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The Global Assembly Journal for SMT and Advanced Packaging Professionals
Volume 10 Number 4 April 2010 ISSN 1474 - 0893
PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly
Daniel Perez Interview Inside
New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly
NEW PRODUCTS
Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology
INDUSTRY NEWS INTERNATIONAL DIARY
Contents
Volume 10, No. 4 April 2010
Global SMT & Packaging is published monthly by Trafalgar Publications Limited. The journal is FREE to qualified professionals and is available by subscription at a cost of $380.00 for the current volume (twelve issues). Periodicals postage paid at Rahway NJ. Postmaster send address corrections to: Global SMT & Packaging, c/o Mercury International Limited, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, NJ 07001. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in the articles are not necessarily those of the editors or the publisher.
Contents 2
And now the good news…business is looking up Trevor Galbraith
Printed by Progress Printing, Lynchburg, VA, USA.
12
Technology Focus
12 PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly Gerry Padnos, Juki Automation Systems 18 Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology Tony DeRosa, Multitest ECT Interface Products 30 New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly George A. Riley, PhD, Sensor Products, Inc.
MER050 MER050
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Special Features
34 40 48
Interview—Daniel Perez, OnCore Manufacturing Presenting the IPC APEX EXPO 2010 Conference and Exhibition iSuppli’s ‘fast facts’ on SIA’s global sales report
ISSN No. 1474-0893 © Trafalgar Publications Ltd Designed and Published by Trafalgar Publications Ltd, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
American edition
34 regular columns
4
Online training & education—the alternative way Bob Willis
24 Enjoy the 2010 recovery! Walt Custer and Jon Custer-Topai 36 ‘Pad cratering’ & ‘trace buckling’—new failure modes c reated by Pb-free soldering Werner Engelmaier 50 Reliability—keystone of a sustainable electronics industry Joe Fjelstad Other Regular Features An SMD FTDI chip, on the Arduino NG board, courtesy arduino.cc
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6 Industry News 44 New Products
54 Association News 56 International Diary
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 1
Editorial
Trevor Galbraith
Editorial Offices Europe Global SMT & Packaging Trafalgar Publications Ltd 8 Talbot Hill Road Bournemouth Dorset BH9 2JT United Kingdom Tel: +44 (1202) 388997 E-mail: news@globalsmt.net Website: www.globalsmt.net United States Global SMT & Packaging PO Box 7579 Naples, FL 34102 USA Tel: (866) 948-5554 Fax: (239) 236-4682 E-mail: news@globalsmt.net China Global SMT & Packaging Electronics Second Research Institute No.159, Hepin South Road Taiyuan City, PO Box 115, Shanxi, Province 030024, China Tel: +86 (351) 652 3813 Fax: +86 (351) 652 0409 Editor-in-Chief Trevor Galbraith Tel: +44 (0)20 8123 6704 (Europe) Tel: +1 (239) 784-7208 (US) E-mail: editor@globalsmt.net Managing Editor Heather Lackey Tel: +1 (866) 948-7778 E-mail: hglackey@globalsmt.net
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Global SMT & Packaging offers effective print, web, email and video advertising opportunities. Contact your local sales rep today. Americas—Derek Laborie (print & video) Tel: +1 (866) 948-5557 Mobile: +1 (603) 661-5828 dlaborie@globalsmt.net Sandy Daneau (digital) Tel: +1 (866) 948-7775 Cell: +1 (603)-686-3920 sdaneau@globalsmt.net Europe—Andy Kellard Tel: +44 7766 951665 akellard@globalsmt.net Asia/Pacific— Debasish P. Choudhury Tel: +91 120 6453260 dchoudhury@globalsmtindia.in Korea— Sang Hun Oh Tel: +82 -(0)10-6833 9597 sanghunoh@globalsmt.net Asia— Carol Chen tancarole@yahoo.com.tw
Editor-in-Chief
And now the good news…business is looking up It appears, in the grand scheme of things, that the average consumer’s desire to buy electronic gadgets and devices comes after their mortgage and health insurance, but ahead of other discretionary spending such as vacations, eating out and clothes. This is according to the latest report on consumer spending from iSuppli chief Derek Lidow. In a year when the worldwide per capita income declined by 2%, sales of smart phones rose 9.6%, LCD televisions 14% and notebook computers a whopping 90%. All this reflects “a measurable shift in how consumers are spending their disposable income,” according to Lidow. And this trend is set to continue through 2010. With the imminent arrival of iPads and a slew of other gadgets, we can be assured our factories are going to be busy for the foreseeable future. This fact is borne out by other data that show semiconductor sales at an all-time high. iSuppli predicts 2010 semiconductor sales to reach $279.7billion, a rise of 21.5% from 2009, but up only 8% from 2008.
Suppliers of equipment and materials will also benefit as EMS companies ramp up to meet the demand. Among the tier one CEMs, Foxconn is predicted to spend $22.6 billion (up 18.8%), Flextronics $7 billion (up 8.8%) and major expansions are planned by companies such as SONY Erricson and HP. Meanwhile, RIM are increasing their production and moving the Blackberry Curve to Flextronics Brazil and are considering moving more Blackberry models to South America. One disturbing trend is the larger companies have managed to recover quicker through easier access to the credit markets. Many small- to medium-sized manufacturers are reporting cash flow difficulties as banks refuse to relax their lending policies. Banks, like most companies, are still fighting off the remnants of the 2009 recession, but the good news is “there is light at the end of the tunnel,” and it’s not a train coming towards you! Trevor Galbraith.
A response to last month’s editorial....
As someone responsible for the transition of production processes to RoHS-compliant and lead-free materials, I feel obliged to give a statement to your editorial, “Are the chickens coming home to roost for lead-free?” (GSP March 2010) I am astonished that you report that “Curiously, in Europe manufacturers have a get out of jail card in the form of an EC Directive that states the producer is not liable if the defect occurs as a result of his compliance with the RoHS regulations....” An EC Directive with such wording is not known to me.
Thank you for your email. Please refer to Article 7 (d) of directive 85/374/EEC: Article 7 The producer shall not be liable as a result of this Directive if he proves: (d) that the defect is due to compliance of the product with mandatory regulations issued by the public authorities; http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. do?uri=CELEX:31985L0374:EN:HTML —Trevor Galbraith
Michael Jeremias (Dipl.Ing.) Defence Electronics EADS Deutschland GmbH
2 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Title
Reliability—keystone of a sustainable electronics industry
Joe Fjelstad
Reliability— keystone of a sustainable electronics industry
The reliability of electronic products was at one time a given. In bygone years electronic products were designed and built with an expected life as long as 25 years, and hopefully more. However, in recent years expectations of reliability seem to have undergone some significant changes. This is due in part to decreasing product development and introduction cycles, which have resulted in electronic products being valued by their users more as fashion items rather than functional appliances. As a result, attention to product reliability has been on the decline. The electronics
industry has even adopted parlance that reflects this, with terms like “application specific reliability” now part of the lexicon. The change over time has been subtle. We have been lured into the current situation by the sirens and lotus purveyors of Madison Avenue who have helped to position new and alluring products and fuel consumer desire by blurring the line in the consumer’s mind between their wants and needs and creating an environment of planned obsolescence. The practice is not new; it can be dated to 1932 with the publication of Bernard London’s
4 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
pamphlet titled “Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence.” The basic idea behind the concept was to create a product that became obsolete or ceased to function after a certain period of time or amount of use in a way that is planned, or designed, by the manufacturer. It is interesting to note that contemporary with London’s publication was another work that decried the both the mentality and the practice: in Brave New World, Aldus Huxley depicted a dark future time when early failure was actually encouraged my means of ubiquitous hypnopaedic messaging of phases such as “Ending is better than mending” and “Less stitches means more riches.” If one listens to and/ or reads advertisements of today attentively, they might well hear echoes of that time and place. This is not meant to disparage the practice of wholesale, for the simple truth is that assuring that an individual’s wants should always exceed their needs is the engine that drives both economics and economic growth. Moreover, there has been, over time, a steady migration of items that were once listed in wants column to the necessities column, and we have all benefited from that. While this activity is not inherently
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 5
Online training & education—the alternative way
evil, the act of planning for obsolescence brings forth potential to enlist (or simply acquiesce) an insidious and destructive element, known by the name “poor reliability.” Today electronic product development cycles run from 12 to 18 months, compared to 24 to 36 months in the not too distant past. This is also not insidious except for the unstated fact that product life expectations have been lowered—again, implicitly if not explicitly—to match product cycles. One might well ask the question “So what?” The answer is that it is simply not sustainable. We don’t need to shut down manufacturing, but we do need to find ways to make it more efficient, effective and reliable. If products are made to last, we need not remake them so often. Looking at recent case in point is of value. A report titled “1 in 3 Laptops Fail Over 3 Years”1 and published by electronics warranty provider Square Trade shined a light the electronics industry’s slipping reputation with respect to reliability. One in three laptops: that is a staggering number. They went on to state that a full two-thirds of these failures (20.4%) were the result of hardware malfunctions, and other third (10.6%) were from accidental damage, which, given that they are portable devices, was likely due to dropping in many, if not most, cases. Given industry reports on the reduced robustness of lead-free solder in this respect, broken solder joints may be one failure mechanism. The report also stated that the increasingly popular netbooks are projected to have a 20% higher failure rate from hardware malfunctions than more expensive laptop computers. This is, or should be, a wake up call to everyone, manufacturers and consumers alike. Clearly to manufacturers early failures result in higher warranty costs and the potential for product recalls, the cost of which can run into tens of millions of dollars and that number could be multiplied many times over as every manufacturer faces the same risk. Once again, reliability is key to securing substantial cost savings over the long haul All that said, there is an even bigger picture to consider. In that regard, it is important to remember that are 6.5 billion people on the planet, four billion of whom are at the bottom of the global economic pyramid. Those at the bottom cannot afford to buy many if not most new electronic products, let alone purchase those products with the same frequency
The basic idea behind the concept was to create a product that became obsolete or ceased to function after a certain period of time or amount of use. as those who enjoy life at the top. Yet these people could make very good use of the products with which we at the top have become bored…if they are reliable. Thus if we are to hold to the precepts of sustainable manufacturing, shouldn’t we make products robust enough that they can be passed along to future generations for use, if it is at all possible? In summary, it is worth turning attention to Japan, whose manufacturing community has embraced and rallied around the idea that there is need to build products which meet the objectives of the “Three Rs”—Reduce, (materials and energy), Reuse and Recycle. These are important and worthy objectives; however, if one thinks about it, those three Rs are really Rs writ small, and though they are important, they can really be viewed as underpinnings of a single, bigger R, writ large… that big R stands for reliability. Reliability is good not just good business; it is good for the planet and all its inhabitants.
Verdant Electronics founder and president Joseph (Joe) Fjelstad has more than 35 years of international experience in electronic interconnection and packaging technology in a variety of capacities from chemist to process engineer and from international consultant to CEO. Mr. Fjelstad is also a well known author writing on the subject of electronic interconnection technologies. Prior to founding Verdant, Mr. Fjelstad co-founded SiliconPipe a leader in the development of high speed interconnection technologies. He was also formerly with Tessera Technologies, a global leader in chip-scale packaging, where he was appointed to the first corporate fellowship for his innovations.
1. http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/ SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109
6 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Sawa Ultrasonic Stencil Cleaners/Misprint Cleaner • Low solvent usage and running costs • Fast cleaning time of 1-3 minutes
We also offer SMT products such as Sayaka PCB routers,Tamura reflow ovens,YJ Link conveyors and Nihon Superior solder products. Learn more at: www.seikausa.com.
