Development Trend of Solder Paste Printing Equipment Technology

Nowadays electronic processing technology is becoming more and more mature. In order to adapt to the trend of fine pitch and high density electronic packaging technology such as QFP, SOP, BGA, CSP, 01005, POP, etc., the future trend of SMT automatic paste printing equipment technology can be summarized as follows:

1、Cycle Time requirements

With the development of PCBA industry, the demand of SMT electronic processing is increasingly high. With the emergence of modular high-speed placement machine, we put forward higher to the press Cycle Time requirements, how to shorten the Cycle Time will be a problem that the brand manufacturers of automatic printing press have to solve.

2、Accuracy requirements

The chip pieces of 0201, 01005 or even 03015 are large-scale using, the previous printing presses can not fully meet the accuracy requirements, high-precision models will re-compete for the market.

3、Cleaning effect

With the development of SMT, the improve of cleaning function can achieve the speed and production efficiency. Artificial cleaning is a large printing equipment manufacturers are considering and research direction.

4、Cost - effective

Facing of the overall unit price of OEM decline, the company chooses the requirements of the printing equipment will according to their products, printing equipment can fully meet the production needs of the premise, that is a cost-effective products.

5、Printing plate bottom support tool

With the wide application of the PCB, the bottom support tool of the PCB has been paid more and more attention. Nowadays, the general printing equipment adopts multiple thimbles with a certain length to carry on the multi-point support, but there will still be bad printing. To achieve high-quality printing, the latest adjustable board support is now available with a retractable flat support that is fixed to the mold and flexibly adapts to the shape of the bottom of the circuit board.

6、Stable pressure control

Printed on the PCB board when the pressure on the impact of printing quality is very large, in the existing equipment in the printing process often deviation. The new solder paste printing equipment using closed-loop control technology, you can control the printing process in the scraper pressure, the pressure is stable.

What are the Challenges of Wave Soldering in Electronic Processing?

In the electronic processing plants, SMT processing and DIP processing technology has become mature and widely used, and are relatively high efficiency of the welding process. However, with the increasing pursuit of electronic products, more and more, how to produce more finished products at the same time become the most difficult problem.

Although the wave soldering technology is mature, but its control parameters are discrete and complex, the wave soldering process in the transmission speed, preheating temperature, component soldering reliability are uncertain. People in wave soldering process for some electronic components designed a lot of test vehicle, which also shows the wave soldering process variability and complexity.

From the technical developing, although the narrow pitch QFP, array package BGA and other electronic components are widely applying, making reflow soldering technology in the device and PCB interconnect have increasingly leading, but this does not mean that wave soldering technology disappeared, but it is undeniable that it does withdraw from its original dominant position.

From the current situation, the through-hole plug in some relatively low-level electronic products still occupy a certain proportion, because there are many occasions do not need the SMT technology, through-hole assembly is a low-cost processing program. But with the miniaturization of electronic components, the application of this technology will become smaller and smaller.

Wave soldering technology continues to progress and improve，in the future，with the emergence of new processing technology it may be out of PCB manufacturing and PCB assembly stage, but now it is still in electronic processing play a major role.

Comparison of lead and lead-free processes in Electronic Processing Plants

Now, there are two kinds of processing technology in the PCB assembly plant. According to the customer's demand, there are lead-free processing technology and lead processing technology. In fact a lot of customers do not understand the difference between them,  they only know that lead-free processing is more expensive, lead process is more cheaper. Solder used in the lead-free process is not 100% lead-free, but compared to lead process, solder contains lower lead content. Then compare them based on my own experience.

1.Cost

In the lead-free process, it needs some auxiliary materials for welding due to the characteristics of the solder itself. And the use of lead-free solder paste in the reflow soldering make the cost increased by 2 times, so does the use of tin line. So that the cost of lead-free processing is higher.

