and can be configured without the use of tools or bolts. Users can start with as small as a 10 × 8 ft line and add on other sections and elements, such as the flexconveyor pickup station. The metal parts are zinc-plated with ESD-safe drag chain. Locking casters hold the completed conveyor configuration in place. “The goal is to relieve bottlenecks and eliminate waste in production lines,” says Ken Bliss, adding that it meets the modern assembler’s need to change the line on the fly and increase production rates. “We configure exactly what a customer wants, visually, on the computer system,” said Shana Bliss. “They can see the details of how the line will work before the final quote, and four weeks later, units are shipped to the customer. The same driver who delivers the FLEXconveyor or any of our other assembly systems is the person who will set it up in 1–2 hours typically for a 50,000 sq.ft. factory.” When a new job is brought in, or volumes change, the conveyor sections can be unlocked and rolled into new positions, occupying a given amount of floor space in the best possible workflow. At APEX, Bliss announced that OnCore Manufacturing Services, an EMS company in the defense, medical, and industrial markets, tested FLEXconveyor in five facilities and plans to deploy it into all of its locations nationwide. This is the first installation of the new box build conveyor.

Storage
Inventory kills lean, so the saying goes. However, there are some products that must be kept in stock, such as stencils, board fixturing, wave solder pallets, etc. And when inventory does come into the factory, dealing with it efficiently can save from incoming inspection to rework/scrap.

DEK has a product to minimize the footprint of stencil storage. The Vector Guard stencil fixturing system is a model for looking at tooling less as a consumable and more as part of the factory floor. The fixed frame and interchangeable foils stencil holder uses vacuum — via a simple air pump — to tension the stencil onto the frame. It holds position and tension better than mesh-mount designs, said Brian Lau, GM of the Americas and David Byrd, U.S. operations manager at DEK. It also frees up an enormous amount of storage in the stencil holding area, as one frame is reusable and does not have to be stored with the foils. To make adoption easier, the air-tensioned VectorGuard can be cleaned like a mesh-mount stencil, can be used with the same variety of stencil foil materials, and integrates easily into printer platforms.

When dealing with incoming inventory and kitting, flexible and value-added storage products can enhance the final assembly reliability, throughput, and traceability.

Component storage involves one part to one location, said Ron Wrable, director of sales, Inovaxe. The company’s products manage WIP inventory by assigning each product a barcode and combining Web-based software as a service (SaaS) INOVISION and INOKIT with on-floor component storage, kitting, and delivery system INOCART. AN INOCART MSD also is available for moisture-sensitive components (MSDs) that will be compromised by time spent unprotected in the factory environment. Other MSD cabinet makers, such as Totech, explain that desiccant cabinets simplify inventory management logistics, since components can stay in tape-and-reel storage, and the added step and capital equipment investment of drying ovens are circumvented. Totech’s MSD storage cabinets can be configured as simple component stocking areas, MSD dryers (desiccant and low heat), or N₂ environment storage. “When MSD cabinets are not in use they are not wasted space,” agreed Michelle Ogihara, sales and marketing manager, Seika, pointing out that “the McDry cabinet is designed for MSD electronics, so its recovery time is faster and its relative humidity (RH) settings are very precise. However, when MSDs aren’t in stock, it can be plain component storage, with the ergonomic design and adjustable shelves aiding manufacturers even without baking or desiccant features in use.” Understanding the range of customer needs and facility designs, McDry is manufactured in tabletop size, feeder-storage capacity, up through very large units.

“WIP is killing U.S. assemblers’ efficiency,” said Ken Bliss, while discussing the future of the American electronics manufacturing plant. Rather than changing the plant’s address — either to a larger facility or to an offshore location — first consider what can be done to make product flow better from incoming inventory to final assembly/box build.

By Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

and Gail Flower, editor-at-large, SMT

Reverse Outsourcing

2009-04-07T15:08:00.002-04:00

Did you notice the lower volume of attendees at APEX this year? For an editor, this gives us more time to interview exhibitors, conduct panels, talk to leaders in the industry, and grant awards for innovative new products and services. For those involved in shipping large pieces of equipment and flying sales staff to Las Vegas, the experience takes on a whole new atmosphere. Although crowds were thin on the show floor — Denny McGuirk, president of IPC, estimated 20 to 25% down in registrations from last year — those seeking an education filled up the technical sessions. Education makes employees more valuable to any company.

No one doubts that business in the U.S. has limped through a weak period. And in electronics, recent news revealed IBM’s Project Match, which offers laid-off U.S. and Canadian workers the chance to apply for jobs at the company’s India location and other areas of low-cost labor around the globe. IBM would help with visas and moving costs, but the salaries would be the same as those within these low-wage areas.

Who would jump at moving somewhere else globally to earn less? At having themselves “outsourced” along with their job? Most of us drag our feet at moving between U.S. states for increased income. Let’s face it, this is a flat year globally for most EMS providers and OEMs already. Most industry analysts project negative growth, if any. And survival can spur life changes; that is certain.

Employees working at IBM in the U.S. must have known about the Wall Street Journal’s story last month announcing that IBM planned to lay off 5,000 U.S. employees with many of the jobs being transferred to India. Foreign workers account for 71% of IBM’s nearly 400,000 employees at present, WSJ said.

If it’s a global economic change, then we already know about that. The question is, are we improving the lives of individuals by taking them away from their neighbors, families and homes only to pay them a lower wage? What would be the difference if foreign workers came to places where wages were higher, but families were distant? The problem with outsourcing employees is that all good business decisions are often poor choices for people. As people, do we raise the middle class if we lower incomes? Do we strengthen families by separating them?

As I write this, on my desk sits an invitation to teach English as a second language on a distant continent. It might be an adventure...

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

The APEX Question: How Much Money Can I Save?

2009-04-01T09:39:00.005-04:00

Cost is the main theme at APEX this year, which is no surprise. The electronics manufacturing industry doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and everyone is seeing the decline in global spending and production. Suppliers are designing systems for assemblers that are both low investment up front — we’ve seen entry-level machines showcased at the booths more than new high-end ones — and low cost of ownership (COO), meaning the operational costs cut out inefficiencies or long downtimes, high energy use, and other undesirable side effects of electronics manufacturing. Shopfloor management software that enables truly lean production is getting a lot of attention at APEX. As one exhibitor put it, attendees are asking “How much is the machine? And how much will it cost me to run it?” With capital equipment spending dwindling, vendors must get the answers to both of those questions right.

Sunstone Circuits and partners National Instruments, Digi-Key, and Screaming Circuits gathered at the show to discuss their ECOsystem product, which brings PCBs from design through sourcing and manufacturing in one cohesive supply chain. Design for manufacturing (DfM) was the theme at JTAG Technologies’ booth as well, where they discussed the possibilities of utilizing boundary scan from first prototype through PCB test through in-field service to cut down prototype iterations, make service less invasive, and increase yield. JTAG refers to this as DfTALES, which means design for test, assembly, logistics, engineering, and service.

The manufacturing execution software (MES) suite from Valor also incorporates DfM, along with machine integration and inventory management to detect and call out inefficient or out-of-spec processes. Valor just surpassed the 800 customer mark globally. Juki debuted a shop-floor management software program, Intelligent Shop-floor Solutions (IS), to complement its component placement and selective soldering machines at the show. Aegis released the third revision to its Version 7 manufacturing operations software (MOS), called R3. This also is designed to cut costs through maintaining peak efficiency and streamlining operations in everything from screen print to thru-hole insertion to box build. Without a main computer interface, and with operators interacting with the MOS suite verbally, R3 targets a less skilled, less trained workforce on the line, cutting out that monetary burden.

Aegis’s R3 system was recently selected by Sanmina-SCI to go into about 20 facilities globally. Sanmina has installed the system in a handful of assembly plants and approved it for company-wide deployment. Maximizing the effectiveness of equipment and people saves users from investing in new machines, which likely isn’t an option for many assemblers in 2009.

Equipment providers can found innovative ways to cut costs as well. Aqueous Technologies, which recently acquired the Austin American Technologies MicroJet defluxers, pointed out that the in-line defluxers stagger the force, or energy, of the wash to remove flux intelligently rather than blasting it with cleaning solution indiscriminately. This means the machine requires a smaller motor, less energy draw on the factory floor, and therefore a smaller footprint. Aqueous also redesigned its Zero-Ion cleanliness tester and in doing so reduced the purchase price.

Inspection system manufacturer Koh Young brought its lower-priced machines to the show, KY8030 series, which typically target manufacturers in China. With a primarily North American attendance base at APEX, this seems like a shift to more cost-conscious purchasing at domestic manufacturers.

Essemtec showed a full suite of screen printers, component placement systems and reflow oven at APEX, but they were also promoting the company’s stability, with a fully owned manufacturing plant in Switzerland and no debt/good credit. One has to believe this reassuring tone is prompted by the bankruptcies and shaky footing of major companies all over the world, such as the “Big 3” U.S. auto makers.

Siemens introduced the Siplace CPP MultiStar placement head, which switches on-the-fly between high-speed and pick-and-place modes. It effectively eliminates the need for both a chipshooter and an end-of-line pick-and-place machine, performing the tasks of both. Placement “silos” that lack this range slow the production line down and have the added burdens of machine downtime, underutilization, maintenance, etc. The MultiStar head’s flexibility brings it beyond the silo model, yet maintains the accuracy found in dedicated machines.

Solder recovery systems supplier EVS International highlighted the COO advantage of investing in a dross recovery system. Users can cut solder purchasing by 40% in some cases, representing a huge savings in consumables. The system also brings dross management in-house, eliminating a step in the EMS/OEM supply chain that was not controllable by the manufacturers.

CeTaQ Americas, which manufactures machine calibration equipment, emphasized the importance of running in-spec and at top efficiency in an era of tight profit margins. Keeping a paste printing machine at its best level of performance will extend the system’s usefulness and lifetime, delaying investment in new capital equipment. CeTaQ offers all of its equipment as a service as well as for purchase.

Inovaxe also highlighted lean as a way to save money and reduce costs at the assembly house. Inventory management is central to this philosophy. The company showcased its software as a service (SaaS) options, which allow users to track incoming and in-process inventory, eliminate spoilage, and protect sensitive components like moisture-sensitive devices (MSDs). In 2009, manufacturers must find ways to cut out non-value-added time, making each job as profitable as possible.

Human effort can be the largest consumer of non-value-add time, and Europlacer highlighted its camera-based footprint programmer on the inneo placement platform as an example of technology replacing human effort. Parts profiles are obtained via a camera and programming in the inneo system, freeing up operators who would otherwise be drawing in the parts. This also enables more job changeover and more job runs with less downtime.

Cost is by no means the only story coming out of APEX this year. Emerging markets, such as photovoltaics manufacturing, are becoming a complementary focus for some assemblers, and equipment and materials providers are supporting this change. Counterfeit electronics are a hugely important topic, and many new products, from advanced labels by Polyonics Inc. to XRF analyzers by RMD, are coming out to combat the problem. Inspection remains an evolving realm, with some players exiting and others getting more involved in this sector. And the industry can still have fun in bad economic times, as evidenced by the informally dubbed APEX band, which gathered toward the close of Day 1 to play a few songs.