Seika Machinery, Inc. Los Angeles Office (Headquarters): 3528 Torrance Blvd., Suite 100 Torrance, CA 90503 Phone: (310) 540-7310 Fax: (310) 540-7930 www.globalsmt.net
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 7
Title Industry News
Industry News
North America for over a decade, and the new Applications Center is a continuation of their ongoing global infrastructure growth plan.www.rehm-group.com
Electronic contract manufacturing returns to growth, but uncertainties remain “Things are definitely looking up for the EMS/ODM market in 2010,” says Adam Pick, principal analyst for EMS and ODM at iSuppli. “However, we’re holding our breath until the second half of 2010 given certain industrial and macroeconomic issues that could inhibit the outsourcing cycle.” iSuppli expects revenue generated by ODMs and EMS providers to rise to US $280.8 billion in 2010, up 7.8 percent from 2009. This follows a 13.4 percent decline in 2009 that was spurred by the global economic recession and the resulting electronics downturn. ODMs are expected to rebound more quickly, withlobal ODM revenue is set to rise by 10.8 percent in 2010, while the EMS market will expand by only 5.2 percent. Ongoing shortages in component supplies have inhibited full-throttle assembly activity among contract manufacturers for the past six months; this could continue to be a challenge for some contract manufacturers. Pick also cites concern about high unemployment, waning stimulus efforts and more than a trillion dollars in lingering residential and commercial mortgage resets, factors that could slow or reverse the latest uptick in personal and corporate spending on electronics products made by EMS and ODM providers. www.isuppli.com MIRTEC Corp. ranked as one of the fastest growing companies in 2009 Inc. magazine has recognized MIRTEC’s North American Sales and Service Division, MIRTEC Corp., as one of the fastest growing companies in its third annual Inc. 5000 company ranking. With an impressive 117.9% increase in revenue over the last three years, MIRTEC Corp. has achieved substantial growth since its inception in 2004. The company attributes this success to high customer retention due to exceptional customer service and its unwavering commitment to bring to the market new and innovative products with a special emphasis on quality, accuracy, ease of operation and reliability. www.mirtecusa.com Digi-Key stocks Tyco Electronics’ new silicon ESD protection devices Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation announced it has
stock on Tyco Electronics’ new Silicon electrostatic discharge (SESD) protection devices. With a 0201-sized footprint, Tyco Electronics’ SESD devices, which help protect electronic circuits against damage caused by electrostatic discharge events and help improve reliability of portable electronics, offer designers flexibility in space-constrained applications, such as mobile phones, MP3 players, PDAs and digital cameras. www.digikey.com Rehm Thermal Systems opens new Applications Center in Roswell, Ga. Rehm Thermal Systems has moved into a new Applications Center that will serve their North America marketplace. Located in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, the new facility is designed to provide Rehm customers everything needed to characterize their convection and condensation reflow processes. Rehm Thermal Systems has operated directly in
8 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
ACW to open US manufacturing facility ACW Technology Ltd is setting up its first manufacturing facility in the United States. ACW Technology Inc will operate from a 30,000 sq. ft. facility in Durham, North Carolina, opening in Q2 2010. Jeffrey Benes, an experienced and successful figure in the EMS industry, will join ACW as vice president and general manager to head up the new operation. www.acw.co.uk Major new trade show for Brazil Trafalgar Publications Ltd., announces Global Electronics Manufacturing (GEM) Expo Brazil 2010, to be held at Expo Center Norte in São Paulo, Brazil, on October 5-7, 2010. GEM Expo Brazil will feature an extensive conference program comprising IPC training and certification workshops, advanced training workshops from international experts and exhibitor and local training companies, and a vendor conference program. The event will also feature a comprehensive exhibition. www.gemexpobrazil.com Nihon Superior opens new office in Indonesia Advanced soldering materials supplier Nihon Superior Co. Ltd. announced that its subsidiary Nihon Superior (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. recently opened a representative office in Indonesia. The new office is staffed by Mr Wahyu Buditomo, who is relocating from the Singapore office. Mr Buditomo has eight years of experience with Nihon Superior in Japan and South East Asia and is looking forward to delivering even greater levels of support to customers in Indonesia. The new office can be reached at +62 81584163010. www.nihonsuperior.co.jp
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 9
Industry News
ZESTRON launches new “virtual tour” Customers can now take a new, enhanced “virtual tour” of ZESTRON America’s facility in Manassas, VA, from the comfort of their own computers by visiting www. zestron.com. The expanded, webbased tour is designed to showcase the capabilities offered to support ZESTRON’s customers around the globe. While certain areas are secure and could not be shown, visitors to the site will have total access and detailed views of all customer support facilities including the application technology center, which houses 15 stateof-the-art pieces of equipment from leading manufacturers. www.zestron.com NBS enhances its manufacturing process control capabilities with 3D solder paste inspection NBS has acquired four VI Technology post-print automatic solder paste inspection systems for its state of the art manufacturing facility in Santa Clara, California. With extremely frequent change over and often smaller run sizes, NBS has different needs than many other manufacturers. Some very specific goals and acceptance criteria needed to be met, including printer verification even on first time builds, 30 minutes or less CAM to board test time, minimal flase calls, and data with traceability to downstream inspection and test. www.nbscorp.com Nordson DAGE appoints Aram Kardjian as bond tester national sales manager—Americas Nordson DAGE, a subsidiary of Nordson Corporation, has appointed Aram Kardjian as bond tester national sales manager for the Americas. Previously western regional business manager with DEK USA with responsibility for the USA, Canada and Mexico, Kardjian has over 20 years experience within the electronics industry. www.nordondage.com SIPLACE records noticeable increase in investments in placement machines SIPLACE Ray Bruce, SEAS head of Global CRM & Sales.jpg The signs of a recovery in the electronics manufacturing industry are mounting. Market analyses and the latest order bookings of Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems GmbH & Co. KG (SEAS) show that the investment activities in the SMT industry are finally on the rise again. The speed and the scope of the recovery vary. China passed the low mark already in early 2009 and has seen significantly
rising investments ever since. European manufacturers on the other hand did not see a course reversal until the fall of the same year, and when the change came it was significantly more moderate than in China, but nevertheless noticeable. For the SIPLACE team, new orders rose by more than 15 percent in the winter quarter of 2009, making it the third quarter in a row with rising order bookings. www.siplace.com Global DRAM revenue to soar by 40 percent in 2010 Following a strong fourth quarter of 2009, the global DRAM business is set to return to annual revenue growth in 2010, bringing an end to three consecutive years of decline, according to iSuppli Corp. iSuppli’s preliminary forecast calls for global DRAM revenue to rise to $31.9 billion in 2010, up a whopping 40.4 percent from $22.7 billion in 2009. This follows declines of 3.7 percent in 2009, 25.1 percent in 2008 and 7.5 percent in 2007. The fourth quarter of 2009 represented the best period for DRAM suppliers in recent memory, with the industry posting revenue of more than $8 billion for the first time since the first quarter of 2007, according to iSuppli Corp. Even more impressive is that this strong revenue performance came after the disastrous first quarter of 2009, the worst quarter on record for DRAM since the Internet bubble crash in 2001. www.isuppli.com CyberOptics appoints Maxim SMT as representative in India CyberOptics Corporation has appointed one of India’s leading sales representative firms, Maxim SMT Technologies Pvt Ltd., as its new representative in India. Maxim SMT is a dynamic company that specializes in equipment supply and service to the electronics manufacturing industry. Maxim SMT helps customers in all aspects of high-technology solutions, covers presales counseling, post-sales equipment services and turnkey projects. Maxim SMT is headquartered in New Delhi (NCR Region) and is supported by branch offices in Chennai, Banglore and Pune. www.cyberoptics.com ECD granted patent on revolutionary “OK Button” ECD of Milwaukie, OR, USA, received a patent on its revolutionary “OK Button,” which is standard on its MEGAM.O.L.E.®20 and V-M.O.L.E.® thermal profilers, as well as being a feature
10 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
of the newly released OvenCHECKER™. The OK Button is revolutionary in its ability to give, with the press of a button, an automatic “Go/NoGo” decision based on an engineer’s preloaded specifications for the desired thermal profile. The simple button enables more runs per day with far less interruption to product throughput. www.ecd.com Seika manufacturer awarded Prime Minister’s Green Campaign Award Seika Machinery, Inc., tells us that HIOKI, the manufacturer of Seika’s 1240 Hioki flying probe tester and ICT systems, was nominated as one of the recipients of the 2009 Green Campaign Award of the office of the Japanese Prime Minister. HIOKI was selected to receive this award based on its continued efforts to contribute to afforestation efforts around its factory. When the HIOKI factory moved to its current location in 1988, much of the original natural forest had to be destroyed. HIOKI has planted approximately 80,000 tree seedlings over its roughly 52,000 sq. m. campus. The company has also contributed to the local community through greening efforts and has established a scholarship fund, all with the aim of being at one with the surrounding community. www.seikausa.com P.D. Circuits receives grant for lean process training P.D. Circuits, Inc., was awarded a grant in the amount of $10,524 to be used toward lean processing training. The grant, awarded by the New Hampshire Job Training Fund, is designed to enhance work skills and to help New Hampshire companies maintain leadership positions in competitive global markets. Training will include the principles of lean processing, value stream mapping systems and effective kaizen event implementation. www.pdcircuits.com Dow Corning Electronics awards Krayden Inc. Distributor of the Year The Dow Corning Americas Electronics Channel Team recently named Krayden, Inc., recipient of the Distributor of the Year Award. This is the fourth year (since program inception) that Krayden has earned awards for outstanding performance. The award is given for gaining the highest number of points on the 2009 Performance Tracking Tool. Krayden, Inc. has been an authorized electronics distributor with Dow Corning for 20 years. www.krayden.com
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Title
Over 400,000,000 hand-helds made with alpha® solder paste in 2009 would reach around the world. It’s true. If placed end to end, the over 400,000,000 hand-helds made with ALPHA® solder paste in 2009 would reach around the world at the equator – 24,900 miles. We went the distance with hand-held assemblers to meet their critical demands for device performance and reliability, especially drop shock resistance. They asked us for: • Pb-free with zero halogen content • High throughput with low print cycle time • High resistance to head-in-pillow defects • Maximum first pass print yield, even with fine features • Worldwide applications expertise and process support • Global product consistency and performance ALPHA® solder paste consistently met their needs in 2009. Challenge us to meet yours in 2010. For information about ALPHA solder paste, go to www.alphasolderpaste.com.
Worldwide/Americas Headquarters • 109 Corporate Boulevard • South Plainfield, NJ 07080 • USA • +1-800-367-5460 • www.alpha.cooksonelectronics.com European Headquarters • Forsyth Road • Sheerwater • Woking GU215RZ • United Kingdom • +44-1483-758-400 Asia-Pacific Headquarters • 1/F, Block A • 21 Tung Yuen Street • Yau Tong Bay • Kowloon, Hong Kong • +852-3190-3100 © 2010 Cookson Electronics
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 11
PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly
PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly Gerry Padnos, Juki Automation Systems, Morrisville, NC, USA
Traditional SMT assembly is a two dimensional process. Each component is placed on the same horizontal plane in different X and Y locations. In package on package (PoP) assembly, components are placed on successively higher layers. Since components are stacked on top of each other, traditional solder paste printing cannot be used. The typical SMT method to print solder paste can only be used to print paste on a single horizontal plane. For PoP, the components that are placed on top of existing components need to have flux or solder paste applied at the time of assembly. This paper will explore the challenges and solutions of PoP assembly for the SMT assembly system.
Keywords: Test, Contactors, Flat Probe Technology
Introduction The increasing functionality and decreasing size of today’s consumer electronics has led to the development of the packageon-package (PoP) technology. Using PoP devices allows designers more flexibility and decreases the development time and cost. From the assembly system point of view, PoP requires new techniques when compared to standard SMT assembly. The first problem is how to get the devices in a stacked assembly to reflow. Flux or specially designed dippable solder paste must be applied to the components before they are placed. This cannot be done by an external machine due to the fact that the components requiring flux are still packaged until they reach the assembly system. The application of flux or solder paste is not common for standard SMT assembly so additional hardware and software on the assembly system are required. The next challenge is the requirement to place the components on top of each other, sometimes up to five or more layers high. While all assembly systems have the basic ability to place a component at any given X and Y coordinate, placing different components on different horizontal planes, or layers, in a specific sequence, is not always standard. Of course every machine has some up and down, or Z, movement, but the ability to stop at varying Z heights depending on the placement location requires additional hardware and software also. Some PoP devices are a simple stack of identical components while others are different components in a specific sequence. The assembly process must have software that identifies the layer for each component and prevents components from being placed out of sequence.
12 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
Assembly methods The two main methods of PoP assembly are “pre-joined” and “on-the-fly.” The main difference between these methods is the assembly process, not the end results. The pre-joined method of assembly uses a twopass process. In the first pass, the devices that will be stacked later are assembled. This step is identical to standard SMT assembly. Components are placed onto other devices in a carrier. The entire carrier is then sent through reflow to join these parts. The now pre-joined devices are then re-packaged for picking by the assembly system (normally tray). These devices are returned to the placement machine to be stacked on top of each other or to be placed on top of a different device. In some cases, one layer is added at a time and the stack goes to reflow after each layer. In other cases, several pre-joined parts are stacked together after the initial process for creating the pre-joined devices. The on-the-fly method is where the all layers are placed, and the complete stack is reflowed all at once. The first layer is placed on the PCB or carrier directly and additional layers are placed successively. After all components have been placed in the proper sequence, the entire assembly is reflowed. The pre-joined method reduces some complexity for the placement machine, because each step is more like traditional SMT assembly, but adds handling and other possible concerns. Device types Before discussing how to assemble PoP, it is important to understand how various types of components are being used in PoP assembly. Since this method is still very new, the types of components are evolving fairly rapidly and must be adaptable to one of the most common uses for PoP, which
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PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly
Figure 1. Pre-joined assembly.
Figure 3. Sample two-layer PoP (Toshiba).
Figure 2. On-the-fly assembly.
is for building memory. By building the memory package vertically, designers can add more memory to a device without needing to leave unused space on the PCB when less is required. They need only one set of pads and can install PoP memory with two or more vertical layers. Nearly all PoP devices use BGA type balls on the bottom side of each layer as the interconnection. The main difference between a PoP device and a standard BGA from the assembly point of view is that the PoP devices have pads on the top side in addition to the balls on the bottom. The pads are the interconnection between the different layers in the final package. From an assembly point of view, system in package (SIP) is very similar to PoP. SiP is usually a complete functional module, such as a cell phone camera. SiP is more often just two layers, so in some ways it is not different from standard SMT assembly. PoP, on the other hand, is usually used for a device that requires flexibility of more or less modules. One example of PoP is a solid-state drive. Increasing the drive size simply requires more modules to be stacked on top of each other. To further complicate things, sometimes several SiPs can be stacked to create a PoP device. The good news is that the assembly system really doesn’t care what its placing, only how it needs to be placed. The PoP stack may be composed of all identical layers or different components on each layer. When the layers are different, the sequence of assembly becomes important since the device will not work if assembled in the wrong sequence.
and components are placed on the solder pasted PCB. Due to the fact that parts are stacked on top of each other, this method is inadequate for PoP. In the more common PoP assembly methods, one layer of parts is placed on the PCB, but subsequent layers are placed immediately on top of the first layer. It is possible, and common, to print solder paste onto the PCB for the layer one placements, but there is no method currently to apply solder paste to the tops of these parts after they have been placed. The preferred method is to apply flux or dippable solder paste to the balls of layer two and higher parts. This must be done on the assembly system since the parts are going directly from their packaging (tape, tray, etc.) to the PCB. This paper is focused on the
Fluxing Probably the single biggest difference for the assembly process in PoP is the requirement to apply flux to components. In normal SMT assembly, solder paste is applied to the PCB using a stencil printer
assembly process only and will not discuss the merits of flux versus dippable solder paste. From the assembly point of view, the only difference between flux and dippable solder paste is how well they work in the flux unit.