2.Firmness

The melting temperature of lead-free solder used in the lead-free solder is while the melting temperature of lead solder is 183 ℃, because the melting point of lead solder is low, it does less damage to the electronic components. After processing the solder joint is more bright and more hard.

3.Reliability

Lead containing solders have great harm to human body, and long-term exposure has a great impact on human health. At the same time, it is widely used in the international market lead-free processing technology, it can also protect the environment. After all, people have been aware of the increasingly serious environmental pollution problems, which will be harmful for them.

Related PCB manufacturing plants in the electronic assembly process or PCBA processing can choose corresponding technology according to the three differences. Meanwhile, they shouldn’t only pursue the lead-free technology and reject the advantages of lead process.

How to Control Temperature and Humidity in the Process of PCB Assembly

In the PCB assembly plant, processing plants generally control the entire production environment to manufacture better PCB products and prevent defective products, then the customers will be satisfied. So the electronic factory has more requirements on the production plant. And sometimes PCB processing process will be very expensive and easy to loss of electronic components or modules. It’s easy to cause bad materials if the processing environment temperature and humidity and processing technology did not control well. So how should electronic processing plant control the temperature and humidity of production?

First of all, inside the PCB manufacturing workshop, we should have a special temperature and humidity detector on the workshop for temperature and humidity monitoring, under normal circumstances, the temperature is 24 ℃, humidity 60RH, which can ensure the most basic production environment. At the same time do a good job of daily temperature and humidity records, and clean the reflow and wave soldering and other equipment required in the processing.

Then it’s better for workshop to own conditioning and heating equipment to ensure the workshop drying, moisture sensitive components are quite sensitive to the environment, high humidity can make the components produce solder in the welding process, or it can cause bridging problems.

Finally, in fact, our temperature and humidity control is to a large extent ensures the processing quality of sensitive devices to ensure product reliability and through rate, so we must be very aware of these wet sensitive devices, but we should also ensure the quality of wet sensitive devices. It is best to use a lead-free process during soldering, which can at least reduce the sensitivity of wet-sensitive devices by one or two grades. 

The above summary for our NOD Electronics experience, if you have better suggestions, welcome to share!

How to Ensure BOM is Correct and Avoid the Risk of PCBA Production

We need a lot of production documents before the production of PCB, including BOM list. BOM list contains the number of materials needed for production, it’s the unique management document during production and PCB assembly, which ensures the assembly sequence when it comes to actual processing. In the electronic assembly plant, BOM should be confirmed before production according to customers’ orders. Though there are still some problems about such as production errors and wrong material reverse. Now we provide some suggestions based on their own factory production experience, so that you can maximize avoid PCBA production risk.

1.First of all, you can develop a material coding system, the coding should own the uniqueness of identification, the functions of classification and sorting. In the BOM sheet, check whether the component coding is consistent and also should join a clear and concise description. Descriptions should include part type, size, SMT and vias, and so on. So that people can understand the material at a glance.

2.Responsibility to the people. The company should clearly proofread BOM and clear the responsibilities of corresponding staffs. They should be responsible for all mistakes. Responsible person can set a layer of security to BOM list, it can also effectively reduce BOM mistake using of employee psychological responsibility.

3.Now many companies now have ERP system, we can establish a single link between BOM and ERP and store data in database. Data entry should come from easy to difficult and from the whole to the bulk. We firstly store high-volume orders, followed by the relevant data of small quantities production. You can adjust the entry order according to management needs. 

4.Of course, you also need to make sure your BOM is available on the purchase of the material, then we can ensure the production. 

Above, we summarize the relevant experience, you can use according to your own situation. You are also welcome to make better suggestions.

How should China's Semiconductor Industry Develop? --Fujian Hongxin Failed To Acquire Aixtron

Well-known enterprise Fujian Hongxin failed to acquire Aixtron AG, which is blocked by the U.S. Ban. In fact, many Chinese companies are in the acquisition of foreign capital companies, which can help them to market. These companies will learn from foreign companies’ mature technology to promote their own development, it is more convenient. This acquisition failed, many people applauded, they think this can promote the development of China's own technology rather than rely on foreign technical support. For this acquisition, we should think about the future of China's semiconductor industry.