SMT will continue to cover the trends from the show floor at APEX on our Website and in our e-newsletters and issues following the show.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

From the Show: SMT VISION Awards

2009-03-31T08:41:00.002-04:00

Producing and hosting the SMT VISION award program each year involves an immense amount of work, coordination, and planning. But I look forward to the event. Each time some things change — the shape of the award was refreshed this year, for example — and each time certain things stay the same, comprising the principles on which we base the SMT VISION concept. These include independent, anonymous judges from industry, analyst, and academic points of view; product judging based on innovation, cost-effectiveness, speed/throughput improvements, quality, ease of use, maintainability/repairability, and environmental responsibility; and categories reflecting the needs of the industry, to name a few.

You can see the winners of the SMT VISION Awards on SMT’s Website, at SMT Celebrates Products and Services to the Electronics Assembly Industry With SMT VISION Awards. Look for full information on these products in the next issue, May/June SMT, with details on features and benefits offered by each winning product.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

APEX 2009: Anticipation and Expectations

2009-03-30T13:11:00.003-04:00

The IPC APEX Expo in 2008 exceeded most of our expectations for energy, attendance, and peer/customer interaction. Many lauded the move for the tradeshow from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Now in its sophomore year at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, APEX faces a drastically different economic climate: nerves and uncertainty on a grand scale. My bumpy, swaying flight into Vegas was either a metaphor for the feeling of the business world, or simply a free version of the rollercoaster at the New York, New York casino. The APEX show floor will open tomorrow, Tuesday the 31^st, and I am interested to see what APEX brings.

Before we head out to the exhibits, we can set worrying aside and celebrate innovation with the 17^th Annual SMT VISION Awards, taking place tonight. Some of the award judges commented on this year’s entries, noting that new ideas were coupled with price-consciousness and economical operation. Electronics manufacturers naturally gravitate toward lean principles, like low/no waste and efficient operation, and this really has value during tight economic times. Read more about the SMT VISION Awards on SMT’s homepage, smtonline.com, and in the SMT WEEK e-newsletter on Thursday, summarizing the APEX show.

I will be blogging from the show all week, sharing product news, insights from industry experts, and the “mood” on the show floor at this major event for electronics manufacturers.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

For more on APEX 2009, read:
From the Show: APEX Cleaning & Alternatives Subcommittee
Pre-show Preview: IPC APEX Expo
APEX Product Showcase
IPC APEX Expo Preview: Innovative Technology Center, Task Groups, and More
APEX Product Preview
Get Ready for APEX: Preview of Technical Sessions and Noteworthy Events
and see the APEX Product Preview in our March/April issue.

APEX and Universities: The Collaboration is Academic

2009-03-17T11:12:00.007-04:00

SMT has long considered our role to be a teaching magazine, educating electronics assemblers in new technologies or most efficient uses of existing ones. Affirming this commitment to education, we added S. Manian Ramkumar, Ph.D., faculty professor and director at the Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly (CEMA), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), to the Editorial Advisory Board in 2008. Professor Ramkumar has written multiple articles on the intersection of industry and academia, including A Workforce to Support Electronics Industry Growth and Industry Academia Partnerships: Sustaining Growth and Competitiveness. Industry itself is much a product of the universities and technical colleges that fuel it through the production of new methodologies, technologies, and engineers/technicians. I’m looking forward to the Academic Poster Competition, March 31–April 2 at IPC APEX in Las Vegas. Fourteen poster papers from domestic and international learning institutions were selected by the industry association. APEX attendees will vote on the top three posters.

This is IPC’s first year doing the poster competition, according to Tony Hilvers, IPC VP of industry programs, and they received 29 entries. With economies around the world searching for new growth and new ideas, greater industry/academia cooperation seems logical, immediately necessary, and vital. Academic achievement during a period of threatened economic growth and severe unemployment is a matter of bravery and resilience for students and schools willing to invest in an industry’s future. "We looked for innovative original research in accepting the winning posters," said IPC representative Kim Sterling. She adds, "We did it to create more access for the industry to what is currently going on in academic research — to build stronger relationships with the universities. In the past, there was a lot of R&D being done inside OEMs. With outsourcing, that has declined. This is a way of highlighting the R&D that is being done at the university level." Winners of the top three posters will be announced at the IPC APEX EXPO closing keynote on Thursday, April 2.

IPC’s top 14 poster papers are:
“Whisker and Hillock Growth Observed on Pure Sn, Sn-Cu, and Sn-Cu-Pb Electroplated Films” by Aaron Pedigo, Pylin Sarobol, John Blendell, and Carol Handwerker, Purdue University; “Silver-Bismuth Alloys as a High Temperature Lead-Free Solder” by Anthony Muza, Purdue University; and a third Perdue submission, “Utilizing the Thermodynamic Nanoparticle Size Effects for Low Temperature Pb-Free Solder Applications” by John P. Koppes, Purdue University.

“Room Temperature Sintering of Ag Nanoparticle Paste by Chemical Dip Treatment” by Daisuke Wakuda, Osaka University is an international submission, as is “Control of Tin Whisker Growth” by schoolmate Keun-Soo Kim, Osaka University.

The eastern U.S. research belt is well represented, with “Selective Electroless Nickel and Gold Plating of Individual Integrated Circuits for Gold Stud Bump Flip-Chip Attachment” by David Lee, Johns Hopkins University; “Reliability of Standard and Flexible Termination Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors under Temperature-Humidity-Bias Conditions” by Garry Brock and Michael Azarian, University of Maryland; and “Printed Wiring Board Delamination — Some Unique Findings” by John Folkerts, Johns Hopkins University. Also from the East Coast, “Bio-Composites from Chicken Feathers and Plant Oils for Printed Circuit Boards” by Mingjiang Zhan and Richard P. Wool, University of Delaware.

Not to be outdone, West Coast submissions include “The Calculation of Liquidus Temperature for Various BGA/CSP Assemblies” by Jianbiao (John) Pan, California Polytechnic State University and “Fluxless Bonding of Si Chips to Cu Substrates Using Ag-In System” by Pin J. Wang, University of California — Irvine.

One Polish submission will be in the poster competition: “Reliability Tests of Ecological Soldered Joints” by Professor Zdzislaw Drozd, Warsaw University of Technology.

The penultimate poster in our list is also from a European school. “Ink-jet Printed Electronics” by Rostyslav Lesyuk, Werner Jillek, Ewald Schmitt, Yaroslav Bobitski, and Zhen-Guo Yang comes from the National University “Lvivska polytechnika,” Lviv, Ukraine and University of Applied Science in Nuremberg, Germany.

Finally, Taiwan’s academic program is represented by “A Suitability Study for Mechanical Shear and Bend Tests as Alternatives for Thermal Cycling Reliability Test of Electronic Components” by Yeong-Shu Chen, Chen-Tse Fan, and Yu-chun Huang, Yuan-Ze University.

Chicken feathers? Printed electronics? Nano materials? These ventures do not look like the timid offerings of an industry clamming up in hard economic times. The ultimate test will come once these projects and students graduate into the electronics assembly “real world.” I hope we continue to have a flow of information between research and industry reality, as Sterling said, one informing the other, to continue advancement in our field.

Opportunities for learning abound at APEX. Check out these expo and conference events:
IPC APEX Expo Preview: Innovative Technology Center, Task Groups, and More
APEX Product Preview
APEX Products
IPC APEX Expo Preview: Technical Courses and Tutorials
Get Ready for APEX: Preview of Technical Sessions and Noteworthy Events
APEX Update: Designers Summit and Management Meetings
and see the APEX Product Preview in our March/April issue.

Hints of Recovery

2009-03-09T11:24:00.002-04:00

Have you ever noticed that when things are at their worst, you can always find a few hints of a recovery? In the midst of a patch of snow, yellow and purple crocus blooms promise that Spring will follow shortly. Where are the blooms in electronics?

We all agree that recent news seems dire. Early in March, market research company IDC announced that PC shipments would drop 4.5% in 2009. Worldwide PC shipments fell 1.9% in Q’04 2008 following five years of almost uninterrupted double-digit growth, IDC reported. Also check out Henderson Ventures' recent report on the PC sector. As the economic environment continues to deteriorate in 2009, PC shipments are expected to fall by more than 8% in the first half of the year, and gradually improve in Q’04 2009 to a small positive growth, IDC said. Is that a crocus?

Further, the U.S. was the destination for 37% of PC shipments in 2000. In 2008, the U.S. share is down to 23% and emerging markets are up to 49%. So the shift of markets for PCs continues to show. A crocus in the PC market is in notebooks and ultra portable devices. Who thought that the mobile Internet device (MID) would be such a success story for Intel’s Atom processor?

Speaking of Intel, if you only noticed that Intel is closing three assembly test facilities in Southeast Asia, and has cut staff accordingly, you might have missed that it is bringing up a new assembly test facility in Vietnam later this year. Closing older facilities in a slower cycle and investing in a growing, more cost-efficient area is smart business.

Most of us have wandered into Circuit City, if only to drool over the flat screen TVs and generally look for a bargain before that company closed its 567 U.S. stores permanently. How sad to think of all those employees from the nation’s second-largest electronics retailer having to look for employment. How many knowledgable electronics sellers can Best Buy absorb? Some may have sought employment at Staples, since this retailer has begun supplying notebooks and PCs more than ever. And although they don’t claim to be a “genius” crew as Apple uses, the employees in the PC area are hands-on at Staples. Markets are shifting for certain.

For the economy as a whole, even experts are guessing when recovery will begin, though many have come up with a safe Q’01 2010 estimate. Right now, I’m willing to watch for crocus buds until the daffodils, tulips, and forsythia — so to speak — light up the PCB market.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

PCB Design for Manufacturing: Soup to Nuts

2009-03-03T15:32:00.003-05:00

Sunstone Circuits and National Instruments announced a collaboration this week, with National Instruments joining Sunstone’s “ECOsystem design environment” for PCB design. Sunstone is aiming for a design approach that brings customers from disparate CAD files, mechanical layouts, bills of materials (BOMs), and the like into one sleek supply chain that integrates module design, parts ordering, physical planning, and more.

National Instruments adds a new gear to the machine. Customers using NI Multisim and NI Ultiboard can order prototype PCBs via the Sunstone ECOsystem, and Sunstone is hoping more off-the-shelf hardware providers will follow suit. Electronics assemblers are stretched to the limit for resources and resource management, Terry Heilman, president and CEO of Sunstone, explained, and automating the process, eliminating human error and time-wasting activities, is the way to bring PCB design and prototyping into manageable and valuable work schedules. The full news story about National and Sunstone’s collaboration is available on smtonline.com.

Small design problems snowball, classically, causing massive problems at the manufacturing stage. Design for manufacture (DfM) is one of the most important tools prototype/new product designers can use to stay on time and on budget. Consider a disconnect between mechanical and electrical design. At the design phase, with DfM, component height tolerances are established and the finished assembly fits properly in its case when manufactured. Without DfM, one component may be too tall for the PCB’s case, for example. A new component must be substituted, BOMs changed, new parts ordered, etc.