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Fluxing has been around for many years on different machines on the typical SMT floor, but has rarely been used on mainstream SMT assembly systems. Specialty placement machines designed more for semiconductor placement have also used fluxers for many years. Although the device is often called a “fluxer” or “flux applicator,” the newly developed dippable solder pastes are usually compatible. For this paper, the word “flux” can be considered interchangeable with “dippable solder paste.” The main task of the fluxer is to provide a method of applying a uniform and consistent amount of flux to the components. The design must be such that each component dipped will have a uniform amount of flux across all of the balls or leads. The depth of the flux on the component depends on the diameter of the balls on the component. Typically the depth of the flux should be 40-50% of the ball diameter to ensure proper coverage. If the depth is too much, the flux could touch components on the bottom side and cause adverse reactions. If the depth is
Figure 4. Linear fluxer.
too low, there will not be enough flux for proper reflow. There are two main types of fluxers used for SMT assembly systems: linear and rotary. Spray type fluxers used on selective or wave solder machines are not
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 13
PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly
5. Linear fluxer. Figure appropriate for the SMT assembly systems. Linear and rotary fluxers are both dip type fluxers where components are dipped into the fluxer one at a time. Both types must have some reservoir or container for the flux and a method to ensure uniform and
Figure 6. Rotary fluxer.
component dimensions. The plate slides back and forth under the reservoir to refill and then scrape off any excess. After the component is dipped, the plate slides closed again to refill and to minimize exposure to air. The dimensions and
Figure 7. Rotary fluxer.
proper flux application. Linear fluxers ensure the uniformity of depth through a sliding plate with a precision cavity milled for the desired
depth of the cavity are fixed on each plate, but the plates can be easily changed for different requirements. Some plate designs allow more than one depth on the same
14 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
plate, increasing the flexibility of the linear fluxer. The benefit of the linear fluxer is that the depth of the flux is extremely uniform across the entire cavity. It is also more difficult to incorrectly set the flux depth since it is fixed by the plate. Only by choosing the wrong plate for the product could the depth be incorrect. One drawback of this design is that it is more difficult to change the depth when needed compared to the rotary fluxer. Rotary fluxers have a rotating disk that flux is dripped onto. A doctor blade scrapes off any excess to ensure the proper depth of flux. The depth of flux is set by adjusting a micrometer attached to the doctor blade so it is very easy to change the depth of flux. The disk rotation pauses whenever the component is ready to be dipped and then continues again after the dip is complete. The constant rotation is required to keep the depth of flux uniform. One concern with rotary fluxers is that the centrifugal force can make the depth of flux slightly deeper at the edge of the disk than at the center. Rotary fluxers are also usually larger, or have a smaller maximum component size, because the disk has to be more than twice the diameter of the maximum component size. Placement height compensation and sequencing Second to the ability to dip devices in flux or solder paste is the ability to compensate
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 15
PCB assembly system set-up for package-on-package (PoP) assembly
Figure 9. PoP assembly. (Photo courtesy Viking Modular Solutions)
Figure 8. Laser height measurement sensor.
for the 3D nature of the PoP assembly. Unlike standard SMT where every part is placed on the same horizontal plane, PoP placement height changes with every different assembly and every layer that is added to the stack. The assembly system must have a way to accurately account for the change in placement height to avoid excessive force on the devices or damage to the machine. The ability to measure and adjust for the Z height variations is what really makes PoP assembly process unique. There are some packages that require fluxing, but not height compensation. PoP requires both. To compensate for the different placement heights, first, the assembly system must have accurate Z control for each placement head. This a function of the motors and encoders used in the machine. Next, the machine needs a way to measure the actual placement height prior to placing each layer. The best way to do this is using a laser to measure the height of each placement position just prior to placing the next level part. Laser height measurement is accurate and fast. It is possible for the assembly system to calculate the proper placement height based on the PCB height and devices already placed, but measuring each location individually with a laser is more accurate. Each device’s actual height can vary to some degree, and when that variation is added up over several layers, a calculated height would not be sufficient. The laser height measurement sensor is mounted to the assembly system’s placement head. The measurement is performed very similarly to checking fiducials or bad marks. The sequence of placement is also a potential issue for PoP assembly. Some
applications have a stack composed of different devices. In these cases it is critical that the devices are placed in the proper order. The assembly system software must have a method to identify which “layer” each device will be placed on and a method to ensure that higher layers are not placed before lower ones. Often in standard SMT, optimization software may rearrange the placement sequence to reduce assembly time. In addition, it is common when an error occurs for assembly systems to continue to place subsequent components. If this happens without software layer controls, an error placing a layer 1 device could cause a layer 2 device to be placed first. The ability to specify the layer for every placement is used to force the optimization software to maintain the correct placement sequence. It also stops the machine if an error occurs on one layer of placements before placing any of the subsequent layers. Component restrictions When investigating PoP capabilities, it is important to ensure the component handling capabilities of the assembly system will meet the requirements for assembly. In general, these are not much different from normal component placement. The main thing to keep in mind is the maximum overall height of the final stacked device and not just the height of an individual component. Assembly methods There are several possible assembly methods, each with many possible variations. The general descriptions below should not be taken as the only possible way. It is difficult to say any one method is better than others because it depends heavily on the application.
Pre-joined devices PoP assembly using pre-joined devices is a multi-step process. This method is
16 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
more suitable for applications where more than a single component will be placed on each layer: a BGA and some passive components, for example. In the first step, all of the parts are placed on a single layer. Later, these devices will be placed on a stack. Normally the first layer is made on a standard panelized PCB that will be cut apart later, or on individual units placed into a carrier. This first step is identical to standard SMT assembly. No fluxing is required since there is only one layer that can be handled with a standard stencil printer. Height compensation is also not required. The PCB or carrier is then reflowed and cut apart into individual devices, which are then put into a packaging suitable for the assembly system to pick from (tray is the most common). In the final step, the pre-joined devices are placed onto a stack using PoP methods. Standard solder paste may be used for the first layer. All subsequent layers will have the devices fluxed, the stack height measured, and the device placed. Flux/solder paste dip Flux or solder paste dipping is a good method when there is only one component on each layer or when there are only two total layers. This method requires less overall processing and handling of devices. Fluxing adds processing time to each placement in order to dip the component and is in addition to the normal pick/ center/place time. This is why this method is not really recommended for devices with more than a single component on each layer. The flux dip method is very straightforward with only two steps added when compared to traditional SMT 1. The base layer is screen printed with solder paste 2. Layer 1 devices are placed 3. The height of each placement location is measured 4. Layer 2 parts are picked, fluxed and placed 5. Steps 3 and 4 are repeated for each additional layer assembly. One common variation to this method is to replace the solder paste printing of layer one with flux dipping. This completely eliminates the need for the stencil printer in the production line. The production time will be increased since every part must be dipped in flux, but this can be weighed against the potential cost and programming savings.
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y-cheetah-adv PCB 114x248-GB Stoerer6.0.qxp 17.02.2010 (PoP) 10:36 Uhr Seite assembly mit system set-up for package-on-package assembly
Placement accuracy Generally, the placement accuracy for PoP should be the same as other similar BGA components on any given machine. One method to improve the placement accuracy is to use fiducials for each layer of placements. The need for using fiducials is completely dependent on the application and machine accuracy. Since devices are placed on top of each other, there is a possibility of tolerance buildup from the devices as well as the assembly system. Fiducial marks can be designed onto the top of each layer that can then be used for higher layers. If it isn’t possible to add fiducials, many assembly systems have pattern recognition functions that could use the pads on the top of the components as fiducials. Since these pads do not have any solder paste on them, the accuracy should be quite good. The handling of this function by the assembly system is identical to local fiducials on traditional SMT assembly. This means fiducials must be defined for each layer of devices. Before the next layer is placed, the fiducials on the previous layer are checked. The main restriction to using this function is that most assembly systems have fixed focus fiducial cameras. This means as the stack grows higher, there is a possibility that the fiducials will become out of focus. Conclusion The ability to assemble PoP devices requires two main changes from the standard SMT assembly process: application of flux to some or all components and the ability to stack components on top of each other. While these two requirements are new to the SMT assembly process, the technologies and hardware have been around for many years and are well established. There are several possible assembly processes that can be used depending on the specific application. Adding the ability to assemble PoP devices is not difficult after understanding the basic requirements for PoP assembly as well as the specific application requirements.
Gerry Padnos is director of technology for Juki Automation Systems. He can be reached at gpadnos@jas-smt.com.
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 17
Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology
Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology Tony DeRosa, Multitest ECT Interface Products, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA There is one thing all test engineers have in common: the ever-increasing challenges they face from package innovation and advances in the devices that go into them. Expectations for all test cells are consistent at the macro level: long life, high yield and (the one that usually dominates) low cost, if not initial sell price, then total cost of test. This article briefly describes some of the packaging advancements and the challenges they create and the goes into the contactor performance requirements that are needed to meet these challenges. Next the advantages of flat probe technology are delved into, and finally customer evaluation data is provided. Keywords: Test, Contactors, Flat Probe Technology
1. Long life & long mean time between maintenance (MTBM). Accomplishing high reliability can require compromises in electrical performance and/or increase initial contactor cost. • Pitches continue to get finer. For BGAs, 2. High first pass yield. Excellent electrical 0.4 mm is becoming common, and if you performance is most often accomplished by consider wafer level CSP a form of BGA a short signal path through the contactor. then 0.3 mm and finer is also becoming This can mean a contacting method with common. high initial cost and/or one that sacrifices • As device speeds get faster, higher reliability. bandwidth and lower inductance are 3. Lower cost of ownership. This is really the required. combination of the first two requirements, • System on chip (SoC) is an area of rapid despite their contradictions. Low cost of growth. Many of today’s devices are ownership is achieved by a low cost per complete systems, with RF, mixed signal, insertion (reasonable initial cost and long and processor on one die or in some cases life with low maintenance). But the low cost multiple dice in one package. of ownership means nothing without high • Wafer-level chip-scale packaging (WLCSP) test yields. Low test yields can be the most is seeing explosive growth. Contactors expensive component of contacting cost. are a cost-effective alternative to probe cards, especially since wafer-scale test Flat probe technology features and is final test where at-speed tests occur. benefits Providing adequate targeting for the Multitest’s Mercury probes made using our optical alignment system and compliance patented flat-probe technology offer many with existing docking hardware can be features that directly address the primary additional challenges. challenges of test contacting. • Package on package (PoP) technology has The first advantage of flat probes is been emerging for some time. The test excellent plating quality. contacting challenge for PoP packages is Both traditional double-ended to reliably and economically transmit the (plunger-barrel-plunger) and single-ended signals from the top side of the device (plunger-barrel) probes have an internal to the mother board. This requires the surface that requires plating: the inside incorporation of a full contactor into the of the barrel. Plating inside barrels is handler nest. difficult—especially at 0.5 mm and 0.4 mm pitch. But this plating is critical to the Each of these challenges can be electrical performance and mechanical life difficult by themselves, and in many cases of the traditional probes. several appear in one application. Unlike traditional probes, the flat probe components have all external Contactor requirements surfaces. For this reason, the parts can be The top three contactor requirements are plated to an extremely consistent thickness. related and often contradictory. Package innovation Here a rundown of some of the more interesting challenges created by package innovation and chip complexity:
18 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology
MER040 – 0.4 mm pitch
MER050 – 0.5 mm pitch
MER080 – 0.8 mm and larger pitch
Figure 1. Mercury flat probes. Figure 3. Ball mark—0.5mm pitch. Figure 2. Mercury plunger interaction.
attributes as a result of the proprietary manufacturing process. Two of these attributes are precision and repeatability. The geometry of the contacting surfaces Figure 4a. New Mercury probe. Figure 4b. Mercury probe with 550k insertions. is controlled to a tolerance of a few Improved plating quality = consistent microns. These electrical performance and long usable life. features can be seen in Figure 2. The interaction between the probe The accuracy of these features components is also very important. In is critical: they need to have enough traditional probes, the male, cylindrical interference to create the consistent bias, plunger makes contact with the largerbut not so much that they cause wear. diameter, female cylindrical barrel. Consistent bias means repeatable electrical Contact between plunger and barrel is performance. Better wear characteristics + assured by biasing the plunger: using some repeatable electrical performance = longer mechanical means to push it laterally into life and higher first-pass yield. the side of the barrel. The contact can Precise feature control allows the theoretically take the shape of a line, but creation of sharp edges where the DUT more realistically occurs at a single point. is contacted. Sharp edges are required to The biasing also causes some eccentricity pierce the oxide and debris on the device of the plunger tip as the barrel end of the and they minimize the buildup of solder plunger is pushed to the side. on the probe. This means consistent Unlike the traditional probes, the flat contact and longer cleaning intervals. probes are assured of consistent contact by Figure 3 shows the witness mark on a one piece gently pinching the other. The 0.5mm solder ball. result is multiple contact points and no The base metal used in the eccentricity. manufacturing process is also much harder Increased contact surface area between than beryllium copper (the metal typically top and bottom plungers + balanced used in probe tips). It is approximately 2½ biasing = consistent electrical performance times harder. It’s also harder that nickeland long usable life. palladium-plated DUT leads. The flat probes have several unique Better wear and solder-shedding MER040
MER050
MER080
Probe Test Height
3.3 mm
3.3 mm
3.8 mm
Probe Compliance
0.43 mm
0.48 mm
0.57 mm
Force - Test Height
30g
30g
30g
18 GHz
20 GHz
18 GHz
Bandwidth -1dB*
Table 1. Key specifications for Mercury flat technology probes.