1. Can the acquisition of foreign loss-making enterprises really help us to carry out technological transformation?

How can the enterprises deal with their own business after the International mergers and acquisitions? Are these enterprises willing to come with the core technology to transform us? Also, the cultural differences between the two sides led to more difficult communication. It’s not convenient to manage the enterprises after acquisition because of different language and cultures. Our own technical problems are difficult to change if we only depend on the enterprises acquired. So we need to own the core technology, rather than rely on others.

2. How to solve the short-sighted phenomenon of China's semiconductor industry?

For China's semiconductor industry, we should clearly know that the core technology of strategic industries can not buy from others. We should focus on independent research and development and have our own core technology. We shouldn't take the shortcut to climb. Semiconductors are important in PCB assembly and PCB manufacturing.The current situation of China's semiconductor industry is more impetuous, which has a bad influence on our own development, we should have a long-term point of view.

We hope that the development of semiconductor industry can return to the right way after this failure case of acquisition. We should depend on ourselves and improve our own technology.

Is it Reliable to Reduce PCB Cost

The total cost of the production of PCB has advanced with the the growth of the cost of circuit board materials and labor costs and so on. Manufactures have to consider how to ensure quality while reducing production costs in order to occupy the PCB market. PCBA main costs include PCB board costs, component procurement costs and SMT costs, if we want to analyze how to reduce the cost of PCB, we need to consider these several aspects.

Reduce the cost of the circuit board

First of all we should take the size of PCB design issue into consideration, the circuit board is cut from a piece of plate material. Within a reasonable range, the more PCB we cut from the plate material,the lower the price of every single PCB, which requires designers to carefully consider how to process the large copper clad laminate into a number pieces of CCL with the vertical or horizontal cutting method. In the design of multi-layer circuit board, you can consider the HDI process.Especially in PCB manufacturing and PCB assembly process, can save a lot of cost.At the same time, we can use CEM-3 material to replace the the widely used double-sided epoxy resin glass cloth CCL,but there is a significant lack of strength shortcomings. In addition we should minimize the number of  through-holes and don't arbitrarily reduce the hole diameter. Copper is replaced with silver paste to fill via holes during copper deposition, but the resulting circuit board is not suitable for highly reliable circuits.

Reduce component procurement costs

Manufacturers should pay attention to the combination of customer and market during procurement and try to establish good relationship with suppliers, share the risk and profits with them, only in this way can ensure the quality of components.

Reduce SMT costs

We usually use SMT process to reduce the production cost, while the entire production cost can be reduced according to one-time mass production.

 All of these can be done to reduce the cost of circuit board production, while achieving a certain quality assurance, but reduce the cost of the circuit board at the same time means that the quality of the circuit board will inevitably become worse, because manufacturers will tend to use more poor production materials and more rough production steps. So in the face of cost and quality , manufacturers still need to consider and catch their own point.

How to choose a suitable solder paste in electronic manufacturing process?

In the electronic processing industry, paste is widely used in PCB assembly, PCB manufacturing and other process, which plays a decisive role in PCB quality. Its function is to make all kinds of electronic components welded to the PCB panel as a kind of welding material. How to choose a suitable solder paste in the face of various processing technology is a cliche. I put forward the following views on my own experience as below.

 

1.Lead free & Lead Paste

Choose lead free paste or lead paste according to customer requirements and market demand. With the enhancement of people's awareness of environmental protection, now the market generally accept free products, but it does not mean there is no market for lead solder paste. You'd better choose lead free solder paste according to the world.