By adding National Instruments to the ECOsystem, Sunstone is amassing companies that specialize in certain areas — National for PCB assemblies, Digi-Key for component sourcing, Screaming Circuits for PCB build — and properly networking them to serve the electronics designer and manufacturer most efficiently and transparently. Fewer people and less time, less waste, lower investment are all goals for the ECOsystem users.

Recently, I was part of a team that launched SMT’s newest sister publication, PVWorld. We launched the Website on schedule, not without any bumps and baubles and retracing our steps. The element that kept work flowing was a close interaction with the website designers, content managers, and other online gurus that instructed us and knew how to resolve every issue that came up. Can it work? Can the new product introduction (NPI) supply chain progress smoothly like a well-oiled machine? It may not happen every time — certain parts are not available through certain distributors, last-minute changes from above may push designers back a step or two, freak snowstorms may hold up a delivery truck on its way to the EMS provider — some wrenches in the gears cannot be helped. But the ECOsystem concept represents an ideal that Sunstone is pushed toward achieving, adding partners at a fast clip, including the most recent National. The ECOsystem works like a consortium product, with all companies contributing toward the goal of DfM.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Goodbye AOI

2009-03-02T19:43:00.003-05:00

Shedding noncore business units is a fairly common, though not overwhelmingly popular (see the latest CFO study by Prime Advantage) method of cutting costs and improving the bottom line. With the international markets fluctuating wildly and manufacturers bunkering down for the economic turmoil, Agilent and Orbotech have divested their automatic optical inspection (AOI) businesses.

This week, Orbotech announced a buyer for their legacy and current-generation AOI systems, choosing Orpro Services s.r.l. Agilent, having announced their divesture just in February 2009, has yet to name a partner, buyer, or other outlet for the AOI and automatic X-ray inspection (AXI) intellectual property (IP) they hold.

Companies outside of the inspection sector have made the change as well. Siemens reorganized its massive business structure, moving electronics assembly machines in with its Drive Technologies division, and moving machine vision to Microscan.

For assemblers and OEMs purchasing capital equipment, the key information is who will service my new, expensive system; where will spare parts, add-ons, and software updates come from; and what useable life can I now expect for the product? With Orbotech’s Orpro Services acquisition, the newly formed company, Orpro Vision, will handle all of these services and follow-ons. For Agilent, decisions are still in the future about where the inspection systems will end up and in what form. The company has provided a dedicated Website, www.agilent.com/find/inspection, for all questions from manufacturers.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Electronics Economics: a Look at the Whole Picture

2009-02-24T10:56:00.004-05:00

If you only followed the semiconductor equipment bookings book-to-bill ratio, news in the electronics sector would be depressing. However, IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries announced less-than-dismal results from its North American Printed Circuit Board Statistical Program.

Last week, the Semiconductor Electronics Association of Japan (SEAJ) reported a book-to-bill ratio for January of 0.55, a new low in a steadily decreasing semiconductor market as compared to 0.70 in December. The ratio is down 80.1% year over year.

Then the North American semiconductor equipment book-to-bill announced a new low in January, dropping to a ratio of 0.48, down from December’s ratio of 0.81, and down year-over-year 54%. “Bookings are at the lowest levels since 1991,” said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI.

In the IPC book-to-bill results, rigid PCB shipments are down 14% and bookings are down 24.5% in December 2008 from December 2007. The book-to-bill ratio fell to 0.89. Flexible circuit shipments in December 2008 were down 17.1%, but bookings are up 23.8% compared to December 2007. The North American flexible circuit book-to-bill ratio in December jumped to 1.08. The combined ratio for rigid and flex in December dipped, but only to 0.90.

“Rigid PCB orders have trailed shipments for nine straight months now, and that is reflected in a declining book-to-bill rate,” said IPC President Denny McGuirk. “Strong orders have been keeping the flexible circuit segment growing, but the whole industry’s December sales were weaker than in prior years. However, the industry ended the year about 1% ahead of 2007,” he concluded.

Business news is primarily negative, but not in every company. Hewlett-Packard, world’s largest PC maker, reported that sales missed experts' estimates. Sales in the year ending in October will fall 2–5% from $118.4 B in 2008.

Mark Hurd, CEO at HP, is eliminating jobs and closing offices, working under the assumption that the economy won’t improve the rest of this year. Hurd’s pay will be reduced 20% as well, and other salaries will be reduced 2.5 to 15%.

On the flip side, at medium-sized EMS providers, business varies. IEC Electronics, a full-service Newark, N.Y.-based EMS provider offering a range of design, prototype, and volume PCB assembly services, announced its Q1 2009 financial results with positive results. Sales increased 25% in 2008. Operating income increased by more than 140%. Net income before tax increased more than 220%. Customers were added in target markets. And the company intends to invest $3.5 million over the next three years in manufacturing equipment to improve productivity, cut rework, and support quality.

In a webcast of the annual shareholders meeting, IEC Electronics revealed their positive numbers, but acknowledged that the world economy is in a deep recession. Part of IEC’s strength is in that the company attracts a diverse group of industries, and the military and medical sectors are holding strong.

There are hopeful signs in all areas that things will improve. PCs may be down; however, sales of mini/ultraportable devices and Midis, iPhones, and other consumer electronics show promise. The only question regarding the turnaround is: When? Patience is a virtue.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

VISION Awards Recognize the Electronics Assembly Industry of Today and Tomorrow

2009-02-17T12:56:00.007-05:00

Technology has a tempestuous relationship with the past. Many people in the electronics assembly industry have been with the technology from the beginning and can wax poetic about the good old days 10, 20, 30 years ago. It’s not that this past, the glory days, is irrelevant, it’s that their memory cannot overshadow the present. To paraphrase a recent visitor to SMT’s offices, outdated business models can be as “old” as 90 days in the past. Electronics were always advanced by manufacturing technology achievements, and under the shadow of global economic uncertainty, today’s innovations — not yesterday’s business models and volumes — deserve recognition. The 17^th annual SMT VISION Awards aim to do just that, looking forward to what the industry can be tomorrow.

Much like Girl Scout Cookies, the awards are given out only once a year, but much anticipated and valued throughout. The SMT VISION awards will be presented in more than 15 categories, ranging from underfills to contract services to test equipment, recognizing the best products to lead the SMT and microelectronics assembly industry into new-generation capabilities, business models, and end products. See the companies honored at the VISION Awards ceremony, March 30, 2009 at APEX Expo, Las Vegas. The party will be held in the Banyan Room D, Level 3 of the South Convention Center at the Mandalay Bay, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, and all are welcome.

Products are qualified to receive VISION Awards by persnickety judges, thoroughly evaluating environmental impact, cost, innovation, and other important factors. Look for VISION awards on display with materials, equipment, software, and other offerings on the show floor at APEX. The award signifies a product’s relevance to the electronics assembly and manufacturing industry today and in the future.

IPC reports that APEX attendee registration is higher than expected, in the midst of the economic troubles. It seems that — at a time when “value” is being redefined for houses, banks, assets of all kinds — the educational and influential value of programs at APEX remains high, unshaken. If you’re attending the show, be sure to soak up as much useful information as possible for the here-and-now of our industry, and apply it to your business model, job, or research. To see the highlights of the technical conference, including SMT’s free forum on EMS trends, read IPC APEX Expo Preview: Technical Courses and Tutorials and Get Ready for APEX: Preview of Technical Sessions and Noteworthy Events.

To see the winning products from the 16^th annual SMT VISION Awards, see the VISION Award Winners.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Solar Energy Efforts Increase: from Research to Production and Final Installation

2009-02-09T13:05:00.005-05:00

Solar energy provides a challenge for almost every aspect of electronics. In basic research, small companies license technology from university-based research to add to the efficiency of solar cells and other areas of photovoltaics production. Some companies provide turnkey manufacturing, marketing, and development for customers entering the solar industry. I toured one such company, GT Solar, to see how they’ve helped improve solar electronics.

Small companies, such as San Jose-based startup Solexant, have licensed materials technology from university-based research to add to the efficiency of solar cells. Solexant licensed materials technology from an advancement under development at a photonics institute at the University of Buffalo that can harvest energy from infrared (IR) light to boost the energy of solar cells.

Under the executive director Paras Prasad, the team from the University of Buffalo plans to harvest energy from infrared and ultraviolet (UV) ranges of the spectrum yet untapped by today’s solar cells. Various projects use tunable quantum dots to absorb IR photons and organize them by coupling like charges to carbon nanotube (CNT) walls. Other projects convert 980-nm IR to visible light to be absorbed by a solar cell.

“We recently showed a capability of harvesting 30% of the IR photons going to a photovoltaic cell,” Prasad said. Since raising efficiencies of solar cells is a major issue in reaching “grid parity,” or costs comprable to those of existing power solutions, the various approaches that the joint venture takes attack the problem from many angles.

For newcomers wishing to get into the solar panel production business, companies like GT Solar in Merrimack, NH, offer everything for a practical turnkey solution. GT is able to equip users with the technical, manufacturing, and marketing experience needed to start up and operate a photovoltaic business. “We have experts creating solutions for all three components of the solar value chain: wafer, cell, and module fabrication lines,” said Keith Matthei, VP, equipment sales (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Keith Mathei, GT Solar, offers equipment for production of photovoltaic equipment piecemeal or in a turnkey method.

At the heart of GT’s equipment is the directional solidification system (DSS) furnace that produces a large segment of the world’s multicrystalline silicon ingots (Figure 2). The DSS furnace grows multicrystalline ingots quickly, cooling from the bottom up. GT has expertise in mechanical design, vacuum and high-pressure chambers, control system design, and crystal growth modeling. By collaborating with University Center of Excellence for Photovoltaic Research and Education at Georgia Tech, University of New Hampshire, and other private and research facilities, GT has been able to improve their products.

Figure 2. GT Solar’s Directional Solidification System (DSS) furnace produces a large segment of the world’s multicrystalline silicon ingots.

Even in tough times, companies recognize the value of renewable energy. On February 5, Timex Group USA Inc. held a dedication ceremony for its recently completed installation of 800 solar panels outside its Middlebury, CT, headquarters as one of the largest ground-mounted solar electric units in the northeastern U.S. As part of the $2.5 million project, 27 rows of 244-kW solar panels were installed on the eastern side of the watchmaker’s property. The photovoltaic system is said to generated 285,439 kilowatt hours per year, avoiding release of more than 6.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide, 28,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 11,000 pounds of nitrogen oxide over the 25-year lifespan of the system. This clean energy project was financed in part through a $920,000 grant from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and tax credits.

Though renewable energy is just now ramping up and getting established in the U.S., the signs of growth can be seen in all areas, from R&D collaboration to practical turnkey assistance, innovative equipment, and current installations.