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characteristics of the probe tips and better wear characteristics of the sliding surfaces (biasing) = longer life and higher first pass yield. The SEM photos in Figures 4a and 4b show a new Mercury probe (a) and a Mercury probe with 550k insertions (a). The probe tips are still sharp. Added benefits of the flat probe technology are scalability and design flexibility. Probe designs can be scaled down to 0.3 mm. The design flexibility allows nonsymmetrical designs. This capability has been used to produce the Kelvin version of the probe (Figure 5a), as well as an RF probe (Figure 5b). These probes have been in the field—in high-volume production applications—for over three years. Table 1 shows some of the key specifications for Mercury flat technology probes, which are offered in three pitchdependent sizes: 0.4 mm, 0.5 mm and 0.8/1.0 mm. The target applications for the probe are a broad spectrum of devices in BGA and QFN/MLF packages. The probe is long enough to use a floating alignment plate to improve targeting to BGA packages, but short enough to achieve the electrical performance to satisfy almost all DUT requirements.
Figure 5a. Gemini Kelvin Figure 5a. Gemini Kelvin (GMK040) probe pair. probe pair. (GMK040)
Figure 5b. Gemini Figure 5b. Gem Figure 5a. Gemini Kelvin (GMK040) probe pair. Figure 5b. Gemini (GEM040). (GEM040). (GEM040).
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 19
Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology
Figure 6. Mercury: 500 k insertions
Figure 7 .Probe B: 130 k insertions.
Field test results All the testing and measurements of a spring probe mean very little compared to actual performance in the field. Customersupplied data was collected during evaluations to show how contactors with this probe perform. The customer selected two package types with a variety of critical test requirements. In each example, a different competing probe is evaluated against a contactor with Mercury spring probes. The evaluating customer is a large fabless semiconductor company based in southern California with several Singapore test subcontractors.
MER050 MER050
The first device was a 0.5 mm pitch 407 BGA. The application is a cell phone processor chip. This is really a system on chip with elements of RF and mixed signal. One key parameter (and challenging test) of this device is the signal-to-noise ratio. Figures 6 and 7 show first pass yield (FPY) percentage for each of many lots along with cumulative insertion count. This is unaltered test data directly from one of the manufacturer’s test sub-contractors. The chart on the top is data from one Mercury contactor, with the same set of probes throughout. The chart on the bottom is data from a competitor’s contactor using probe B. PROBE B
20 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
All other variables, such as test program, performance board, handler and handler kit, were the same for both contactors. Each plum-colored dot represents FPY for an individual lot. The diagonal yellow dots represent the cumulative insertions, which are quantified on the right border. The FPY of the Mercury is more or less constant and is within the target yield range. (The low-yielding lots are either retest lots or setup-related issues.) The contactor reached 550 k insertions before being taken off-line. The blue dots represent documented cleaning events. (Though undocumented, the Mercury contactor was cleaned more than once. The subcontractor stated that the contactor was run without cleaning until yield began to drop and then every 40 to 60 k insertions thereafter.) The contactor with probe B in it did not perform as well. Yield was inconsistent throughout the evaluation and the probes required unacceptably frequent cleaning. The yield dropped off at around 130 k insertions and could not be recovered. At this point probes were replaced, but performance did not greatly improve. This application is very high volume
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Title
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Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 21
Addressing package advancement challenges with innovative contactor probe technology
Figure 9a. Schematic diagram showing loss characteristic for Mercury. Figure 9ab. Schematic diagram showing loss characteristic for probe C.
production and after comparing the results this customer committed to Mercury. Very similar yield and insertion results were achieved on no fewer than 28 contactors at multiple test houses. The next example of customer feedback involves signal to noise ratio (SNR) test results. The test measures the amplitude difference between the signal and the noise floor at a specified frequency. In this case the signal is at 20 kHz—the upper end of the audio range. The Y axis in the following Figures 8a and 8b show SNR in dB and the X axis shows test samples. This data contains 1000 samples. Higher signal to noise ratio is better, but what is equally important is consistency. The Mercury is just that—very repeatable in a narrow band. Data using probe B is all over the place—unrepeatable. The key to the Mercury performance is excellent contact to the solder balls. Solid contact means a solid ground, which is precisely what Mercury provides. A sharp contact edge along with a generous force translates into optimal ball contact. In fact, the product engineer for this device predicted that Mercury would perform better based entirely on observing the witness marks. The second device is an Ethernet controller packaged in a 48 lead QFN at 0.5 mm pitch. For this application, high-speed performance is very important. What is required is an interface that minimizes signal loss at the data rate of 2.5 Gbit/sec. Figures 9a and 9b show simplified schematic diagrams of the signal path and associated losses from each block. The device needs approximately 300 mV to function. The goal is to minimize the tester output voltage while still guaranteeing a 300 mV input voltage at the DUT. The first diagram shows that the tester needs to provide an input voltage of 360 mV. This translates to a loss of 0.5 dB. The second diagram shows a contactor with probe “C” and requires an input voltage of 420 mV, indicating a loss of about 2 dB.
Figure 10a. Mercury Shmoo plot. Figure 10b. Probe C Shmoo plot.
The difference is significant. The high loss through probe C required the tester to put out an unacceptable 420 mV for the test to pass. All other variables are identical, so that the difference in loss is totally due to the contactor/probe. The plots in Figures 10a and 10b were provided by the product engineer and show the Shmoo plots from which the input voltage values were extracted. The device must consistently pass with an input signal of 400 mV maximum. In these Shmoo plots, each dot represents a test input voltage that resulted in a passing or failing test. Green indicates a passing condition, red a failure. The Mercury plot shows that the tester input voltage can be at a lower level than the competing probe and achieve a passing condition. These results indicate that the Mercury probe is capable of a higher bandwidth. This is due to its shorter test height and closer impedance match compared to probe C.
manager. For the past ten years he has been a product manager for Multitest, supporting engineering, sales, marketing, and new product introduction for contactors. Tony holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He can be reached at +1 (651) 407 7774 or t.derosa@multitest.com.
Conclusion Packaging and device complexity are increasing. Traditional barrel-plunger architecture has limitations in meeting the demands of mechanical reliability and electrical performance at a cost effective price point. Multitest ECT Interface Products has developed an innovative flat probe technology to address these demands. In high-volume trials Mercury has demonstrated the ability to meet and exceed all performance requirements.
Tony DeRosa has worked in the semiconductor test industry for over thirty years, as a test engineer, test development manager and product
22 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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us e EX 59 Se A P h 2 at oot b in
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Enjoy Title the 2010 recovery!
Walt Custer and Jon Custer-Topai
Enjoy the 2010 recovery! Business conditions continue to improve. Industrial production growth (Chart 1) is now again positive for the majority of the world’s major economies. Admittedly this “growth” is relative to the chasm of last year’s global recession, but the worst is over, and a world expansion is again underway. Electronic equipment production is both cyclical (multiyear expansions & recessions) and seasonal (holiday, back-toschool) with SE Asia dominating world electronics manufacturing (Chart 2). This year’s Asian post-Christmas holiday season downturn is muted compared to last year’s, especially for consumer products. On a three-month (3/12) basis Taiwan/China electronic equipment production was up 45% for the three-month period ending February 2010 vs. February 2009 (Chart 3). As the world “recovers,” electronic component & labor shortages and inflation are now key worries. Factories are struggling to keep up. Double-ordering and long lead times for key components are big issues. SE Asian electronic equipment production probably “bottomed” in February and will now begin its next climb 20100311
to a pre-holiday high this October or November (Chart 4). As business conditions improve, companies are revising upwards their short-term sales guidance, and forecasters are raising their opinions of 2010 revenues. Gartner recently increased its global semiconductor chip growth forecast to +19.9% for 2010 (Chart 5) and predicted a whopping +55.9% increase for 2010 global semiconductor capital spending (Chart 6). Printed circuit board production declined 20% in 2009 based upon Custer Consulting Group’s global model but appears to be headed for at least a 12% rebound this year (Chart 7). Based upon Henderson Ventures’ most recent estimates, world electronic equipment production will rise 7.5% this year and 9.3% in 2011 with all geographic areas in positive territory (Chart 8). Combining these 2010 forecasts (Chart 9), this year looks quite good for the electronic food chain. Be wary of excess ordering, inventory building and inflation, but enjoy the “recovery.” End markets • Worldwide mobile phone sales to
Industrial Production - World
20100311
• •
•
•
•
•
•
end users grew 8.3% y/y to 340 million units in 4Q09. 2009 total sales declined 0.9% y/y to 1.211 billion.— Gartner Worldwide smartphone sales grew 24% y/y to 172 million units in 2009.—Gartner Smart phones shipments increased 39% y/y to 54.5 million in 4Q09, full year increased 15.1% to 174.2 million units in 2009.—IDC Worldwide wireless services and equipment reached $900 billion and wireless devices and accessories hit $110 billion in 2009.—iSuppli Worldwide server shipments grew 4.5% y/y to 2.2 million units in 4Q09, 2009 shipments declined 16.6% y/y.— Gartner Worldwide server shipments increased 1.9% y/y to 1.9 million units in 4Q09; full year 2009 worldwide unit shipments declined 18.6% to 6.6 million units.—IDC Consumer devices shipments that can be powered or charged wirelessly are forecast to grow from 1.5 million in 2009 to almost one billion in 2019.— IMS Research Global LCD TV shipments grew 37% y/y to 146 million units in 2009.—Dis-
World Electronic Equipment Monthly Shipments
% Change vs. One Year Earlier
Converted @ Constant 2008 Exchange Rates
100
$ Billions N America
Europe
Japan
SE Asia
80
60
40
20
0 1 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 00 01
Economist 3/2010
http://www.economist.com Output, prices and jobs
Chart 1.
24 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
Source: Custer Consulting Group
CALENDAR YEAR
Chart 2.
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Enjoy the 2010 recovery!
playSearch
• U.S. videogame console revenues fell
21% y/y to $353 million in January.— NPD Group
EMS, ODM & related assembly activity • China’s electronics manufacturing industry value-added output grew 19.8% y/y and 5.4% m/m in December. • EMS firms are challenging the PV Solar Module manufacturing value chain Accuspec Electronics was named 2009 Employer of the Year by the Economic Development Corp. of Erie County. ACW Technology received SC21 silver accreditation in the Supply Chains for the Twenty First Century national aerospace and defense supply chain improvement program. AFL Europe GmbH (Frickenhausen, Germany) declared insolvency. Altium appointed Nanosoft as its new distributor in Russia and the
Commonwealth of Independent States. Axiom Manufacturing Services named Jeff Clifford business development manager and Chris Nye materials manager. BB Electronics hired Zhang Li and Paul Wang as senio mechanical engineers in DesignLink in China. Benchmark Electronics was selected to Texas Instruments’ Elite Design House network. Celestica closed its Arden Hills, MN, EMS facility. CIL appointed Chris Heal to EMS sales director, James Beacher, CoolLED business director, Juliet Coulson to operations director and Paul Kavanagh to financial director. Compal restarted construction of its production base in Vietnam. CTP added 12,000 SF of manufacturing space. Elcoteq and Videocon acquisition negotiations faltered as creditors set stiff
20100311
terms on restructured debt. Eolane: • completed its acquisition of Cybersys. • Morocco received EN9100 aviation certification. FCI: • acquired MergeOptics. • and Coficab began production and assembly in Tunisia and North Africa. Flextronics: • received an EMS contract for the SYNC automotive infotainment system from Ford. • added 43 workers in Skive, Denmark. Foxconn/ Hon Hai: • invested in solid-state optical component manufacturer LensVector. • Juarez former employee set plant on fire. • plans to establish a fully-automated production plant in Taiwan. • is expanding its Chihuahua, Mexico, plant on increased orders from Dell. • began building $200m Vietnam mobile
20100211
Global Electronic Equipment Shipment Growth
1.6
Taiwan/China Europe Japan USA 0
3/12 rate of growth in local currency
1.5 1.4
Taiwan/China Electronic Equipment Producers Composite of 101 Manufacturers NT$ (billions)
600
2009/2008 up 3%
500 400
1.3 1.2
300
1.1
200
1 0.9
100
0.8 0.7
Europe = Eurostat EU27 NACE C26 (computer, electronic & optical products)
0.6
1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 00 01
CALENDAR YEAR
1 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 02 03
CALENDAR YEAR Taiwan listed companies, often with significant manufacturing in China
Chart 3.
Chart 4.
20100225
350
0
20100308
World Semiconductor Sales Total
Worldwide Semiconductor Capital Spending
$ Billions
-9.6
300 250
253
70.0
304
+19.9% 276
60.0
60.0
63.4
50.0
231
44.0
40.0
200
30.0
150
20.0
+55.9 % -41%
+26.9 %
61.9
51.3
54.2
53.0
2013 18.5 2.2 4.3 29.2
2014 17.0 2.4 5.0 28.6
40.4
25.9
10.0
100
0.0 50 0
$ Billions
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Other Capital Spending Automated Test Equip Packaging & Assembly Equip Wafer Fab Equip
Gartner 2/25/10
Gartner 3/2010
Chart 5.