2.Washing & Disposable

Concerning washing or disposable paste, decided according to the PCBA processing process after reflow soldering process and PCB cleanliness. Tin residues on the PCB panel may melt during the use of the product due to heat generated by large components, causing a short circuit and reducing the service life of the product..

3.The proportion of solder alloy components

The proportion of alloy paste process determines the melting point of tin, directly affects the degree of oxidation of the surface and paste fluidity in the SMT process. What kind of alloy ratio of solder paste should you choose?  What alloy ratio of solder paste  is suitable for PCB processing in the welding and operating temperature? Need you consider the ductility and adhesion of different metal components? Considering the above problems, you can choose a suitable solder paste.

In the selection process, you may not only consider the above issues but also choose according to the most important process requirements.

NOD electronics

How to Introduce Lean Production Principle in Electronic Assembly

Lean production is a new high efficiency, high efficiency and low cost production principle in recent years. It came from Japan’s Toyota and is widely used in the manufacturing industry. Compared to other production methods, it promotes that cost, time and labor investment can be halved but to obtain the required results.Lean production is also widely used in electronic assembly manufacturing, but there are some differences in the implementation of lean production in the current PCB manufacturingenterprises, then how should the management ideas of lean production be applied to the production management of the enterprise and reduce the enterprise’s production operating costs and improve production efficiency?

The main principle of lean production is on-time production, elimination of waste, paying attention to process and innovation, in the PCB assemblymanufacturing factory, the most important is the implementation of JIT production,  from the purchase of materials to production and delivery, which means the production of standardization. To achieve standardization, the factory to do the following:

1. On-time procurement

In an electronic assembly plant for the production of a product, the production materials need to undergo ordering, receiving, quality inspection, warehousing, deployment and other processes, these processes waste of time and can’t increase the value of the product. We need to select qualified quality assurance suppliers from the supply to eliminate these wastes. These companies should establish a long term cooperative relationship with suppliers. As a cooperative partner you will be able to get better preferential prices.

2. Reduce production preparation time

Only by reducing the adjustment and preparation time of production by electronic assembly manufacturers can the entire production process become initiative. We should reduce the adjustment time and make preparations for the adjustment when the machine is still running from one product to another product and from one product ion part to another.At the same time we should train the processing and production specialist and improve the equipment and process assembly.

3.Establish JIT unit

We should also strengthen product quality control between the establishment of JIT units, the appearance of defective products in the chain of production will affect the next link production. The core of the JIT unit is to move the warehouse into the plant, set up storage in the plant, adjust the layout of the workshop with the material storage place.The establishment of JIT unit also need to minimize the number of workers in the workshop, while eliminating all unnecessary things to ensure that the workshop clean and tidy.

We are familiar with the electronic processing enterprises Flextronics has been the first to introduce this production model, leading the industry’s enterprises. Their annual profit output are far ahead. There is already the first person to try tomato, you have to hesitate?

NOD-electronics

Impact of gray market on electronic processing market

Some time ago the semiconductor company Xilinx sued Flextronics processors, Flextronics  raised the commodity prices of the Xilinx  semiconductor and sold them to another electronic processors and obtained a certain profit in the absence of Xilinx licensing. This is clearly the gray market we have often heard, which refers to the market channels that sell the branded goods without the authorization of the trademark owner. The gray market goods are genuine goods with brand, but the sales channel of them are "informal" channels without the trademark owner's authorization and consent.

In fact, the gray market has caused some impact on our normal electronic trading market. Brand Company has been affected, so many small brands under the gray transaction processors will only become more rampant.  As manyelectronics manufacturers  defects in the technical and equipment, looking for the reliable OEM or EMS electronic processors has became their most convenient and direct production path. These OEM or EMS electronic processors in the production of electronic components and so have some of the production of excess inventory, they can not withstand the temptation of gray market sales.