Gail Flower, editor-at-large

PCB Designers Wielding Power

2009-02-03T09:38:00.006-05:00

PCB design doesn’t occur on the SMT assembly line, but good design is the foundation of every process step, from proper screen printing to optimized pick-and-place. With a good design, not only is the board easy to test, it also passes those tests. This week, Mentor Graphics released HyperLynx PI, a design software program aimed at improving power integrity on the PCB. Power has become a major issue, due to environmental concerns with power sapping, due to device heat and operating time challenges with the rise of mobile devices, due to miniaturization, densification, the list goes on. Noise, voltage drop along traces, current density variation, and other problems occur. John Isaac, Systems Design Division, Mentor Graphics, gives the example of 5-V components. In the past, all ICs on a given PCB ran at 5 V. Today, with densification, higher performance, and miniaturization, a board with all 5-V ICs would be disastrous. Some use 1.2 V, even 0.9 V, and multiple ICs on a board will have multiple power requirements. With all 5-V components, 0.3 V of noise is no issue. Change to 1.2 V, and suddenly 0.3-V noise is disrupting operation. If each power net had its own layer in the circuit board, the result would be a Stone Age design, thick and cumbersome. To keep our devices power-sipping, remote, handheld, economical, etc., PCB designers need to optimize power nets.

When a board has several voltage requirements and a limited layer stack, power nets will be “jigsawed” together on shared planes. “PCB designers can be slammed with more than 30 power distribution networks, requiring split power planes, networks arranged like jigsaw puzzle pieces, and still the requirement to keep nets around their respective ICs and connected to the power inputs,” Isaac explained. The HyperLynx PI tool was created for designers to evaluate and mesh these power requirements, reducing the need for decoupling capacitators, shortening design times and eliminating respins, and improving signal integrity.

HyperLynx PI post-route DC drop: a view of the voltage plane highlighted in the board viewer, along with the results (color map) of the DC voltage drop along that plane.

Two common problems can be discovered and resolved with power integrity analysis: DC voltage drop and current density issues. The HyperLynx PI tool illustrates power distribution networks in such a way that either of these design setbacks is easily found and dealt with. For DC voltage drop, ICs placed a certain distance from the power source are not getting their required voltage. Voltage planes are irregular and full of holes, Isaac notes, and a 1.3 V power source on the bottom left side of the PCB, for example, might go through a 1.2 V power distribution network and lose enough current to fall below the tolerances (typically ±10% for the 1.2-V IC on the right side of the board. The under-voltage condition can cause a variety of IC errors from bit errors to complete failure. Designers can use HyperLynx PI’s color-key map of the board to determine where too little power is getting through, and adjust the bill of materials (BOM), PCB layout, or other elements to improve the design.

HyperLynx 3D current density plot: a 3D plot of the current density on a plane. Areas of high current density can lead to board damage, disconnected power, and possibly fires.

With current density problems, bottlenecks and hot spots are created by concentrating the flow of power too much in one area of the board. When ICs switch or perform various functions, they create a huge current draw, exposing these density problems. Noise and resonance are created by the current, disrupting optimal operation. Designers might solve this through AC analysis, which leads to layout changes, dropping a via into another layer of the circuit board, or adding decoupling capacitors. In HyperLynx PI, designers can again use a color-key map to identify problem areas then try out different solutions, or combinations of solutions. These can be brainstorming sessions, worked out before physical design even begins. Just as good design can be the foundation of good assembly and test, good PCB planning is the foundation of smart, optimized physical board layouts.

Mentor Graphics made the HyperLynx PI tool to cooperate with its signal integrity analysis software suite, HyperLynx SI, recognizing the heightened importance of power in the modern PCB. “Signal and power integrity should be part of the design from the beginning,” Isaac said. The goal of PCB designers should be minimizing layer count, keeping a lid on costs, speeding time-to-market through reduced design time and prototyping, and giving a board the highest possible reliability from the start by managing tolerances and limits. HyperLynx PI was designed to meet all of these goals, and also to be used by typical layout designers and electronic engineers, rather than just power integrity specialists. For more about the tool, see our coverage of the product release, read Mentor Graphics Debuts Power Integrity Analysis.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Obama on Electronics: So Far, So Good

2009-01-26T14:41:00.004-05:00

When a new President takes the oath, you never know quite what to expect. Will he be techno phobic or techno savvy? Will the military side of electronics continue to grow as it did under Bush? Does Obama actually use electronics, like his buzzed-about BlackBerry, much? Does he promote the growth of new areas, such as solar power and other green electronics?

Little by little, favorable responses are emerging. Solar power was touched upon in the inaugural address. On the military side, he has named Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a friend of the defense industry, to continue in that position. He also mentioned that he will increase U.S. ground forces by 65,000 soldiers. It seems to be business as usual in this electronics sector. More soldiers equals more electronics devices, more transport systems, more computers. And local news in that area seems to be positive. On January 19, LaBarge Inc. (http://www.labarge.com/) announced that the company had received $2.9 million in contracts from BAE Systems to manufacture electronic assemblies for its A3 Bradley Combat Systems vehicles; BAE will be well stocked in electronics. Bradley Combat Systems played a central role in Operation Iraqi Freedom and they continue to provide outstanding survivability, mobility, and combat capability to U.S. soldiers in close-combat urban situations as well as in open combat. The Bradley fulfills five critical mission roles: infantry fighting vehicle, cavalry fighting vehicle, fire support vehicle, battle command vehicle, and engineer squad vehicle for the Army's Heavy Brigade Combat Teams. Production on these contracts is expected to continue through June 2009 at LaBarge's Huntsville, Ark., facility.

And is Obama techno savvy? We certainly know that he plans to use his BlackBerry while in office. It was touch-and-go at first. “I want to be able to have voice, other than the people immediately working for me, be able to reach out and … send me a message about what’s happening in America,” he said. Before he was sworn in, the U.S. Secret Service tried to force him to give up this device, thinking that a hacker could possibly break in and gain access to confidential informational that would affect national security. Reportedly, Obama’s BlackBerry is the 8830 World Edition with GPS features, and it is true that virtually no one is safe from unscrupulous hackers. One thing that most voters noticed early on was that Obama supporters communicated quite well, using the internet as a fund-raising and organizational tool. Why give it up now?

Typically, the U.S. Secret Service prohibits the President from carrying any sort of cell phone to minimize security risks. By law, all the president's e-mails must be recorded and made available to the public. It appears that the president has won this battle. Press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed that officials negotiated a secure way for the president to retain his BlackBerry to communicate with senior staff and personal friends just to keep in touch with folks.

Obama also reinforced the need to have all health records digitized within five years to control costs. Have you noticed how many X-rays are already in digital format, saving the high cost of film? Doctors are also carrying around sturdy computers as well in many hospitals. “This cuts waste, eliminates red tape, and reduces the need to repeat expensive medical tests," he said, inferring that the switch also would save lives by reducing the number of errors in medicine. I wonder if they sterilize the keypads.

Obama certainly seems to be the most electronics-aware president that we have ever had in office. Let’s see how that affects the growth of our industry.

Gail Flower, editor at large, SMT

Taking Cue from CES, Window-shop Your Work

2009-01-15T11:43:00.003-05:00

With Macworld and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) generating a modest amount of excitement in the midst of depressing economic indicators, sorting through the new product releases, news wires, and other media outlets has become a mixture of electronics news and online shopping. Hybrid lawn mowers, color-changing iPod-enabled touch-sensor-laden alarm clocks, flexible wrist-worn communicators, and other devices make good use of LED technology, flex circuits, and advanced electro-mechanical design. By far the most hyped new products in this era of tight-belted dour consumers are the thinnest, most mobile PCs and Macs. And while we're talking about hype, let's take a lot at the new crop of green electronics.

Though much of Macworld's buzz focused on the health of Apple founder Steve Jobs, iPods still were the darling of accessory and upgrade providers. Thin, feature-rich, miniaturized computing devices are driving the consumer electronics business; no surprise there. Macworld hosted the debut of Axiotron's Modbook Pro tablet computer. HP unveiled a new mini laptop, HP Mini 2140 Notebook PC, weighing 2.6 pounds. AMD released a platform for ultrathin notebooks, based on the new AMD Athlon Neo processor and ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics. They are targeting "exceedingly thin and light OEM designs with rich entertainment capabilities at an affordable price."

And it isn't just computers. Hitachi's CES showcase included a 50" ultra thin (35 mm) plasma TV prototype and the next-generation 15-mm LCD display prototype with RGB LED back light. Speed and high-quality user experience — meaning rich graphics and interconnectivity — are highly touted on the next generation of mobile devices debuting at the shows. Toshiba, for example, announced support for the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4000 series of graphics processors in its laptops. NEC Electronics America Inc.'s power management IC lineup at CES was tailored to the mobile computing, mobile entertainment device market. Intel highlighted its Centrino 2 processor technology-based systems, as well as a new kind of personal-area network designed to link up cameras, printers, and other Wi-Fi devices around the user.

Toshiba also promoted its Portégé R600 ultraportable laptop PC, with a twist. In addition to portability and capability, the laptop is ranked one of the most eco-conscious laptop computers sold in the U.S., by the federal Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), according to Toshiba. The green electronics trend has indisputably impacted Macworld and CES, with many brands advertising the recyclability and low energy usage of electronic devices. Is this the result of RoHS and similar legislation, or part of the larger green trend sweeping apparel, automotive, flooring, and other industries?

It's important to remember where these products came from — innovative PCB design and prototyping assembly are in evidence across the board — when looking at the finished goods. If you're designing electronic products or manufacturing them for a designer, think like the consumer, or other end user, as often as possible. Will I drop this often? Under what temperature/moisture conditions would this be used? Would I pay this price? More? Less? Most new product introductions (NPIs), if not all, should have a priorities list attached to them: cost, reliability, harsh environment endurance, etc. Thinking like the user rather than the fabricator can help us hone these priorities to more exacting assessments.

While thinking like the consumers of electronic products, you might want to check out the winners in the Crunchies, an Internet-voting-based awards program for compelling new technologies, interfaces, and tech businesses. Thinking like an electronics consumer can be fun, and it also can help your electronics design and manufacturing business in intangible ways.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

The Outreach Spirit

2009-01-15T11:40:00.002-05:00

One of the best parts of our industry is the spirit of cooperation, camaraderie, and outreach that seems to embody all that’s best in human nature. Even in rough financial times people seem to find the time to give of their expertise. At every major tradeshow our magazines present a panel discussion to add to the program, for instance, and there are always companies willing to step up and participate in our programs, from the package-to-board assembly one this year at SMTAI, to the A-Line assembly set-up and discussion at IPC Midwest, to the board to package challenges at IPC Midwest, to the future panel on EMS business issues at APEX and many more. As a magazine, we have no commercial reason to participate, but we do so because it spreads the knowledge in another word format, other than written or digital. For the many companies sharing their experts, their equipment, their time, it’s good exposure for them, but at the same time they’re going out of their normal work pattern and contributing.