Chart 6.
www.globalsmt.net
2006 17.9 4.1 5.4 32.5
2007 18.7 3.6 5.2 36.0
2008 13.3 2.4 4.0 24.2
2009 9.3 1.3 2.4 13.0
2010 11.1 2.3 4.2 22.9
2011 14.9 2.6 5.0 28.8
2012 19.0 2.9 5.7 34.4
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 25
Enjoy the 2010 recovery!
• plant. • is constructing a solar battery module factory in Taiwan.
• had 3,250 patents in 2009.
Hana Microelectronics allocated $30-35 million to expand PCBA and IC capacity in Lamphun and Ayutthaya, Thailand. Inovar received AS 9100 certification. Jabil Circuit: • entered a joint development agreement with AuthenTec for Smart Navi-Key products. • and JTouch developed touch screen technology that seamlessly integrates into molded plastic cover lenses for advanced 3D mobile phone designs. • outsourced staffing responsibilities in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, to SMX. Jaltek IDMS hired and appointed Garry Myatt to sales director. LaBarge: • added 35 workers in Pittsburgh. • received $1M assembly contract for missile warning systems from BAE Systems. LSH named Michael Mühlnickel facility manager for Hamburg and Halstenbek, Germany, and Jaklovce, Slovakia. NBS installed four VI Technology postprint automatic solder paste inspection systems in Santa Clara, CA. Note: • added Siemens dip flux package on package technology in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire. • closed down its Taurage, Lithuania, facility and transferred production to Pernu, Estonia. Oppunda Electronics filed for bankruptcy protection. PartnerTech named Leif Thorwaldsson its new CEO. Preh invested in Siplace SX placement machines for its headquarters in Bad 20100311
Neustadt. Prism Electronics extended its contract with SMYE Holland Associates. Quanta Computer raised salaries of its production workers in mainland China by 10% due to labor shortage. Sanmina-SCI Tatabanya, Hungary, facility achieved ISO 13485 certification for medical devices. Scanfil installed a surface mounting assembly line in Pärnu, Estonia. Solectron EMS India appointed Dr. P Rama Rao to director. Spectral Response added 135 new jobs. Sumida Lehesten added a Universal Instruments Genesis GC-60D placement machine in Lehesten, Germany. Teknoprod and Teknosystem received UL and CSA certifications for cable harness manufacturing. TT Electronics sold its wire systems technology to First Strut. Videoton and Philips expanded cooperation for plastic injection molding and final assembly. Materials & process equipment • Global tin consumption is expected to increase 4.1% y/y in 2010.—ITRI/ Reuters’ poll of analysts • Capital equipment financing was down 24.4% in January.—Equipment Leasing and Finance Association Survey • CCL quotes rose by 10% in January pushed by increased pricing for copper foils and fiberglass fabrics. • Global EDA tools market is expected to reach $9.85 billion by 2015.—Global Industry Analysts Datest received ITAR registration. Electrolube appointed Ivan Sheiham export manager. ESI appointed Dave Nierenberg to its
World PCB Shipments with forecast Converted @ Constant 2008 Exchange Rates
60
50
$ Billion Assumptions: Europe = composite European SIA & local PCB assoc data Japan & N. America from JPCA & IPC data Taiwan/China based upon 44 rigid & flex company composite Rest of Asia growth = Taiwan/China 44 company composite Data scaled to match Henderson Ventures annual totals 2007 based upon sum of monthly totals
+12% -20%
40
Electronic Equipment Production Growth
Current $ Growth Rates Converted @ Constant Exchange Rates
World
2008 0.5
2009 -9.9
2010 7.5
2011 9.3
2012 7.3
USA
-0.6
-5.2
7.3
6.0
5.1
W Europe
-3.3
-18.0
3.4
5.0
5.6
-11.6
-24.1
6.0
7.7
5.3
-1.2
-8.3
9.6
10.4
9.3
4.1
-5.2
10.3
14.5
9.5
Japan
30
20
20100305
31.6 38.6 31.2 29.4 31.7 37.6
42.9 51.7 54.3 51.1 40.9 45.8
1 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 911 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 99 00
CALENDAR YEAR Source: Custer Consulting Group - synthesized from Henderson Ventures annual estimates and N. American, Japanese & Taiwan/China monthly PCB shipments and SIA European chip shipments
26 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
board of directors. Fuji Film commercialized a new glass photo mask for circuit board imaging processes capable of 10 micron lines and spaces. IndustrialSAVER and ILG formed cooperative marketplace to buy and sell test equipment. Isola and ITEQ settled their 414 patent litigation. JD Photo-Tools chose Scanplot as its distribution partner for its photomask and imaging business in Scandinavia. KMG Chemicals acquired General Chemical’s electronic chemicals business. Koh Young Technologies moved its Seoul headquarters to new, larger building. Kulicke & Soffa moved its Irvine manufacturing to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore and transferred some administrative functions to Malaysia and Singapore. LPKF Laser & Electronics doubled its production capacities for cutting and structuring lasers in Garbsen, Germany. Mirtec opened its new Plymouth, UK, manufacturing facility for AOI and solder paste inspection systems. Nan Ya is investing US$1.18 billion this year to raise production of CCL (copper clad laminate), electronic materials for PCBs and BPA (Bisphenol A). National Technical Systems doubled its manufacturing space in Plano, Texas, from 25,000 to 50,000 SF. Nordson DAGE: • added a complete x-ray system production line in Suzhou, China. • appointed Aram Kardjian as bond tester national sales manager—Americas. Nordson MARCH introduced a new RIE1701 anisotropic reactive ion etch plasma system.
Four Tigers China
Henderson Ventures 3/2010 www.hendersonventures.com
www.globalsmt.net
DL Trade Ad 4_9:Layout 1
20100311
Global "Electronic Foodchain" Outlook 2010 vs 2009 Combined GDP
3
Electronic Equipment
Henderson Ventures
8 Henderson Ventures
Rigid & Flex PCBs
12
Semiconductors
Gartner
Custer Consulting Group
20
Semi Capital Spending
Gartner
0
20
40 % Change
56
60
Chart 9.
Panasonic Factory Solutions globally launched PANACIM™ enterprise edition MES software. Polar Instruments appointed Martyn Gaudion CEO. Rohwedder Asia and CIMTEK China formed an automation and test solutions strategic business alliance. Seika Machinery introduced a solder paste recycling unit. Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems introduced its new SIPLACE feeder manager 2.0. Somar introduced solvent-free circuit board coatings. Taiflex acquired a 68% share in Koatech via stock swaps. Techni-Tool received the 2009 Sovella Distributor of the Year award. TRaC is building a test facility in Up Holland, Lancashire. YAMAHA commercialized its new compact type component mounting platform YS24X. Semiconductors & other components • EMEA semiconductor distribution sales fell 10.7% to 960 million Euros in 4Q’09 and for total 2009 fell 24% y/y.—DMASS • Germany’s component distribution market turnover was 455 million Euros in 4Q’09. Total 2009 turnover fell 24% to 1.82 billion Euros.—FBDi • Global automotive Bluetooth electronics will grow at a CAGR of 28% from 7.6 million units in 2008 to 54.7 million units in 2016.—Strategy Analytics • Global semiconductor revenues will rise 20% in 2010.—Gartner • Global DRAM revenues will rise 40.4% y/y to $31.9 billion in 2010.— iSuppli • Global short range wireless ICs (Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4, Wi-Fi) shipments are expected to increase 20% y/y to 2 billion+ units in 2010.— ABI Research • Ultracapacitor market will grow from an estimated $275 million in 2009 to
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5/1/09
3:49 PM
Page 1Enjoy the 2010 recovery!
THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS TO A 5-MIL DOT Small, repeatable volumes are a challenge. But not impossible if you have been creating them as long as we have. However, to do it well, you need three things: Dispensing Expertise in a variety of applications: micro-attach, precision fill, highly-repeatable patterns; Micro Valve
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For Micro Dispensing, there is one product line that is proven and trusted by manufacturers in semiconductor packaging, electronics assembly, medical device, and electro-mechanical assembly the world over. DispenseLink® for Micro Volume Dispensing R
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DL Technology is a registered trademark of DL Technology LLC. DispenseLink is a registered trademark of DL Technology LLC. HY-FLO is a trademark of DL Technology LLC.
$725 million in 2014.—iRAP
• Worldwide silicon wafer area ship-
ments decreased by 18% y/y in 2009 to 6,707 million square inches.—SEMI
Walt Custer is an independent consultant who monitors and offers a daily news service and market reports on the PCB and assembly automation and semiconductor industries. He can be contacted at walt@custerconsulting.com or visit www.custerconsulting.com.
Jon Custer-Topai is vice president of Custer Consulting Group and responsible for the corporation’s market research and news analysis activities. Jon is a member of the IPC and active in the Technology Marketing Research Council. He can be contacted at jon@custerconsulting.com.
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 27
Title
P3
The best of Mirae’s flexible pick and place combined with the TD2929 results in a new P3 model.
The FIRST PlacemenT/PRInTeR combo on The PlaneT bRoughT To you by mIlaRa and mIRae. • Vibration Technology • Linear servo motion • Auto bottom side tooling • Progressive scan vision system • SimuTech Technology (concurrent processing for print and inspection) • 2D texture based AOI • Mx400LP platform • Flexible pick and place system (100 feeders) • Maximized production in less space (print, pick and place) • New feeder technology • Dot dispensing technology • Maximum feeder with tray option for flexibility • Over 31,000 CPH • Dual lane capability Milara Incorporated | 4 Marc Road | Medway, MA 02053 | Phone: 508.533.5322 | Fax: 508.533.8686 | Email: sales@milarasmt.com | www.milarasmt.com Corporation | 714 Baekseok-Dong, Cheonan-Si, Chungcheongnam-Do, 330-220, Korea | Phone: 82.41.621.5070 | Fax: 82.41.559.8719 | www.mirae.com 28 –Marae Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 www.globalsmt.net
Title
Touch Print Digital TD2929 Fully Automatic In-line Stencil Printer
A DECADE IN THE MAKINg
The FaSTeST and moST accuRaTe PRInTeR on The PlaneT. Optional 3D post print inspection head
Asymtek SV100 Piezo electric slider dot dispensing valve
APEX booth 959
• True high-speed operation (<5 seconds pre-print) • Dot dispensing using latest Piezo dispensing technology • New CyberOptics 3D post print inspection option • High repeatability and accuracy (12.5μm and 25μm respectively) • New SimuTech™ Technology twin conveyor system (allows two PCB simultaneous processing (print AND inspect, inspect AND inspect, stencil clean AND inspect, print AND dot dispense, inspect AND dot dispense) • Dual servo position loop (uses actual positioning feedback) • Heavy frame construction for rigid high speed servo operation • Dispense while print paste dispensing option • Texture based high speed 2D post print inspection • Network drive servo configuration (low cost, high performance) • Bottom side localized vacuum plenum injector system in wiper (ultra fast response time to large aperture vacuum losses during cleaning wipe)
Milara Incorporated | 4 Marc Road | Medway, MA 02053 | Phone: 508.533.5322 | Fax: & 508.533.8686 sales@milarasmt.com www.milarasmt.com www.globalsmt.net Global SMT Packaging| –Email: Celebrating 10 Years –| March 2010 – 29
New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly
New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly George A. Riley, PhD, Sensor Products, Inc., Madison, NJ, USA
Pressure indicating film can immediately produce an image of pressure variations across an entire surface area, allowing significant differences in bond pressure across wafer bonder surfaces to be identified and corrected. Similar applications might be found in flip-chip assembly, particularly given the increasing trend toward larger die. This paper discusses potential pressure-sensing applications in flip chip assembly, such as establishing or verifying die-to-substrate coplanarity, controlling the pressure applied to assure uniform bump heights, and optimizing a number of pressure-sensitive bonding methods.
Keywords: Flip Chip Assembly, Pressure Indicating Film, Coplanarity, Coining, Bonding
A recent conference paper1 showed the comparison of a point to the color advantages of a pressure-indicating sensor correlation chart gives ±10% accuracy in film2 to establish uniform pressure across determining pressure. Imaging analysis the wafers in wafer-to-wafer bonding. The increases accuracy to ±2%. and enables a extremely thin (4 to 8 mils) Mylar-based pressure profile, as shown, to be recorded film contains a layer of tiny microcapsules. and interpreted along any potion of the Applying force to the film ruptures the color map. In many applications, the microcapsules, immediately producing absolute pressure value is less important an image of pressure variations across the than relative pressure comparisons, which entire area. The color intensity of the film reveal non-uniform distributions of varies at every point in direct proportion to pressure over the area for correction. A the local pressure at that point. post-correction map provides verification Compressing the film between the and a permanent record of pressure plates of a wafer bonder produced an uniformity. irreversible “pressure footprint” of the The success of pressure-indicating film bonding surfaces. The amount of pressure in wafer bonding suggests that similar applied at any point on the map is readily applications might be found in flip chip determined by comparing the color at assembly, where both the magnitude and that point to a calibrated color correlation the spatial uniformity of applied pressure chart. The color comparison is analogous may be critical. This is increasingly to that made when using litmus paper to important with the increasing trend determine acidity. Significant differences towards larger die, which are becoming in bond pressure across the wafer bonder common. Die larger than 20 mm square surfaces were revealed and corrected. are already in routine production 3. Repeated pressure samples guided and verified the changes and adjustments made to achieve uniformity. The footprint was also scanned through imaging analysis equipment3 to produce a multicolor pressure map. Figure 1 shows a typical Figure 1. Color map shows the pressure variations across a semiconductor wafer. The color map and calibrated color correlation chart quickly allows determination of point pressures by its pressure visually matching colors; the pressure profile records variations along any path. [Pressure interpretation. image courtesy of Sensor Products Inc. Madison, NJ www.sensorprod.com] Visual
30 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Title
APEX booth 2241
www.globalsmt.net
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 31
New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly
Figure 2. Misalignment may show acceptable bonds on side A, but create open circuits from failures to bond on side B, where the coplanarity error prevents the bumps from making contact with the pads.
