New Materials for an Evolving Industry

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

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

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

Reverse Outsourcing

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?

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

APEX 2009: Anticipation and Expectations

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

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.

VISION Awards Recognize the Electronics Assembly Industry of Today and Tomorrow

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

Investing for the Times: Modules Featured at APEX

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.