I recently returned from a cooperative effort with MEPTEC that helped them celebrate their 30^th anniversary with a program titled, Packaging Developments and Innovations: From System Design to Integrated Delivery. We recruited the keynote speaker, Glenn Daves, director of packaging technology, Freescale, and many of the other presenters. My session, “Package-to-Board Assembly Trends,” featured Lee Smith, VP of business development at Amkor, who talked about challenging applications driving package innovations; Adrian Murphy, product engineering manager at STATS ChipPAC, who presented on flip chip packaging trends and opportunities; and Gheorghe Pascariu, business development manager at Unovis, who talked about high-speed placement of wafer-level devices using SMT equipment. Approximately 140 people attended this day-long seminar in San Jose with four sessions, tabletop exhibits and a keynote luncheon. Every one of us learned about more than just his or her own segment of the industry, and the common sharing enriched us all. JoAnn Stromberg of the SMTA was in the audience as a goodwill boost to MEPTEC to help celebrate the 30th year of MEPTEC’s existence and to pick up ideas between organizations. At the evening, end of day reception, local visitors came who couldn’t make the many day-long educational sessions. Everyone left with a book, a CD, some business cards, a few new friends, and a little more knowledge.

At times when traveling to conferences in China, Europe, or Japan, landing in impressive airports that are clean, modern, and organized, riding on their state-of-the-art fast trains, I wonder why some of our airports seem to be so broken down, out of date, along with our transportation infrastructure. Perhaps our helping hands and active intelligence should reach inward to fix what’s wrong right here by working on the “grid” energy supply structure. The same spirit of outreach which our industry embodies can also be applied to the problems at hand: renewable energy, transportation infrastructure, healthcare, environment protection, child care and family support and so many other necessary basics. We can do this.

One electronics company claims, “We make things smarter.” But it’s not just knowing what to do, it’s the basic nature of wanting to contribute, wanting to share and apply the knowledge that improves the world around us that matters. If we are ever to recover the dream of democracy and capitalism, we must first apply the knowledge that we have to hard work, education, and the desire to leave behind a better life for those who follow. The next year may be a tough one for the whole world economically, but I have no doubt that we can face it with renewed determination, intelligence, hard work, and still keep the spirit of sharing and caring for one another intact.

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief

Make the Most of Outsourcing Partnerships

2009-01-15T11:36:00.001-05:00

Outsource partnerships exist in just about every sector of the global economy, but a substantial portion of the outsourcing industry is electronic and electrical manufacturing. With economic worries stifling growth, outsourcing is a useful way to add resources without increasing staff, training, facility, and other costs. Contractors, outsourcing partners, and design-and-build partners can fill niches across the board. How do you end up with a successful outsourcing partnership for both the IP owner and the contract/outsource affiliate? John Bourneuf and Wayne LeBlanc of Belcan Engineering Group discuss the right ways to outsource, partner with OEMs and designers, and define supplier/manufacturer relationships.

Bourneuf, GM of Belcan's operations in Lynn, Mass.; and LeBlanc, business development manager for the Special Equipment Engineering Division (SEED) in Solon, Ohio, presented the SMTA Boston Chapter with "Successful Partnering With an Advanced Engineering Resource Company — To Complete Advanced Technology Projects On-time and Within Budget." They stress shared governance and buy-in for a project from both the contracted team and the intellectual property (IP) holder. For example, an EMS provider taking on a high-reliability power electronic assembly project with box build must have the knowledge, skills, workforce, and communication infrastructure to interact with the power supply OEM about design, project budget, certification/product test, etc. This reminded me of our EMS Trends panel at IPC Midwest, where we heard advice on the EMS/OEM relationship. Established metrics to track a project are essential for both parties, Bourneuf stressed. Other aspects — IP security, cost analysis, locations — should be discussed before the project starts, not as they potentially disrupt the manufacturing flow.

We've seen some high-profile outsourcing disasters in the EMS market, particularly involving high-reliability/high-security assemblies, such as those for medical or military products. To prevent disaster and to profit, protect IP. "Safeguarding information is the lifeblood of successful outsourcing," Bourneuf noted.

Customers must also be confident in your knowledge and expertise in the niche they are handing over to you. Knowledge gained in one project can apply to another challenge, provided that this isn't spread from one company to their competitor, advised LeBlanc. Another aspect to consider is risk — high-pressure prototyping work, tight cost margins, and lucrative but not guaranteed contracts are just a few examples of the risk inherent in most products. Recently, TFI began promoting a partnership concept called "success sharing" that divvies up risk and profits with a new perspective.

Bourneuf and LeBlanc concluded their talk with several examples of outsourcing partnerships, from complete design-through-build, to manufacturing one aspect of a system, to redesigning and adding onto an existing assembly. If it exists, it potentially can be outsourced. If you're considering outsourcing projects, determine what your core competencies are and partner with strong companies to fill gaps in other areas. If you take on contracts from IP holders, clarify your strengths so your offering is more than just services. You fill a niche to make that company stronger.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Bourneuf and LeBlanc may be contacted at www.belcanautomation.com.

Inside EFD's Solder and Dispense Equipment Manufacturing Operations

2009-01-15T11:30:00.003-05:00

The open house to commemorate EFD Inc.'s new solder paste and dispensing equipment manufacturing facilities and headquarters in East Providence, R.I., fell on an astonishingly beautiful wintery day, right after a vicious ice storm. With power knocked out across the New England region, important trappings such as digital camera, business cards, and my cell phone were trapped in SMT's New Hampshire office, which was locked down with power lines strewn about the roads. After an unsuccessful attempt to break in, I set off for East Providence, to tour the expanded EFD location with senators, the governor of Rhode Island, and other distinguished guests.

Left to Right: EFD president Peter Lambert, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, East Providence Mayor Joseph Larisa Jr, and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri.

EFD was founded in 1963, and to commemorate this, EFD's employee with the most longevity, Laurie Higgins, cut the ribbon in the open house ceremony. More than 200 employees run EFD in R.I., and president Peter Lambert was frank about their contribution. Relocating to the larger facility was necessary for the growth of the company, he stated, but just as important was keeping the skilled and knowledgeable workforce EFD has built up in the Providence area. Their contribution to the economic and social well-being of the local area was evident. Governor Donald Carcieri, who was a competitor of EFD's when he worked in the metals industry, commended EFD for keeping manufacturing jobs in the state. Other government representatives echoed this sentiment, and Mayor Joseph S. Larisa, Jr., declared December 12^th "EFD Day" in the city. While the glowing speeches from state and city officials, economic development directors, and the like were impressive to hear, I was eager to tour the manufacturing areas resultant from EFD's investment in the location. This facility combines four prior operations into one cohesive building.

EFD is a unique company, in that it manufactures solders as well as the dispensing equipment for solder paste, adhesive, and other fluids. In the customer demo lab, I saw everything from manual dispensing cartridges to EFD's automatic, non-contact jetting system. Customers can send EFD their materials and goals, and the engineers in the lab will develop dispensing parameters for them, sending back specifications and video from the demo lab. Other new areas included a display of tips, valves, and syringes outside of that manufacturing area for these products. Standard and custom syringes and other components are fabricated here. Various sizes of one component, such as pistons, are designated by color. The manufacturing equipment targets high-precision, high-quality plastics, with additions like HEPA filters to limit the possibility of scratches or irregular surfaces. EFD also attaches tips to barrels for customers, a service that is growing in popularity. Components can be packaged into dispensing "kits," including the barrel, tip, piston, and end cap. EFD does three kinds of fluid packaging: their own products, custom dispensing applications for customers, and packaging for their solder products.

In the solder manufacturing room, EFD engineers explained that they make a huge range of solder paste formulations, and also will tweak formulae to meet a new requirement brought by a customer. "If we develop a formula for one specification, such as high-reliability, we apply that knowledge to other applications, such as high-end consumer PCB assemblies," elaborated EFD's representatives. Even further, an alloy developed for rapid reflow properties may serve the hand soldering market as well. This kind of solder development and new product engineering takes place next to the raw materials supply, mixing, and quality assurance testing for existing solder formulations, so the opportunity for knowledge sharing and co-development is rich. In fact, across every area of the new facility — accounting, syringe manufacturing, shipping, etc. — employees lauded the ease of communication enabled by the combined and modernized operations. Similar to the customer demo lab in the dispensing area, the solder labs include a reflow oven, screen printer, and other equipment to test out processes and optimize alloys. Customers can call on EFD to tweak a reflow profile, for instance, or to resolve a soldering issue with new parameters, or a new alloy when necessary.

Molding and tip assembly supervisor Steve Costa explains how to identify a high-quality dispensing tip.

Since EFD produces very different product groups in solder pastes and dispensing vehicles, they accordingly use different methods to stock and ship product. Both are designed for efficiency and accuracy, and cater to the needs of the product. For nonperishable dispensing systems — tips, cartridges, etc. — lean manufacturing methodologies of Kanban and heijunka were implemented. Kanban is a color-coded system to keep manufacturing and shipping on the same page, so to speak, about stock levels and customer demand. Heijunka is a leveling system that helps eliminate order surprises. In the perishable solders and fluxes area, customer replenishment is all about measured turns and low inventory, keeping fresh solder at the electronics manufacturing facilities. Shelf-life-related issues are wasteful for the customer, and thus for EFD, they explained. The company also will fill small orders for producers such as military/aerospace electronics manufacturers, which typically do not use a set amount of solder at regular intervals.

Touring EFD's East Providence campus was very much like a two-for-one visit — injection molders for the dispensing cartridges in one room, paddle mixers for the solder alloys in another. It is a testament to organization and employee enthusiasm that the two sides of EFD come together seamlessly in the building, and also collaborate effectively in applicable areas, such as solder paste packaging. The operations are streamlined, efficient, and productive. And there's still room for more, as the investments in equipment for quality testing, product packaging, warehousing, etc., are ongoing. Lean manufacturing practices are evident across the board, and EFD is reaping the benefits of a business mindset that prizes efficiency in-house over outsourcing.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Dross: Waste, Revenue Source, or Just Another Process to Optimize?

2009-01-15T11:26:00.000-05:00

Dross, a byproduct of wave soldering, is often thought of as waste, a residue that forms on the surface of a metal from oxidation that looks bubbly and is filled with metal impurities. This mass of solid impurities floating on molten metal in wave solder machines can be removed from the process, and recycled by shipping to the recycling site of an outsourced processor or in-house using specialized equipment. With the use of lead-free alloys, the need to recycle now has a monetary consideration as well. EVS International's Simon Norman gives a concise comparison of in-house or outsourced considerations based on the experience of TT electronics plc.

There are a lot of companies that provide help with dross. EVS solder recovery systems (www.solder-recovery.com) are said to be able to recover as much as 75% of solder from dross by weight in a 10-minute cycle. Since a clean wave system is the goal, this is one way to add efficiency and eliminate waste. And there are others as well.

Greeley, Colo.-based FCT Recovery (www.fctrecovery.com) works with customers on recovering metals from dross. Customers ship leaded and lead-free dross to FCT and the processor pays them a competitive price for this recyclable scrap.

Los Angeles, Calif.-based P. KAY Metals (www.pkmetals.com) has a material called MS2 that does not mix with solder, but is added to the solder to eliminate dross formation. This is said to substantially lower waste formation.