Potential pressure sensing applications in flip chip assembly include establishing or verifying die-to-substrate coplanarity, controlling the pressure applied to assure uniform bump heights, and optimizing a number of pressure-sensitive bonding methods. Flip chip bonding equipment in general does not directly measure or control pressure. Applied force is set in the machine, and an average distribution of total force over the contact area is assumed to represent pressure. This approach assumes that the force is uniform over the bonding surface. The wafer bonder tests showed that spatial non-uniformities of pressure from tool wear or other causes can be substantial—and can be corrected using pressure-indicating film. Coplanarity Successful flip chip assembly, especially of large die with many bumps in applications such as image sensors, requires that the substrate and the die that is being placed upon it have parallel, coplanar surfaces when they are brought in contact. Any deviation from coplanarity may cause misalignment of the die with the substrate bond pads, resulting in open or poor electrical connections. Extreme cases of misalignment may cause a sideways sliding motion of the die during placement. Pressure differentials across the die may even crack the die. Figures 2 and 3 show some potential effects of non-coplanar bonding 4. Conventional approaches for establishing and verifying coplanarity depend upon optical or laser equipment. The optical system establishes coplanarity by adjusting the tilt of one surface relative to the other until the images are aligned in an optical collimator. The laser system compares reflections from different locations while the die or wafer is tilted to
Figure 3. Another example of misalignment might create short circuits on side A, where excessive pressure compresses and spreads the bump material to adjacent pads, while the bumps on side B may still show acceptable bonds.
establish coplanarity. Reflective gold spots must be added at several locations on the die or wafer for laser reflections. However, most flip chip bonders are not equipped with either of these expensive add-on accessories. Without them, manually establishing coplanarity often requires repeated trial-and-error adjustments to establish a common focal distance to several points on the die with a highpowered microscope. Multiple sample assemblies may be required for coplanarity verification.
as in normal wire bonding, and repeats the bump placement sequence on another bond pad. The bumps as deposited have wire tails of varying length, and the bumps themselves may vary in height. Figure 4 shows a bump as deposited. Stud bumps may be “coined” by pressing the bumped die against a flat surface as a simple method to reduce height variations and create larger contact areas. Figure 5 shows a cross-section of a coined bump. Again, inadequate or nonuniform coining pressure across the die surface may cause some bumps to have height differences, leading to open or poor contacts. Pressure-indicating film could be applied to verify uniform bump heights after coining.
Coining Gold stud bump flipchip assembly places gold bumps on the die using a modified wire bonder. In normal wire bonding, the bonder makes a connection on a Bonding chip bond pad, and then extends the Many common methods of flip chip wire to make a second connection onto a bonding require controlled, uniform substrate or package lead frame. In stud pressure to avoid open contacts, poor bumping, the wire bonder makes the first contacts, and die cracking: connection, and then breaks the wire. First, a small gold sphere formed by melting wire at the wire tip is metallurgically bonded to a chip bond pad by heat, pressure, and sonic energy. The bonding tool next clamps on the wire, and pulls it to break the wire somewhere near the bump. The tool then moves to the next bump location, creates a new ball by melting the end of the Figure 4. In this gold stud bump, the gold ball has been pressed flat on the bond wire with spark or pad, with the wire stub protruding from the top of the bump. electric flame-off
32 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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New opportunities for controlling pressure in flip chip assembly
Indicating Film Characterization of Pressure Distribution in Eutectic Au/ Sn Wafer-toWafer Bonding, Proceedings International WaferLevel Packaging Conference, pp. 135 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 139, October 27 - 30, 2009. 2. Sensor Products Inc. PressurexÂŽ Film. 3. R. Asgari, Copper Pillar Figure 5. Cross-section of a gold stud bump, with the top surface flattened by and Micro Bump pressure. Inspection Requirements and â&#x20AC;˘ Thermosonic stud bump bonding Challenges, Proceedings International experiments determined that there is an Wafer-Level Packaging Conference, pp. optimum pressure for maximum bond 186 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 188, October 27 - 30, 2009. adhesion. Bonding pressure was varied 4. L.K. Cheah et al, Gold to Gold across a range from 40 grams to 100 Thermosonic Flip-Chip Bonding, grams per bump. Die shear measurements Proceedings HDI 2001, April 2001, demonstrated that bump adhesion to pp 165 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 175. See also www.flipchips. the bond pad at the optimum placement pressure was more than 40% greater than com/tutorial09.html at the extremes.4 5. P. De Moor et al, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Recent Advances in â&#x20AC;˘ Thermocompression bonding requires 3D Integrations at IMEC,â&#x20AC;? MRS Fall higher bonding pressures than Meeting, November 27 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; December thermosonic bonding, raising the hazards 1, 2006, Boston MA. See also www. of inadequate pressure control. Copper/ flipchips.com/tutorial71.html copper thermocompression bonding of 6. M. Jurgen Wolfe, et al, Technologies copper â&#x20AC;&#x153;nailsâ&#x20AC;? on a die to copper bond for 3D Heterogeneous Integration, pads on a wafer has been demonstrated for Proceedings of SMTA Pan Pacific high density 3D assemblies.5 Symposium 2008. See also www. â&#x20AC;˘ Copper/tin interdiffusion bonding of flipchips.com/tutorial90.html chips to wafers in 3D heterogeneous assemblies depends upon proper pressure George A. Riley has more than 20 years at 300°C to form a stable copper-tin intermetallic, with copper upper and lower experience in microelectronics packaging, bonding surfaces.6 including 10 years developing and â&#x20AC;˘ Gold/tin wafer bonding tests show that manufacturing flip chip assemblies for too much pressure sometimes causes more than 50 customers. He is an industry squeeze-out of solder, potentially leading consultant, educator, and web entrepreneur who to open or short circuits. Non-uniform has authored more than 90 papers and articles. pressure may squeeze solder out in He can be reached at (508) 753-3572, by 1 some areas, but not in others. A similar emailing griley@flipchips.com or by visiting his problem could occur with large die in website www.flipchips.com chip-to-substrate or chip-to-wafer gold/tin bonding. While published papers may not have yet reported the results of using pressure-indicating film for controlling flip chip assembly pressure uniformity, the importance of control in all of the above examples suggests that pressure indicating film might significantly improve yield, costs, and set-up time. References 1. D. Spicer et al, Pressure
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Reasons to take part in GEM Expo Brazil:
1
#
2 #3 #4 #
Companies supplying Brazil with electronics manufacturing equipment and materials have reported strong sales over the last 18 months. Brazil is the fifth most populous country in the world. There is a burgeoning middle class and a growing appetite for consumer goods Among others, RIM has just announced they are moving production of their Blackberry Curve to Flextronics Brazil and are considering moving other models. (Reuters: March 10th, 2010)
(Oh, and:
Global SMT & Packaging â&#x20AC;&#x201C; March 2010 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 33
)
Your competitors will probably be there.
October 5-7, 2010, Green Hall Expo Center Norte, SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil www.gemexpobrazil.com
Title Interview
Interview—Daniel Perez, OnCore Manufacturing OnCore Manufacturing is a specialty contract manufacturer that focuses on the defense and medical industries. It has five facilities in North America that are customer-centric and typically located less than two hours by car or flight from their clients’ engineering sites. OnCore has enjoyed steady 15-percent growth, year on year, by consistently delivering outstanding execution on low-volume, high-complexity assemblies. Trevor Galbraith spoke to president and CEO Daniel Perez. What is the history of Oncore? Where did you originate from? OnCore is the product of a merger between Veritek and Nu Visions, two leading EMS companies founded in 1979 and 1990, respectively. Each had focused on developing close customer partnerships and serving regional clients that required small lot production on complex, specialty assemblies. Nu Visions was originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Nu Horizons Electronics Distribution. Veritek cultivated a reputation for delivering consistent quality on small-volume builds in the Western United States, and in 2006 it had acquired the assets and people of DDI’s EMS business. Much of your growth has been through acquisition. Can you tell us about some of the companies you have acquired and the strategic strengths they have brought to the business? Each company’s strength was in the people that managed the business. We acquired organizations with good processes and great “end to end” functional expertise in engineering, operations, materials and supply chain. Veritek’s core focus was on system assembly for the medical electronics industry. Nu Visions had outstanding capability in complex PCB designs and prototyping for the defense and communications market segments. DDI had developed solid technical experience with complex, electronic test equipment. Strategically, the companies fit, with natural synergies in
capability, market focus and geography. Do you find that an acquisition-driven environment brings certain integration challenges dealing with different company cultures? Yes, there are always challenges integrating people and organizations. However, what we focused on was the process for building a quality company. First and foremost, we agreed on the purpose of the new company and structured the processes to deliver speed, flexibility and exceptional quality. We started with the idea that we were creating a new company. Our objective was to extend consistent service levels to every OnCore customer. We built functional teams, drawing members from each site, and then leveraged the best processes to form a strong foundation for growth. Collaboration across the company continues to drive improvement and ensures that OnCore keeps pace with the changing needs of our customers. On the subject of staff, Oncore places strong emphasis on good people. Can you explain what you mean by that and how you keep them motivated?
34 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
Contract manufacturing is ultimately a service business that requires outstanding people. I have a personal credo: “Every employee aspires to do their best work every day.” Now, how do I enable that? First, I’ve flipped the management hierarchy upside down at OnCore. As the CEO, I sit at the bottom of the pyramid and do everything in my power to eliminate obstacles and provide resources to “front line” employees who service our customers. Second, we are continually focused on developing clear, “best in class” processes for all employees. Contract manufacturing is a sophisticated and complex business. Great processes, that detail how someone successfully can do their job, create confident employees
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Interview
and ultimately, deliver outstanding service to our customers. Third, we provide all our employees with the training they require to perform well. In the end, every company has buildings, tools and processes but, at OnCore, we recognize that people are the most important ingredient in supporting our customers. What are your typical job sizes and what is your turnaround time? Unlike a typical EMS company, OnCore does not run high-volume, continuous flow production. Of course, we can support this type of production; however, we have purposely focused on lower volume and high complexity products to serve customers in the defense and medical markets. These markets demand smaller job sizes due to uneven demand. For example, a typical defense customer may require an initial large purchase of an assembly and then, due to federal procurement, not require a second delivery for many months. OnCore typically builds and delivers a product within five to 10 business days. In 2009, we saw a need for even faster delivery times. Engineers in the defense and medical space wanted prototypes in days, not weeks. To address the need, OnCore created Velocity. Velocity is a flexible, quick-turn prototype group located in three of our sites...literally, a “factory within a factory” with a dedicated team and equipment. Velocity is all about compressing time to market. In some cases, we turn prototypes in less than 24 hours. You appear to model most of your products on the Valor DFM software before going forward to assemble the boards. Does this save time in production? Absolutely! Valor DFM software is a key tool for OnCore. Once we receive a new design or assembly from our customer, the real work begins...optimizing that product for manufacturing. We load Valor with our specific manufacturing rules that allow us to efficiently detail required design changes to our customers. At the end of the day, our customers benefit from faster time to market and higher yields. Once in production you use an ERP system and a custom planning system. How does that integrate with the equipment on the line? OnCore is one of the select contract manufacturers that use a common ERP system across all sites. With a standard ERP system, we have created common execution processes that are easily shared among employees. The primary advantage
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is analyzing company-wide material spend and leveraging that with our supply base. Our customers benefit from improved cost savings. OnCore took the advantages of a common ERP system one step further and developed an integrated set of planning tools called APEX (Advanced Planned and Execution). APEX is a proprietary, “home grown” tool set that extracts, then analyzes our ERP data. One example is our customized Materials Availability Report (“MAR”) that pegs customer demand to material availability. MAR immediately identifies critical shortages for a buyer so they can reduce lead times and improve manufacturing start dates for our customers. What test strategies do you offer? A critical need for our customers is supporting them with product test solutions. In today’s environment, defense and medical companies invest in the engineering talent to design the next-generation product, but often do not have the bandwidth to finalize a robust test solution. OnCore has an experienced test engineering team that can support a customer with comprehensive needs analysis and an “end to end” test solution. A typical engagement starts with a design for test (DFT) analysis and recommendation. OnCore has a complete tool set to provide everything from ICT, boundary scan and 5DX through environmental stress testing and full functional test coverage. OnCore also specializes in RF test development with experience in the higher frequencies of 2 GHz and above. What are Oncore’s strengths vs. other tier one and tier two manufacturers? OnCore is built on managing complexity. Our defense and medical customers have unique performance requirements that drive unusual designs and material needs. For one military contractor, their product requires a 100 percent aluminum circuit board with no solder masking. Another customer has a specialty heat sink that relies on a proprietary curing process for attachment. A couple of requirements like these with inconsistent forecast demand and you start to excel at managing complexity. Our customers tell us that OnCore is extremely skilled at pipelining “hard to find” and “end of life” materials. On the assembly side, our attention is focused on delivering consistent quality despite unpredictable demand.