Impact of gray market on electronic processing market

1.The impact on the sale of original brand supplier

When many electronic processors have other more convenient and more favorable purchase channels to obtain the required production material, they will not find the original supplier, causing their decline in sales and material backlog.At the same time, it will also cause the loss of the potential market of the original brand suppliers, if not controlled, there will be more companies to drill the gap in the market.

2. The impact on the original brand image and intellectual property rights

Gray market sales will make the original brand supplier's brand image damage, cost difference or the difference between the price of same product is easy to make the person who is not clear have bad impression about the product. The original brand supplier's intellectual property rights can not be protected.

3. Can't create a good and fair trading environment

Market transactions must be based on the basic moral norms and the highest laws and regulations, if the gray market transactions more prevalent, then the fair trade environment we have been pursuing all the time will be destroyed by our own. 

We should ensure that the quality of the production of products, adhere to the rules of market transactions, thereby improving customer satisfaction. And to enhance their own quality, and enhance the protection of intellectual property rights.

What are the advantages of China's electronics processors?

With the rapid development of electronic processing industry, processing technology in the machining process continues to improve. Although China started relatively late in electronic processing, the depth of technical research of relevant researchers and the support of national policy make our electronic industry is advancing by leaps and rounds, which has also entered the international perspective. Although China's electronic processing has suffered a a lot of trade imbalance from international pressure, more and more international electronic manufacturers are still looking for Chinese processors because of its own advantages.

1. Strong production capacity & Complete supporting facilities

China has a strong manufacturing market and a good environment for development, attracting a lot of international electronic processing industry traders to invest. From 90s to the present, China's electronic processing industry has developed for many years with a a strong technical foundation and a more perfect infrastructure. China's small and medium-sized electronic processing business model can be very good to meet the needs of the international market, which is also a huge advantage.

2. Cheap labor and government technology policy support

Manufacturing and processing industries have a strong stimulating effect on the economy of a country. It’s a good signal that the Chinese government support the the development of the electronic processing industry, which also provides a better environment to develop our electronic processing industry. At the same time China as a populous country, cheap labor has attracted a lot of foreign electronics manufacturers, which saves a lot of their production costs.

3. Put forward some constructive opinions

Many foreign electronic manufacturers relatively scarce related technology and production expertise, therefore, there will be a lot of problems in the design of PCB, which requires the ability of electronic engineers to help to solve it, but it also means that need to pay more costs. Looking for Chinese electronics processors can solve this problem. China electronic processors will give suggestions for PCB design such as reduction of material or components when they receive the cooperation contract, it has constructive significance for the design and appearance of the product itself, which also saves a lot of cost. For example, the Guangzhou NOD is such an electronic processor. 

Looking for China electronic processors is the international trend, you will find that the choice of Chinese processors is a correct choice compared to many electronic processors. In addition to the above we explained, China has a lot of advantages in electronic processing, welcome to put forward your views.

A few simple steps to identify the circuit board

In most people's view, regardless of the quality of the circuit board, the surface looks almost the same, but we have to identify the quality of them through the similar appearance. We only need a few simple steps of judge to analyze its durability and the corresponding function after we get a piece of PCB.

Meet the standard

Standard PCB panels generally have a wall thickness of 25 micron, which can enhance the reliability. While the perfect circuit is generally not through the welding repair and short circuit repair. Generally, manufacturers will choose the international well-known substrate rather than the unknown brand to ensure the reliability of the production process.We should ensure the high quality of the plug hole, we can reduce the risk of failure of assembly process according to the high-quality plug. It is not acceptable to have scrapped units, and not to use partial assembly to improve the efficiency.

Stick to norms

PCB generally need to meet the cleanliness requirements of the IPC specification, but when the PCB beyond the requirements, PCB cleanliness will be greatly improved. At the same time, we should pay attention to the control of the life of each surface treatment to avoid the problem of surface treatment of aging circuit board. CCL tolerances comply with IPC4101ClassB/L requirements, we should strictly control the electrical properties of dielectric thickness to reduce the expected deviation.We should also note that the definition of shape, tolerances for holes and other mechanical features. We should also pay attention to define the shape and hole and the tolerance of other mechanical characteristics to improve the quality of the product, improve the coordination, shape and function.