Other factors affect the amount of dross produced. Denis Barbini, Ph.D., of Vitronics Soltec (www.vitronics-soltec.com) explains that optimizing the wave solder operation so that pot temperature and wave turbulence are in spec creates less dross in the first place. He adds that this should always be the first step in dross control. The less dross produced, the lower the waste recycling need.

Other experts mentioned excessive flux on the PCB, which is carried into the wave, contributing to dross production. A nitrogen blanket over the solder pot also helps control dross creation by lowering oxidation. There are many ways to attack the problems related to dross, so how could I leave out the literary method?

Limerick to Dross
EMS had a problem with dross,
Which caused a considerable loss.
Outsourced or inside,
Where the problem resides,
Must act like a rolling stone that will carry no moss.

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief

See comments on this article from dross expert Ray Chartrand, in his letter to the editor. Click Here

How Can We Benefit from What’s Happening in Solar?

2009-01-15T11:23:00.002-05:00

I’m writing to you from Belgium-based IMEC, an independent research center that bridges the gap between fundamental university research and technology development in industry. I came to learn more about solar cells and how PCB manufacturing and assembly knowledge might transfer to other areas, expanding our market in interesting ways.

The recently reported 40% annual growth rate in photovoltaics (PV) is enough to draw attention to that market. I talked to Paul Heremans, department director of nano-engineered component science and technology at IMEC. At IMOMEC, an associated lab located on the Hasselt University campus, IMEC is working on a reproducible process for high-efficiency organic solar cells using Plextronics’ Plexicore materials and inks. According to Heremans, the method to stabilize the nanomorphology of organic solar cells results in a lifetime improvement of at least a factor of 10. By creating stabilized solar cells, this breakthrough paves the way to commercial organic solar cells with an operational lifetime of more than five years and efficiencies of more than 10%, IMEC’s present goal.

However, the efficiency and operation of organic solar cells depends on the nanomorphology of the active layer. A stable mix of organic compounds in the active layer that can trap the light’s energy and transport it to an electric contact is a large boost towards a robust organic-based cell that can be mass manufactured. IMEC/IMOMEC’s latest method and new conjugated polymers for stabilizing the active layer have shown no degradation of efficiency after more than 100 hours. The cells achieved efficiencies near 4%, state-of-the-art for this type of cell. IMEC is driving for organic multi-junction solar cells with an efficiency of 10% by 2012.

“Right now, it’s all about finding better materials and combinations of materials, not to mention industry partners for making the most robust solar product,” adds Heremans.

IMEC started working on solar cells in 1984 with crystalline silicon (Si) as the backbone of its photovoltaic activities. Crystalline Si solar cells still command 90% of the solar market. And although other options also are important, R&D on crystalline Si solar cells forms a fundamental part of IMEC’s photovoltaic research. This type of cell uses techniques that are closer to front-end electronics manufacturing: doping, metallization, wafer thinning, and thin-film processing. Fabs, not EMS manufacturers, have a firm grip on these processes. But the organic materials side of things, using and printing inks, would seem a natural technology transfer for our PCB board-assembly process, once the process stabilizes.

Now, as I ponder this information during the long trip home from Belgium, I can’t help but think of the creative things that EMS providers already do that are just amazing. Many have taken on test and programming previously done by the OEM customer. Others now can go into the stacking of package-on-package (PoP) devices. Many handle final box builds on-site. And the medical side of board build goes way beyond flexible circuits and cleanroom manufacturing. What’s one more challenge to our industry? Just one more mountain to climb.

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief

The Restructuring Supply Chain

2009-01-15T11:12:00.002-05:00

The reorganization effort is underway across the supply chain lately, as the home loan collapse snowballed into the credit crunch, which in turn has snowballed into the global financial crisis. Respondents to our 2009 forecast question, "How can PCB assemblers cut costs in 2009?" unanimously pointed to smart management and lean manufacturing. Growth is achievable in a down market, with brain power and strong organization, and sacrifice. Companies from Camtek to Rockwell Collins announced cost-cutting plans of late, proving that no sector or industry will escape the situation rocking the global financial markets. Even Harvard University is troubled, as the school is facing worries related to the "roiling turbulence" of global finance, as university president Drew Faust puts it.

A company's realignment, restructuring, or reorganization can affect their customers, their suppliers, and their market. What are we committed to saving? R&D, surprisingly. Not only will companies retain and increase R&D spending, but some will partner more with third-party research institutes. As European research group IMEC sees it, collaborative research reduces not just the cost of R&D, but the risk associated with it. Especially since not all experiments result in success. However they do it, companies are taking pains to preserve their ability to innovate. Let's take a look at the recent announcements from major companies and what impact they might have.

AOI provider Camtek Ltd. implemented a cost reduction plan, one element of which involves reducing its global work force by about 55 employees. This reduction represents about 12% of the company's total workforce. "We have preserved our R&D capabilities to position ourselves for the future recovery of our markets," said Rafi Amit, Camtek's CEO, adding that "the inspection industry will be driven by technological advanced during the economic slowdown." He pointed out that customers rely on support from their suppliers even more in these times than normal, so targeted product development must coincide with efforts on technical support. Read more about the restructuring at camtek.co.il.

Cadence Design Systems Inc. began a restructuring program to focus the design software company's strategy, streamline business, and improve operational execution and financial performance, representatives explain. The design software company expects to achieve annual operating expense savings of at least $150 million through a combination of workforce and other expense reductions. They will eliminate at least 625 fulltime positions, representing 12% of its global employee base, plus a substantial number of contractors and consultants. The restructuring plan emphasizes market segments where Cadence foresees tangible rewards, such as mixed-signal design, advanced verification, and low-power design, said Charlie Huang, senior VP, member and chief of staff of the interim office of the chief executive. Cadence decided to focus on core business areas, and says that it will continue to address the needs of semiconductor and electronic systems design customers. See more at www.cadence.com.

Two major equipment suppliers, Siemens and Assembléon, also face restructuring efforts. Siemens obviously has the larger task, as the company-wide trimming will touch on many divisions within and without the electronics manufacturing supply chain. Read the full story in our November issue News. MSD handling products provider Totech previously announced the restructuring of their Americas organization with the formation of Totech Universal and the appointment of Protean Marketing to manage the new company.

High-reliability electronics OEM Rockwell Collins produced a cost reduction plan to manage the impact of the economic downturn, such as air travel declines, delays and cancellations in several government programs, and the prolonged Boeing strike, according to Rockwell Collins chairman, president, and CEO Clay Jones. Rockwell Collins will reduce discretionary spending, delay merit increases, manage current staffing levels, lay off approximately 300 employees across the company and reduce the number of contract laborers by approximately 100 people. This layoff represents an estimated 1.5% of the current workforce. Operations staff will see the largest percentage of layoffs, Rockwell Collins reports, while contract laborers will be trimmed out primarily in the engineering area. Every department is working on plans to implement the cost-cutting measures, explained Pam Tvrdy, company spokeswoman. Reducing workforce by less than 2% is mild compared to most restructuring plans underway in the industry, so Rockwell Collins will need to pull more money out of related cut backs, like discretionary spending and pay raises, if their plan is going to be significant. While Rockwell Collins has reduced its originally projected 2009 R&D budget, funding levels in this area will still grow modestly compared to 2008. "R&D is absolutely necessary to remain competitive in the current global economy. We take great pride in the fact that on average investment in R&D spendings approximately 20% of our total sales," reports Tvrdy. Learn more at www.rockwellcollins.com. Back on Halloween, United Press International reported that Motorola Inc. would lay off 3,000 workers as part of a plan to save $800 million, citing CEO Greg Brown. About 2,000 layoffs would come from the OEM's mobile phone division, and Motorola may postpone its planned breakup, offering no date for when the company would split into two. The previously announced target date for spinning off the company's cell phone division was October 2008.

Even peripheral supply chain companies will impact your daily operations at manufacturing facilities. For example, shipping company DHL will restructure, phasing out its domestic freight to focus on international transport, targeting phase-out by January 2009. The restructuring measures will reduce U.S. operating costs by over 80%; 71% of all international shipments to and out of major metropolitan areas in the U.S. will see improved service levels. The company foresees an "extremely challenging 2009," said John Mullen, global CEO of DHL Express. DHL's U.S. Express business will discontinue domestic-only air and ground products. As a result of the change, DHL Express will close all of its U.S. ground hubs, reduce the number of stations from 412 to 103 and retain 3,000 to 4,000 U.S.-based employees serving DHL's international express customers.

Semiconductor and electronics supply companies, like Sun Microsystems and Orbotech, are announcing massive restructuring plans seemingly every day. Others like Intel began making changes back in 2006. Even if a company is in sound standing, investors or equity holders may not have such strong balance sheets, and the company can be altered as a result. As more companies go into restructuring phases to protect themselves or realign with the current market, the industry will evolve and change as well. Unfortunately, you cannot assume your business is bullet-proof because your financials and operations are in good order. As Camtek's Amit put it, "This [global slowdown] is a situation we have never before faced. We should review our strategy daily and act as necessary." Widespread volatility can and has devalued companies by faulty association to the financial crisis, or simply through investor panic, so vigilance and awareness are in order. Strong relationships with suppliers and customers can minimize disturbance to the manufacturing floor and inventory rooms.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

The Evolution of Start-ups: Nextreme Meets Its Market

2009-01-15T11:07:00.002-05:00

Start-up technology companies don't have it easy. They face an uphill battle from the start, with strong competition, limited access to resources, and — sometimes — a market that isn't yet ready for their offering. Recently, we spoke with Paul Magill, Ph.D., VP of marketing and business development at Nextreme, to learn about their new agreement with Voxtel Inc. The company will be incorporating Nextreme's OptoCooler UPF4 thermoelectric cooler into its VDHAX line of avalanche photodiode (APD) receivers. This marks a new phase in Nextreme's evolution as a company, says Magill, asserting that the market is now ready for the thermal management advances they can provide.

The APDs suit military laser radar and optical communications, as well as commercial telecommunication applications. Adding OptoCooler thermal management to the component improves efficiency, mitigates noise, enhances the spectral and frequency response; improves overall gain, adds reliability and a longer life span, and saves space on the board. This device, if equipped with traditional cooling technology, like a bulk eTec, would be too large for most modern PCB designs in these sectors, Magill explained. Using the company's thin-film thermal bump technology, the OptoCooler UPF4 was integrated directly into the VDH-A TO-8 package. This solution delivers more than 45°C of cooling during operation, removing a maximum of 610 mW of heat at 85°C ambient in a 0.55 mm² active footprint. As the market for denser, smaller PCBs in telecom applications grows, Nextreme is targeting it directly with the miniaturized Tecs, requiring no additional circuitry or board space.

Voxtel's APDs integrate the Nextreme OptoCooler technology.

APD performance usually is limited by thermally generated noise, which can be reduced by cooling the chip. The OptoCooler UPF4 and OptoCooler UPF40, for LED applications, pump heat at rates of 0.4 and 4.0 W/cm², respectively. APDs can multiply the signal produced by incident light by as much as 100 million times, enabling photon detection at very low light levels. Cooling an optical device also makes the LED brighter, Magill said, and the LEDs get an extended lifecycle with the improved heat-to-light energy output ratio.