OnCore’s typical customer is the defense or medical company with a broad product mix across 100 to 200 unique assemblies. As an example, if you look at a leading defense contractor, they are typically a large revenue company with hundreds of divisions designing specialty military products. OnCore does an outstanding job servicing diversified clients because OnCore can deliver high quality on smaller volumes and ensure consistent processes at all our facilities. What improvements would you like to see in the business going forward? As CEO, I am in a constant dialogue with our customers: “Where can we help you? What are your critical needs?” Two of the current themes are engineering services and system integration. OnCore has done a good job developing test engineering capability, but our customers need support further “upstream” in design engineering. We are reviewing what engineering specialties can best enhance our customer’s design capabilities. Our customers are also looking to move higher level system integration to OnCore. This will allow them to free up resources and focus on their core competencies in product development. I believe you have been doing some novel work in the photovoltaic field. Can you tell us a little about this and what synergies you bring to the process? Renewable energy is an emerging market for OnCore. Like our approach to defense and medical, we are focused on companies with more modest production needs that need help managing a complex process. One of our California customers is a great example: They needed a sustainable assembly process for a specialty solar array. Engaging with OnCore at the product design phase, they asked us to implement an “end to end” production solution...basically raw material to end customer shipment. Collaborating with this customer, we were shipping product within two months of engagement. Daniel, many thanks for talking to us today. Trevor Galbraith.
W ho are your typical customers?
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 35
Title
‘Pad cratering’ & ‘trace buckling’—new failure modes created by Pb-free soldering
Werner Engelmaier “The unique confluence of material properties, assembly conditions and survivability requirements have created new failure modes.”
‘Pad cratering’ & ‘trace buckling’—new failure modes created by Pb-free soldering I certainly have been railing against the RoHS ban of Pb in solders ever since I first heard about it. It has solved a nonproblem, but has created a whole raft of new real problems. From an electronics hardware point of view, the main root cause of these new problems is the much higher temperatures required to solder with Pb-free solders. The unique confluence of material properties, assembly conditions and survivability requirements have created new failure modes. The most obvious new failure modes are ‘pad cratering’ (see Figures 1-4) and ‘trace buckling’ (see Figures 5-7). While ‘pad cratering’ is not a totally new failure mode, it is much more prevalent with Pb-free solders than SnPb solders. Most ‘pad cratering’ is observed right after the reflow process, but ‘pad cratering’ has also been observed after drop tests and in field returns of hand-held electronics. ‘Pad cratering’ can occur both
Figure 1. Cross-section of BGA solder ball with ‘pad cratering’ on the PCB side showing a crater-like fracture in the resin matrix underneath the soldering pad1.
on the PCB pads as well as the BGA pads as shown in Figure 2. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, in many cases the connection between the soldering pad and the attached trace is broken leading to intermittent functional failures in most cases. Figures 5 through 7 show instances of trace lifting and buckling. The root cause in all these failures is the much higher thermal expansion mismatch on cooling from reflow soldering when SAC solders are used, than previously experienced with SnPb solders. These higher thermal expansion mismatches come from a number of negative factors coming into play: (1) SAC solders are significantly stiffer (~40% higher modulus of elasticity) than SnPb; (2) SAC solders are significantly stronger (greater yield strength); (3) SAC solders creep much slower (therefore provide no ‘give’); (4) SAC solders have a
Figure 2. Cross-section of BGA solder ball with ‘pad cratering’ on the BGA side. Note: Crack initiation in solder joint near interface at a stress concentration caused by a solder-mask-defined (SMD) solder ball geometry. [Source: Ray Prasad, SMTSolver, USA]
36 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
Solidus of 217˚C instead 183˚C, thereby almost doubling the ΔT to the PCB glass transition temperature, Tg (see Figure 8); (5) SAC solders, because (1-3) become a mechanically significant member with a large CTE on top of the copper traces; (6) the PCB base materials, in order to be RoHS-capable, are typically phenolic-, not dicy- cured and contain fillers—this can reduce the cohesive strength of the resin matrix (e.g., pad cratering); (7) the higher soldering temperatures tend to reduce the peel strength of the copper traces on the laminate; (8) in many cases, the cooling rates from reflow have remained the same as with SnPb [Hewlett-Packard has mandated that cooling rates need to be reduced to 1.5˚C/sec or lower] setting up significant thermal gradients, thermal expansion [of course with cooling, this should read ‘contraction’] mismatches, and much higher stress levels than were
Figure 3. Cross-section of BGA solder balls with ‘pad cratering’ on the BGA as well as PCB side. Note: Fractured pad-to trace connection on BGA side. [Source: Cheryl Tulkoff, National Instruments, USA]
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Title
Quality, Precision and Cost Savings Regardless of your current application, cost reductions can be achieved without compromise! Techcon Systems precision fluid dispensing equipment offer:
• • • • •
Increase yields Reduce rejects Cut down labor cost Improve process control Lower fluid waste
Contact: Techcon Systems www.techconsystems.com 1-714-230-2398
Dispensers & Valve Controllers www.globalsmt.net
Fluid Dispensing Valves
Dispensing Syringes
Dispensing Tips
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 37
‘Pad cratering’ & ‘trace buckling’—new failure modes created by Pb-free soldering
Figure 5. Photograph of trace buckling on a PCB surface due to differential thermal expansion/ contraction of PCB, copper foil, SAC305 solder and RF shield. Figure 4. Cross-section of BGA solder ball with ‘pad cratering’ on the PCB side with fractured pad-totrace connection. Note: Trace lifted with pad. Also, note ‘stress-concentration geometry’ on BGA side due to solder mask ‘defining’ the solder joint geometry.
possible with SnPb; (9) most reflow ovens are not designed for achieving cooling rates of 1.5˚C/sec or less; for anything but 10-zone ovens, additional cooling zones need to be added [at 1.5˚C/sec you need a cooling section of about 100 cm, at 1.0˚C/ sec that becomes 150 cm]; and (10) and there are likely to be other factors as well. One important parameter is the cohesive strength of the PCB base material resin. This is not specified in IPC-41011; however, a new test method, IPC-9708, “Test Methods for Characterization of PCB Pad Cratering,” is getting close to final draft status. References: 1. Engelmaier, W., “Recommendations for PCB FAB Notes and Specifications in Printed Circuit Board Drawings for SnPb and Lead-Free Soldering Assemblies, the Qualification of PCB Shops and Activities to Assure Continued Quality, v.09,” White Paper/Multi-Client Study, Engelmaier
Associates, L.C., December 2009. 2. Engelmaier, W., “Pb-Free Soldering Processes—Survival, Quality, Reliability,” Tutorial Handbook, Engelmaier Associates, L.C., March 2010. Werner Engelmaier will be giving some of his reliability workshops at the Reliability Conference in Frankfurt, Germany, May 20-21, 2010; im FED-Kurs in Stuttgart, Deutschland, 26.Mai 2010; at SMT/ HYBRID/PACKAGING 1010 in Nürnberg, Germany, June 8, 2010; and at the Universität Wien at the end of June. He will be available for in-house workshops and consulting in both English and German in the May through June timeframe; for details of the workshops go to www.engelmaier.com; for more information about the workshops and consulting contact engelmaier@aol.com. Werner Engelmaier has over 44 years experience in electronic packaging and interconnection technology and has published over 200 papers, columns, book chapters and White Papers. Known as ‘Mr. Reliability’ in the industry, he is the president of Engelmaier Associates, L.C., a firm providing consulting services on reliability, manufacturing and processing aspects
Figure 6. Photograph of trace buckling due to board flexing and stiff SAC305 solder. [Source: Brian Chandler, Delphi, USA]
Figure 7. Photograph of trace buckling due to board flexing and stiff SAC305 solder. [Source: Brian Chandler, Delphi, USA]
of electronic packaging and interconnection technology. He is the chairman of the IPC Main Committee on Product Reliability. The TGM-Exner Medal was bestowed on him in 2009 in Vienna, Austria, he was elected into the IPC Hall of Fame 2003, and was awarded the IPC President’s Award in 1996 and the IEPS Electronic Packaging Achievement Award in 1987. He also was named a Bell Telephone Laboratories Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 1986 and an IMAPS Fellow in 1996. More information is available at www.engelmaier. com, and he can be reached at engelmaier@ aol.com.
Figure 8. Graph of soldering temperatures, solder alloy Solidus temperatures and PCB glass transition temperature2.
38 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Title
Award Winning Products and Service
Our Industry Awards Demonstrate Our Commitment to Excellence and to The Success of Our Customers.
EXPECT MORE...
APEX booth 2219
MV-3 Desktop AOI Series
MV-7 Inline AOI Series
3 MORSE ROAD • OXFORD, CT 06478 PHONE: (+1) 203-881-5559 • FAX: (+1) 203-881-3322 www.mirtecusa.com www.globalsmt.net
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 39
Presenting the IPC APEX EXPO 2010 Conference and Exhibition
Presenting the IPC APEX EXPO 2010 Conference and Exhibition
IPC’s annual conference and exhibition is always an event to look forward to, perhaps never more so than now as we come out of a major recession into a new business climate that requires a re-evaluation of our business and manufacturing methods, plans and goals if we hope to come back stronger than before this thing first hit. IPC has put together a comprehensive and timely program of events, including free educational forums and poster sessions that add even more value to the IPC APEX EXPO experience. In addition, more than 300 exhibitors will be showing the latest equipment, materials and services on the exhibition floor. While you’re looking around out there, stop by the Innovative Technology Center. Through a rigorous evaluation process, cuttingedge products and services are reviewed by an expert technology panel to identify and award the very best of 2010. Get a sneak preview of the equipment, materials and services that will change the direction of our industry. Here are some don’t-miss events to plug into your calendar.
Monday, April 5th FREE International Reception—5:30 pm-6:30 pm International friends are invited to relax, have a bite to eat, and meet key IPC volunteers. The show organizers are expecting representatives from more than 50 countries to join us and IPC Committee Chairmen at this festive gathering. (Held in conjunction with the IPC Chairmen’s Reception.) Tuesday, April 6th IPC First-Timers’ Welcome Breakfast—7:30-8:30am Maximize your time at IPC APEX EXPO with some advice from a few insiders. Enjoy a continental breakfast while your colleagues share the ins and outs of IPC and this event. Learn how to put IPC’s resources to use for you and your company and find out how to take advantage of everything this event has to offer. Even if you’re not a first-timer, join us for a refresher course on IPC programs and activities.
Exhibits open—10:00am-6:00pm Free Forum: Test & Inspection Summit—1:30-3:00pm The emergence of 3-D chips is posing test challenges to board and system designers as well as chipmakers. Designers and manufacturers will have to pay particular attention to design-for-test techniques, leveraging the DFT that chip makers provide to support PCB test, field diagnostics, and field firmware upgrades. Building on the 2009 Summit, a panel of experts will discuss the latest test challenges and the technologies that are emerging to deal with them, including JTAG/boundary-scan test and vectorless test techniques as well as the continued role of in-circuit electrical test, optical inspection, X-ray inspection and functional electrical test. Free Forum: Military Roadmap—3:15-4:45pm Charged with the development and implementation of a PCB and interconnect technology roadmap for the Department of Defense (DoD), the DoD Executive Agent (EA) is required to create a policy to ensure that the DoD has access to PCB manufacturing capabilities and the technical expertise necessary to meet future military requirements. To assist the EA, leading North American printed board manufacturers on the IPC Executive Agent Task Force created a roadmap to identify the challenges printed board designs and materials will need to overcome to meet future DoD and OEM needs. This forum will cover the various sections of the roadmap and how the roadmap will
40 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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u bo s a Se ot t A e h P 2 E 2 X 2 8
smart manufacturing
Title
just got smarter
Craig Arcuri CEO
Smart companies use Valor.
MSS
Manufacturing System Solutions
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Alta Manufacturing, a leading EMS provider recently purchased Valor’s vPlan, vManage, vCheck, Trilogy 5000, and Valor Parts Library from Valor Computerized Systems for deployment of its US and China facilities. Craig Arcuri, CEO, said “Our goal at Alta was to create the most high-powered rapid response manufacturing facility in the industry. Something with automated intelligence that supersedes anything the industry has experienced. Alta specializes in rapid response manufacturing solutions in as little as one day after material clears. Valor is a key tool in our milestone towards success. Valor addresses our demanding immediate needs but more importantly is an extensible platform for future factory automation tools upon which Alta can build it’s proprietary Alta Vision next-generation tools. The Alta Vision next-generation tools will allow Alta to leapfrog the industry by bringing new levels of quality, repeatability, speed and traceability to the electronics manufacturing process. Alta Manufacturing will deploy the Valor software throughout its existing operations in the United States and China.”
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 41
Presenting the IPC APEX EXPO 2010 Conference and Exhibition
match technology capability with product performance requirements, and sustain and build upon a North American printed board industry capable of supporting DoD needs and ensuring national security. Wednesday, April 7th Women in Electronics networking breakfast meeting—7:30-8:30 am From engineering to sales and marketing to executive management, women are making a greater impact in all areas of the electronic interconnect industry. How has being a woman affected your career? Share your ideas and experiences with your peers and build your industry network for your future career success. There is no charge to attend this meeting. Be sure to RSVP for this meeting through the online registration process to reserve your place. If you would like more information, contact MaryMacKinnon at MaryMacKinnon@ipc.org.