Whether in the assembly manufacturing process of circuit board or in actual use, the reliability of the PCB is one of our characteristics that must be identified, We should pay attention to the defects in the assembly process may finally affluence the quality of the final product  on the basis of cost control, so good PCB should have above characteristics.  Manufacturers should consider how to reduce cost effectively after ensuring these characteristics.

NOD-electronics

HDI PCB, opportunity or challenge?

With the rapid development of electronic technology, intelligent mobile phone, tablet computer and other wearable devices are toward multifunctional and functional direction. And high density interconnect PCB technology is rising, referred to as the HDI technology.The rapid development of HDI technology means that the number of layers and the components accommodated on the PCB increase in case that there is no change in size,weight and volume of PCB, which improves the electrical properties of the PCB. So HDI technology has become a mainstream direction in the development of the electronic industry.

Challenges from HDI technology

The high degree of integration of communication products makes the trend of integration of PCB design and PCB manufacturing more and more obvious. Manufacturer left less manufacturing margin with HDI veneer.This design and manufacturing constraints, which is likely to increase the complexity of the design, on the other hand, such technology would undermine the time needed for the veneer jointing. This will directly affect the time of production.In terms of PCB Assembly, high density Assembly package will cause solider bridge, shift, tomb bump and so on. The existing detection methods have some shortcomings, it's difficult to do high-density test. At the same time the device pin spacing is small, which will also increase the difficulty of repair.

Benefits from HDI technology

HDI board can significantly reduce the cost of PCB, while increasing the density of the circuit, which is more conducive to the use of advanced packaging technology to ensure that the product has better electrical properties and signal accuracy. It can both have high reliability and improve the electromagnetic interference. HDI technology is better in line with the current trend of the development of the electronics industry.

HDI production process generally requires more expensive equipment support, but many small-medium enterprises can not afford it. It will inevitably lead to the loss of some customers and lose considerable orders if these companies give up the HDI market. On the other hand, HDI technology is more profitable than ordinary circuit board.This requires manufacturers to identify their own direction in the HDI technology opportunities and challenges.

NOD-electronics

How to make the PCB quickly and well

With the development of the electronic industry, the production of electronic products is increasing, and the demand for the production of electronic products is also increasing.How to make the PCB quickly and well has become an important issue for many PCB designers.Only the rapid production of PCB with high precision, high performance and cost savings  can have a stronger competitive strength.

Rapid production of circuit boards

Mainly divided into physical methods and chemical methods. The physical method is to manually cut out unwanted copper on the board by means of cutting tools and power tools. Chemical method is to cover the blank with the CCL protective layer. The corrosion solution will remove the unnecessary copper. These layers are mainly covered by hand-painted paint method, adhesive method, film photographic method and the thermal transfer printing method.

The advantages and disadvantages of the two methods

Physical method is obviously more difficult and time-consuming, so the method is only suitable for a relatively simple circuit, and the operator's requirements are very high,so the method can not be applied to the mass production of the information age.Chemical process is relatively complex, but we can artificially control the accuracy of the final product, which is a more rapid plate-making method.But there are still some problems: the printing accuracy depends on the accuracy of printer cartridges used, the exposure plate And the development time is not easy to control, corrosion control process is difficult, photosensitive board on the environmental requirements are higher, it's difficult to control accuracy after the manual punching.

So it is obvious that the chemical method is superior to other methods. In contrast, it is more time saving and labor saving, and can control the accuracy better. But these two methods can only achieve a certain degree of the requirements of PCB rapid manufacturing.But it can't achieve the high speed and high accuracy of the PCB. So we need to be on the road in PCB manufacturing to continue to explore and discover a more appropriate approach.

NOD-electronics