This isn't the only news coming out of Nextreme these days. Sensitive to market demand, the company developed non-lead-based solder processes for use in manufacturing its thin-film thermoelectric products. As the replacement for leaded solder, Nextreme is using a gold/tin (AuSn) alloy, which they say maintains joint strength and thermal conductivity. With a melting point of 278°C, AuSn permits standard processes to integrate Nextreme devices into photonic, microelectronic, and optoelectronic device packages (laser diodes, semiconductor optical amplifiers and sensors, etc.) and to operate at higher temperatures. This higher melting point, along with established use in the optoelectronics market, proved the alloy's suitability for their micro-scale thermoelectric products.

As a growing start-up company, Nextreme has gone through many phases. Defining what kind of company they are — a component fabricator, an intellectual property (IP) provider, or something else entirely — was dictated as much by the market as it was by the company. Keeping to its core thermal management technology and adapting to the trends of environmentally friendly production, cost-effectiveness, and miniaturization are paying dividends. So long as the company remains agile, they will continue to provide us with new products, technologies, and applications that are in step with the needs of electronics assemblers.

And on a side note, as you're reading this editorial, we have a new President Elect in the U.S. I won't bombard you with any partisan talk, but I do have one question. How happy will you be when you turn on a radio or TV without encountering any campaign ads? That's a win for everyone.

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

For a packaging perspective on our interview with Nextreme's VP of marketing and business development, see Advanced Packaging's coverage.

The Willingness to Take on Big Challenges

2008-10-30T12:16:00.005-04:00

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief
The EU's new chemical regulation — Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) — requires companies producing in or exporting to the EU to register chemicals they place in the EU market in amounts above one metric ton. EU officials will evaluate whether companies registering these chemicals have demonstrated safe production and use of them. Chemicals identified as substances of very high concern (SVHCs) are subject to authorization by the EU.

The first list of SVHCs contained 16 substances; however, in response, European environmental nongovernment organizations (NGOs) have developed a list of 300 chemicals that meet the SVHC criteria, named the SIN List 1.0. SIN stands for "substitute it now," reflecting a concern for finding safe alternatives when possible. The 1.0 denotes that the list is not finished yet, but is just the first public attempt to identify chemicals that qualify as SVHCs falling under the concerns of REACH. This information all is provided by the Environmental Defense Fund.

But how will REACH impact U.S. companies? SIN-listed chemicals are actively in commerce in the U.S. Approximately 80% of the SIN list chemicals also appear on the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory. More than 85 SIN list chemicals are produced annually in amounts of one million or more pounds, 14 exceed one billion pounds each year. More than 173 companies produce or import SIN List chemicals in the U.S. At present, only about a third of the SIN chemicals have been tested under TSCA. And two of these chemicals have been subjected to TSCA regulation under narrow conditions. Approximately one third of the SIN chemicals on the TSCA inventory have been subject to testing or data development programs.

The EU's REACH intends to allow the use of SIN chemicals on a specific case-by-case basis; the U.S. Environmental Production Agency (EPA) has taken limited activity to address these chemicals. For the hundreds of companies in the U.S. that produce or import these chemicals designated as dangerous by the EU, the response to this new chemical regulation may be severe.

Why do we wait for the EU to set up the rules for environmental controls? Because the U.S. produces, imports, and exports these chemicals, shouldn't these same firms or regulating agencies have the most knowledge of and interest in safety, controls, and usage? Most people and firms do not like being bullied into action, but they like being a leader in this area and part of the solution. Did we lose our groove after 9/11, as Thomas Friedman contends in Hot, Flat, and Crowded? Surely those who have the most to lose should be those who with knowledge of control close at hand, even if they do not propose controls directly.

The information on which SIN list chemicals are in commerce in the U.S., who produces them, which chemicals have been tested under TSCA, which have been regulated by the EPA, and the list of SIN List chemicals is available to all. As anyone who visits our public libraries knows, readers are leaders. For more leadership in these areas, read the report "Across the Pond: Assessing REACH's First Big Impact on U.S. Companies and Chemicals," Sept. 2008, www.edf.org/acrossthepond.

EMS Trends

2008-10-30T12:00:00.007-04:00

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Bringing together the A-Line on-the-conference-floor assembly line for producing a sample board at IPC Midwest with IPC, The Morey Corp., and our equipment providers gave me a unique insight into the amount of work that goes into every PCB assembly manufactured. To dig deeper into the EMS industry, I chaired a panel of EMS providers at the show in September. The speakers provided concise advise for keeping EMS lines running efficiently and keeping OEM customers on track and happy, for product development, project launch/new product introduction (NPI), manufacturing, and program management. Concise, efficient, and resourceful. What else would you expect from this industry?

Presenters included Susan Mucha of Powell-Mucha Consulting, Kevin Stone of Kimball Electronics Group, James Scholler of MEC Innovation, and Ross Clark of The Morey Corporation. Major trends in the EMS industry included robust product launch/new product introduction (NPI), communication and awareness with the customer and your supply chain, and resource and risk responsibilities.

Jim Scholler, VP of technology of Milwaukee Electronics Companies (MEC), presented on the development of knowledge that the EMS company needs to gather from many sources, beginning with suppliers, to produce boards smoothly. Though the ideal situation would be to transfer knowledge to EMS providers so that they have 100% of what's needed to do a run on the first day, most likely that won't happen. Product knowledge transition starts with the customer. Traditionally, batches of knowledge are transferred from one stage to the next. Because of the need to reduce time-to-market, several steps need to be shortened; BOM completion, tooling release, supply chain setup, and material completion all need to have knowledge transferred earlier. Scholler developed flexible stage gates with sign-offs at various points. "If we're going to keep things moving, we've got to get out of the batch delivery stages," Scholler explained. He identified freeze gates incorporated on the critical path, an ever growing list of features frozen (not documents) to keep the project flowing. Package design, suppliers, equipment manufactures must all be part of the equation. Kevin Stone, director of business development, public safety, Kimball Electronics Group, presented some other useful tips for NPI, like the concurrent development model. This keeps production from being held up waiting on materials to come in. If an EMS provider is working with lean or Kan Ban, then it might takes a long time to line up everything early because items aren't on line already in back inventory. Responsibility has to be frozen at critical points to assign responsibility to know who will do what when in an EMS environment to build a product successfully on time and at budget.

Sue Mucha, author of Find It. Book It. Grow It. A Robust Process for Account Acquisition in Electronics Manufacturing Services, and president of Powell-Mucha Consulting, discussed outsourcing and good business relationships. Mucha's advice for the EMS/OEM community revolved around resources. What elements of producing an electronic assembly do you have resources for? What could you do better if you had ample support? "The reality is that even small EMS providers should be able to provide full support to their customers," Mucha explained. OEMs can justify the cost of "additional" services like lifecycle support and design for excellence (DfX) by outsourcing them to the more experienced and more efficient EMS provider. EMS providers already have established relationships with each link in the supply chain, making production times faster and sourcing smoother. As Scholler stated, a deliverable is whatever is of value to the customer. A feasibility audit isn't needed, but design for test is, for example. By outsourcing these aspects to the EMS provider, the OEM is "purchasing" resources without having to dedicate personnel or training to that element of their product, added Mucha.

Stone drew from his experience in engineering and high-reliability markets when he discussed the importance of a robust product launch. A new product introduction can be a new product on the market, a new product for that EMS provider, or even a new product for a particular facility of that EMS provider. Stone pointed out that sooner is always better with measures like design for test (DfT) and design for manufacturability (DfM). "Once you're past the PCB fabrication stage, it is almost too late for DfM/DfT," he asserted. Automation always is better than manual tasks when you're looking for DfM success.

Ross Clark, marketing manager, The Morey Corp., was SMT and IPC's main contact point for developing the keychain PCBA that IPC Midwest attendees took away from the A-Line. His role in orchestrating a cohesive line with all new machines from four different equipment suppliers shaped his presentation about role definition. We had to figure out how to talk to each other, between the machines and the operators, he explained. Time was the most important factor in preparing the product and the assembly line itself. Feature-richness and board complexity decisions were dictated by this important parameter, Clark explained, to ensure that we had a board built to specifications in time for the tradeshow. Awareness of your clients' particular needs and processes is crucial, agreed all of our presenters. Scholler talked about the critical components in a design including boundary scan to illustrate the EMS provider's middle-ground role from supply chain to customer. An assembly house doesn't deal with boundary scan because it's already built in. However, the EMS supplier needs to know how to use boundary scan because it can save on board space.

Mucha also explained the crucial nature of risk ownership. Documentation at each step in the manufacturing process can help prove liability for field failures, for instance. OEM investment in product testing can pay off in mitigated failure risk. Risk, waiting periods, and manual assembly tasks all should be eschewed during the design phase, Stone added. Streamlining the product launch early allows you to define production benchmarks and create accurate lead time expectations for customers. However liability is divvyed up, make sure the terms are clear before production begins. If both the OEM customer and the EMS provider are trying to "win" during contract negotiations, aiming for a large short-term profit, neither company is going to be happy with the relationship. Each presenter underscored this point. If open communication and clear terms are not part of the production agreement or contract, the customer relationship will be strained, possibly costly, and possibly will endanger the success of the product being assembled.

In my day-to-day work, I'm not designing and building electronic assemblies, though that is what's constantly on my mind. I jump at the chance to peek over the shoulders of line operators, board designers, project managers, and so on at OEMs and EMS providers. In planning and executing this A-Line and EMS Trends panel, I got the chance to virtually sit down at their desks, thumb through their contracts, listen in on their strategies. What did I learn? You can't build a good board without a good business working around you, and vice versa.

Communication is key in any industry. Being a media outlet for the electronics assembly community, we at SMT understand the vital role communication plays in moving industry forward, increasing productivity and technological capability, and getting your job done. Each EMS provider on our panel serves a different niche of the electronics market, be it prototype development for new products or ruggedized assemblies, etc. Each share a common goal — to develop deep, open, and continuous relationships with their customers so that both are profitable, productive, and expanding. If you're looking for the broadest trend in the EMS industry, there it is in a nutshell.

SMT will be chairing a second EMS panel, next year at APEX in Las Vegas. "Industry Cost Challenges: EMS Solutions," will present case histories and lessons learned to attack common problems, like ensuring component integrity while filling gaps in the supply chain, and downshifting products from high to lower volumes.

An Engineer Thinks Out Loud

2008-10-30T11:51:00.005-04:00

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief

How we react to changes is almost instinctive. Basically, it’s fight or flight for everyone, but between industries there are remarkable adaptive strategies. An unexpected conversation with an engineer sitting next to me on a cross-country flight reminded me of the resourceful resilience of those in our field.

I was returning from visiting friends in California when thoughts about survival strategies crept into my mind. One of the most memorable stops of the trip was to the aquarium in Monterey Bay where swarms of sardines swam together to avoid being eaten by the larger fish. Sunlight reflected off the wall of silver they made while turning from one direction to another. Not only could they flash turn, but also cram into a dense ball, then scatter explosively, and then reform into the pattern. According to the aquarium’s explanation, schools of fish are more difficult to hunt because medium-size predators must pick out one fish and visually follow it to make a capture, and balling up prevents singling out just one. In a group that responds to a threat quickly by changing direction or flashing, the individual fades into the silver wall of fish camouflage.

While catching up on industry news during the flight back home, a fellow passenger introduced himself to me, explaining that he just left a small company that produced NOR flash for one that invented new presentation software for high-performance, low-power multimedia applications. “My graduate degree is in chemical engineering, and at 29, I’m flexible about where I work and what I do,” he said. I asked him why he didn’t just stay in electronics and work for another firm with a slightly different emphasis. “My case may be unusual,” he said, “but this firm has a niche that is unique and they compensate me well for what I do.” If faced with a field that isn’t showing progress, many engineers switch to one that offers longer-term promise. “Most of our brightest engineers have turned to solar in order to survive the industry downturn. The U.S. is behind in this area right now and the growth from their efforts will make a big difference in the next couple of years.”

“I see that you’re writing about IMEC,” he continued. I was writing up the information gleaned from an interview with Eric Beyne, Ph.D., scientific director at IMEC. In the interview, which you can watch at smtonline.com/video, Beyne talked about current research at IMEC including 3D interconnect technology, integrated passives for RF applications, flip chip scaling, stretchable textiles with embedded electronics, and MEMS. This month we are preparing to visit IMEC to get a glimpse into the future of electronics. They are broadening their focus, combining technologies to find innovative solutions for climate change and sustainable energy, efficiency, clean water supply, ubiquitous communication, and mobility challenges. “What I like about the organization is that it does leading research on enabling technologies while bridging the gap between fundamental research at universities and technology development in industry,” he said. “And researchers work in the same place, where they build up a reputation and a skill set that jibes with industry. In the U.S. university approach, professors who prove themselves stay, but graduate students who do the research change every few years. The U.S. misses out on extended research. Who feeds the up-and-coming researchers to encourage them to do their best work and how long can they afford to stay if not encouraged?”

There is no quick answer for supporting research and investing in electronics. Talking to this fellow made the issue of professional survival a lot more personal.

It's What's Inside That Counts: Embedded Components

2008-10-30T11:45:00.008-04:00

Gail Flower, editor-in-chief

Recently, PCB fabricator Ibiden Co. Ltd., with more than 12,000 employees and about $4 billion in consolidated annual sales, announced that they would be licensing Finland-based Imbera's embedded packaging technology. Therefore, we knew that this had to be a solid way to embed components into the PCB. When you think about creating a functionally dense system, the directions seem to be building up — a stacked package — or down — into the board material in an embedded active or passive device.

When the opportunity arrived to talk to Risto Tuominen, CTO of Imbera, and Jeff Baloun, CEO, about their technology, I jumped at it. "Right now, telecom seems to be driving more function, higher speed, higher reliability, lower energy consumption, smaller size, and lower cost products," said Baloun.

"Traditionally the PCB structure was designed to form an electrical contact between the surface mounted components," added Tuominen. The PCB acted as a support with functionality limited to electrical interconnection. But PCBs have a high percent of unused space, which can be home for embedded components. Component embedding transforms a board into an intelligent, high-value system that provides the core for future enhancements. The whole PCB is used for component assembly. "Size reduction, increased functionality, improved thermal performance, and better electrical performances are just a few of the advantages," stated Tuominen.

The Imbera Integrated Module Board (IMB) technology starts out with active and passive component attachment. The next step builds up the core board over the components. Next, the core pressing stage takes place and vias are formed. The final step involves PCB processing with plating and patterning stages. Benefits? It is a short and robust manufacturing process for passive and active component integration. It can accommodate novel structure designs such as 3D grounds for EMI shielding or 3D component assembly. There's no wire bonding. Thermal vias on the front and back sides improve heat conductivity. It works with system in package (SiP) modules, single IC packages, or system in board (SIB)motherboards.

Imbera's process is based on a technology developed in 2005, when the third-generation IMB technology prototype products were introduced in low volumes. In some products, four-layer motherboards had two embedded silicon components with 99.97% yields. Imbera's goal, however, is to ramp this technology into high-volume production during 2008 and 2009, and that's what the Ibiden licensing agreement is all about.

I asked about board repair with embedded components. It wouldn't be easy, according to the experts. However, embedding is aimed more for advanced consumer electronics, where replacement is more common than repair. I'm expecting many more products to use this technology in the future.

IPC Midwest Wrap-up

2008-10-30T11:39:00.005-04:00

Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor
(September 29, 2008) SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — IPC Midwest closed its second annual show last week with higher attendance and an added live assembly line — A-Line — which IPC plans to run again next year.

On the whole, exhibitors expressed a positive vibe and good contacts at IPC Midwest. Not everyone was pleased with the attendee mix or volume, however. Jack Paster of RMD Instruments found that it lacked energy and excitement that he generally finds at IPC shows. Attendees came mainly from the six surrounding U.S. states, noted Michael Cotton, marketing communications manager at Omron Electronics LLC. Other exhibitors gauged the attendance as being extremely local — just the Illinois/Chicago area, while still others saw many national exhibitors. This is a good show, in that about 90% of our quality booth interactions were with new people, asserted John Perrotta, VP at Europlacer North America. Europlacer sold the inneo II placement system that they brought to the show. These systems were independently verified by CeTaQ at 5 sigma placing 01005s.

CyberOptics also discussed the U.S. customer base with us. For them, customer evaluations in the U.S. are a strong point, because the typical U.S. manufacturer has a set of parameters that they need met. Competitive low bidding is less important than machine performance for domestic testing facilities and EMS providers, explained Steve DiMarco, VP and GM, inspection systems business, CyberOptics, in a comparison of the U.S. and Asian AOI markets. CyberOptics showed an AOI system, as well as a solder paste inspection (SPI) machine, which caters to the more sophisticated, zero-defect, and high-reliability products often manufactured in the U.S.

Mike Fornelli, regional sales manager Assembléon, saw good attendance and good interest from a more local audience, summing up the show. Assembléon's pick-and-place systems received attention from some companies making the switch from thru-hole insertion to surface mount component placement, driven either by parts obsolescence or improved product capabilities. Some new-to-assembly OEMs also are attending the show, looking to start manufacturing their own products, Fornelli noted.

A final note on IPC comes from Bob Black, president, Juki. IPC presented Black with a commemoration of 20,000 Juki placement systems sold globally. Denny McGuirk, IPC president and Mary Mac Kinnon, who helped develop the IPC Midwest show, brought Juki the award on the show floor. "I'm honored to receive an award from IPC," Black said, adding that "it means even more coming from an association that does such good work."

For more on the show, visit http://www.ipcmidwestshow.org/html/main/default.htm. The show will again take place September 20–24, 2009, in Schaumburg.

Investing for the Times: Modules Featured at APEX

2008-07-09T15:45:00.002-04:00

By Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor

Suppliers to the EMS/OEM market understand better than most industries how to innovate in ways that best serve their customers. As Mike Martel commented for SMT in his 2008 forecast, lights-out/high-volume flow lines, purchased in a full line start-to-finish, are a thing of the past. Electronics assemblers are purchasing equipment based on two driving factors: what their needs are today, and what their needs will be in the foreseeable future. Exhibitors at APEX, taking place this week in Las Vegas, responded to this investment strategy, bringing to market more modular solutions and upgrade options for 2008, spanning the breadth of flying probe testers to pick-and-place systems to printing machines. Bjorn Dahl, CEO, KIC, summed up this customer-intensive R&D effort for SMT, saying, "This industry has been through bad and good times, and it survives and grows by being creative. We are an innovative industry." Judging by the range of upgradable and modular solutions customers can find on the show floor at APEX, I have to agree.

Modular systems with easy paths to upgrade are key to electronics assemblers' return on investment (ROI) in capital equipment. The materials and consumables markets do not hit such volatile ups and downs as equipment, due to the incremental costs of items such as solder paste. By switching from a suite of distinct, isolated systems to offering a range of sophistication on a common platform, equipment providers are headed for less volatility.

Alan Lewis, director of marketing and applications, Asymtek, summed up the modular, upgrade-ready concept well. "With a common module approach for several models, customers can buy now and upgrade in the field, later." He notes that EMS providers and other customers of Asymtek may upgrade to more conveyors or higher-end technological capabilities at the request of their customers. Keeping upgrades in the field, rather than transferring a piece of equipment off the floor and to Asymtek for retrofitting, eliminates downtime and keeps the electronics assembler flexible. At the same time, modular concepts reduce footprint on the floor, contributing to a lean, nimble manufacturing environment.

Another such company is Samsung/Dynatech, which offers a complete SMT line. For those assemblers blurring the line from EMS provider to packaging house for certain applications, Samsung introduced a flux-dipping module onto its SM Series placement machines. The module allows EMS providers to assemble stacked packages, or package-on-package (PoP) without investing in additional equipment or floor space.

Vitronics-Soltec, recently acquired by ITW, brought a new Delta line-up of wave soldering systems to the show. The range includes the entry-level 3, the mid-range 5, and the high-end 7. More importantly, all three include as standard the company's upgraded software, at least 18" width, a new spray fluxing module, and closed-loop cooling. Everything is built in titanium. The company's reflow ovens have a new software interface as well.

Koh Young brought its aSPIre and PRIME systems to the show, and their team noted that these are the high-end systems Koh Young has to offer, and that other, lower-cost systems will be sent to Nepcon China in Shanghai next week, for example. The Koh Young booth reflected SMT and advanced packaging lines blurring, as their PRIME solder paste measurement system for wafer-level bumping could find applications in the solder bump market for array devices. The SPI system aSPIre measures solder paste on the board, mapping it like a geographical representation, taking inspection into higher territory than visual evaluation. Koh Young sees the U.S. market as a place for highest-quality/highest-reliability manufacturing, and decided these systems best fit the domestic customer base.

Texmac launched the APT-9600 double-sided flying prober not as a new unit, but as a range of options. Users of the company's APT-9411 prober can add the 9600 module; customers can buy the 9411 then add on the 9600 when their need and investment budget necessitate it; users can purchase the 9600 as the complete double-sided probing package at one time. Different needs, different options.

CyberOptics reflected this theme in the company's SPC and user interface software. The Flex Ultra AOI inspection series is upgraded consistently to provide the best coverage with low false calls and fast throughput. However, the process monitoring and user software remain all backward compatible, cutting out training times, easing transitions to better coverage, and allowing all Flex Ultra systems at the EMS provider to communicate and output SPC data for the entire production.

In printing, Speedline's MPM range covers the basic through the Elite system, targeting budgets and equipment needs of their customers, rather than pushing one-size-fits-all equipment. This strategy was all over the show floor at APEX.

The buzz around the exhibit hall and meeting rooms has been that this year is a vibrant, positive APEX show, including the change of scenery from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. IPC recognizes the excitement and energy, and announced we'll be returning to Las Vegas for next year's show, March 29 through April 2, 2009. Visit http://www.goipcshows.org/ for the details.