Exhibits open—10:00am-6:00pm Free Forum: Solar Panels: New Opportunities for Electronics—10:30 am-12:00 pm Green is hot! And it looks like there’s nothing greener than solar. What opportunity does this offer for you? How will electronics support the “green wave” to solar power? Join us for this forum on technology and opportunity! Free Forum: Changing Environment of Printed Circuit Board Technology and the Evolution of Safety—1:30 pm-3:00 pm Underwriters Laboratories has been in the forefront in research in many product areas and has recently been very active in the area of printed boards. Learn the details of UL’s recent and ongoing PCB research, including possible changes in test methods, requirements and standards, in order to accommodate the quickly changing board and material technologies. Hear how your company can use UL labs and technical experts to collaborate on new research. Free Forum: IPC Technology Roadmap—3:15 pm-4:45 pm The IPC Technology Roadmap provides fabricators, EMS companies, designers, and materials and equipment suppliers with a consolidated view of today’s solutions and tomorrow’s needs for the printed board and assembly supply chain. This seminar will provide attendees with an understanding of the critical information contained in the roadmap and explain how it can be used to develop business and market strategies, and to validate and justify capital investment or to guide development activities. Panelists will also discuss the use of the roadmap in Europe and the automotive industry, as well as detail the new automated emulator tools provided with the roadmap to help in analyzing future product technical drivers. Poster presentations—3:30-4:30pm Free show floor reception—5:00-6:00pm Thursday, April 8th Exhibits open—10:00-2:00pm
Free Forum 04: Don’t Be Surprised by the New RoHS—10:30 am-12:00 pm The Eu RoHS Directive had an enormous impact on the electronics industry and, now, the European Union is at it again. Our panel of experts will discuss proposed changes to the RoHS Directive that are currently being debated in Europe, including a new and broader scope of covered electronics, additional substance restrictions and a new compliance program under the CE mark.
Keynote Sessions Tuesday, April 6th 8:30-9:30 am “Achieving Strategic Balance: Integrating Global Security Solutions in the New Operational Landscape” by Jeff Wilcox, Vice President, Corporate Technology & Engineering, Lockheed Martin In his keynote address, Jeff Wilcox will address the challenge of developing a full spectrum of global security solutions that strike a strategic balance between conventional and unconventional missions. He will discuss how Lockheed Martin’s Engineering and Technology Enterprise is meeting this challenge and what that will mean to the global electronics industry. Wilcox will describe the four types of innovation the company is bringing to bear to engineer affordable solutions in the new operational landscape. Wednesday, April 7th 8:00-9:00 am “Global Business Outlook: Where do we go next?” by Walt Custer and Sharon Starr Are the challenges of 2009 behind us? Walt Custer and IPC Director of Market Research Sharon Starr will team up to present the latest data and market trends for the electronics industry. Custer will cover electronics equipment and component markets, as well as business performance by the leading companies worldwide by industry sector. Starr will bring IPC survey data to the discussion to identify the latest trends in demand and production for worldwide PCB, EMS and supplier industries, as well as forecasts. Both speakers will comment on the challenging global economy and present some leading indicators, as well as note how seasonal and cyclical trends affect the industry and its supply chain.
(Photos from IPC APEX EXPO 2009 courtesy the IPC APEX EXPO Facebook page.)
42 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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Title
APEX booth 2225
www.globalsmt.net
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 43
New Title Products
New products Austin American launch new combination cleaner and cleanliness tester Austin American Technology Corp.’s Mega Ion™ combination cleaner and cleanliness tester for circuit assemblies is a portable, closed-loop, single-board cleaner with cleanliness verification testing built-in. It is designed to provide verifiable cleaning support locally to manufacturing operations such as touchup, add-ons, ECOs, product development, and pre-conformal coating cleaning. The Mega Ion™ cleans flux residues with a single-solvent, spray-under-immersion cleaning process that can be followed with an automatic measurement of the ionic cleanliness of a circuit board. A built in dryer completes the cleaning/testing cycle. The method used to assess cleanliness is based upon the IPC recognized test referred to as the “ROSE” test. The system has a small footprint (30 X 36) and is equipped with various cleaning tank sizes, up to 10 gallons, and also has a sealed stainless 20-gallon holding tank. www.aat-corp.com New SIPLACE Feeder Manager 2.0: More capacity utilization for SMT lines The new version 2.0 of the SIPLACE Feeder Manager from Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems delivers professional feeder management with inventory management, maintenance cycle and repair cost monitoring as well as feeder status and history reports. The SIPLACE Feeder Manager 2.0 raises feeder availability reduces unscheduled production stops and improves placement yield and reliability. All these benefits enable companies to improve the utilization of their SMT lines and reduce the maintenance and repair costs considerably. Depending on the user’s requirements, the SIPLACE Feeder Manager 2.0 can be configured as a standalone system or a fully networked system for the entire production environment. www.siplace.com
Safe, effective manual cleaning of SMT stencils 440-R SMT Detergent in ready-to-use spray bottles is now available for safe and effective manual cleaning of SMT stencils and related tooling. 440-R SMT Detergent is the most widely used and only stencilcleaning chemistry verified for specific parameters of environmental safety, user safety and cleaning efficiency by the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Technology Verification Program. 440-R SMT Detergent contains no VOCs and is guaranteed to clean any type of solder paste. It’s now available in convenient spray bottles for manual cleaning. www.SMTdetergent.com Seika Machinery introduces Solder Paste Recycling Unit
Seika Machinery, Inc.’s new Solder Paste Recycling Unit enables approximately 90 percent of waste solder paste to be recovered as solder bar. The system provides a major decrease in disposal costs for factory waste, a reduction in CO2 emissions and reduced costs for solder bar as a result of recycling waste. In approximately 34 to 45 minutes, the Solder Paste Recycling Unit turns wasted solder paste into solder bar. As an additional benefit, the recycling unit enables selection of manual mode and automatic mode using a touch screen panel. seikausa.com
44 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
No-clean leaded solder paste for high-speed component placement systems DSP 670I no-clean leaded solder paste from Qualitek, designed for surface mount and other electronic assembly applications, has been formulated for optimal use in highspeed component placement systems. It features a tack time up to eight hours and a robust process window. After reflow, a noncorrosive, non-conductive, highly insulated, transparent residue remains and is safe to leave on the boards. Bellcore compliant. www.qualitek.com 5 mil nylon label material for connector, wire & cable identification Polyonics’ XF-300 is a 5 mil coatednylon, pressure-sensitive label material designed for barcode or alphanumeric identification of connectors, wires, and cables. Coated with a high opacity, matte white topcoat specifically designed for thermal transfer printing, it can also be used with dot matrix printers and certain felt-tip or ballpoint pens. When printed with an appropriate thermal transfer ribbon, the labels produced can withstand harsh industrial environments, including isopropyl alcohol, mineral spirits and sulfuric acid solution. The XF-300 is very flexible, which makes it ideal for labeling
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New Products
curved parts and surfaces. The XF-300 complies with the requirements of RoHS, REACH, and is Halogen Free. Samples available upon request. www.polyonics.com Altium adds high-performance, low-cost option to its NanoBoard 3000 range Last September, Altium announced a radical new approach to rapid prototyping with the NanoBoard 3000. The company has now expanded this concept, announcing a new NanoBoard 3000 hosting the Altera Cyclone III® FPGA. The new board continues to provide electronics designers with the same hardware, software and ready-to-use, royalty-free IP of the NanoBoard 3000, but with the power of Altera’s low-cost, high power Cyclone III® FPGA at its core. www.altium.com/nanoboard3000 Multi-Seals introduces Wash-Away dissolvable spacers Multi-Seals Inc.’s Wash-Away™ dissolvable spacers provide consistent spacing between printed circuit boards and PCB components. These organic polymer spacers locate PCB components during soldering operations. After soldering, Wash-Aways dissolve in water or alcohol solvent baths. This leaves uniform spacing between components and boards, which provides free circulation of air, mechanical protection, optimum filleting, and greater accessibility for inspection, cleaning, and conformal coating. Wash-Aways are available in a wide range of sizes and shapes to accommodate a variety of PCB components. www.multi-seals.com Cycle Stop Controller eliminates production errors Cogiscan Cycle Stop Controller.jpg Cogiscan’s Cycle Stop Controller is an Ethernet-enabled device that electrically integrates with the cycle stop circuit of any machine type. When used in conjunction with any Cogiscan software module, such as Line Setup Control (LSC), Route Control and MSD Control, the application forces the machine to stop processing when a process validation error occurs, eliminating the risk of building defective product due to invalid machine setup or trying to perform an operation out of sequence. The Cycle Stop Controller can also be integrated with any third-party software application with a simple communication protocol using TCP/IP socket connection. www.cogiscan.com
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Aries Electronics adds new BGA Switch-A-Pitch adapters
Title
The Adventures of James Bondless
Aries Electronics recently added new BGA Switch-A-Pitch adapters that allow for smaller pitch devices to be used with larger pitch boards. The new adapters in the series adapt 0.40 mm devices to boards with a 1.00 mm pitch. Aries’ BGA SwitchA-Pitch adapters, part of the extensive line of Correct-A-Chip adapters, drastically reduce costs by making possible the use of newer, tighter pitch devices with larger pitch boards, which are readily available and therefore more economical, vastly lowering the PCB cost. www.arieselec.com Gen3 Systems announces new and improved cleanliness testers Gen3 Systems’ CONTAMINOMETER (CM) Series have been revised, improved and simplified with two entirely new machines added to the range: CM22 and CM33. The CM Series machines all feature a test accuracy of <0.005mS/ cm, unique curvefitting analysis, accurate measurement even when the proportion of test solution to surface area under test is huge, and automatic temperature compensation for each test. www.gen3systems.com Pressurex® increases bond strength and reduces defects in ultrasonic welding of electronics Routine use of Pressurex® pressure indicating sensor film during the setup of ultrasonic welders helps ensure proper contact pressure and alignment between the horn and anvil, which results in welds of greater bond strength and aids in reducing rejected product and lowering base factory cost. Pressurex® is an easy-to-use tool that reveals the distribution and magnitude of pressure between any two contacting surfaces. When placed between the horn and the anvil of the ultrasonic bonder, the film instantaneously and permanently
APEX booth 1771 Smart Sonic’s 440-R® SMT Detergent is guaranteed to safely clean any type of solder paste from any fine-pitch stencil and is the only stencil-cleaning chemistry verified for specific parameters of Environmental Safety, User Safety and Cleaning Efficiency by the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Technology Verification Program.
Request your sample today!
sales@SMTdetergent.com +1-818-707-3110 www.SMTdetergent.com
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 45
New Products
changes color directly proportional to the actual pressure applied. The precise pressure magnitude (PSI or kg/cm2) is then easily determined by comparing color variation results to a color correlation chart (conceptually similar to interpreting Litmus paper). If desired, the film can be further analyzed. Pressurex® is extremely thin (4 to 8 mils) and flexible, which enables it to conform to curved surfaces. These pressure maps show that there are pressure variations across the weld zone, which can result in less than optimal weld strength. www.sensorprod.com/sample
High-temperature-resistant instant adhesive for component tacking Permabond 820 quick-setting, instant adhesive resists temperature ranges up to 200˚C (390˚F). Typical ethyl cyanoacrylates only resist temperatures to 82˚C (180˚F). Permabond 820 is a modified ethyl cyanoacrylate that has a fast fixture time and high-temperature resistance, making it an ideal choice when bonding components in position on dual-sided PCBs prior to wave soldering. Permabond 820 is colorless with a viscosity of 100cPs. www.permabond.com
See Acculogic’s Latest Testing Technologies at APEX 2010 Booth 249
In-Circuit Test
FiS640 Compact and Low Cost In-Circuit Test System Small footprint In-Circuit Tester (ICT), with up to 2048 non-multiplexed channels, high-accuracy analog measurement instrument, Power-up and Boundary Scan (JTAG) Test and programming, patented Vectorless test for Open pins detection on digital devices.
ew Flying Probe Test N
Flying Scorpion FLS980Dxi Patented DoubleSided, Multi-probe (16) Flying Probe system with 3D probing, analog, digital and Boundary Scan JTAG , test large circuit boards and backplanes (41”x25.5”).
Multitest adds temperature sensor calibration to classic functional test Multitest’s MT9928 gravity handler now allows for calibrating temperature sensors. The well-balanced combination of optimized test handler features and test contactor features meets the high requirements of calibration equipment with a temperature accuracy of ±1.0°C and a temperature stability of ±0.2°C. The device under test (DUT) calibration solution continuously monitors the temperature stability of the DUT environment during the test time. In this aspect, the MT9928 calibration kit adds temperature sensor calibration to the classic functional test. The calibration kit consists of both a dedicated handler contact unit holder (CUH) and a Multitest contactor. It is available for the MT9928 as well as for the current version, the MT9928XM. www.multitest.com
Boundary Scan JTAG Test ScanNavigator™ powered by Victory™ Software is a leading suite of powerful tools for Boundary Scan JTAG testing and programming, full support for IEEE1149.1 and IEEE1149.6 standards. Wide range of hardware platforms, including PCI, PXI, VXI,PC104, USB and Ethernet based multiand-parallel remote processing.
Acculogic Ltd. 500 West Cummings Park, Suite 1850 Woburn, MA 01801 Phone: +1-781-937-5907 Fax: +1-781-658-2504 www.acculogic.com
46 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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New Products
Reverse-engineered semiconductor devices provide authorized pin-forpin replacements Rochester Electronics provides authorized reverse-engineering services to recreate, manufacture and distribute pin-for-pin replacement parts with matched cycle for cycle timing for aftermarket semiconductor devices. Through its unique Rochester Semiconductor Replication Process™ (SRP™), customers can avoid system re-qualification steps as the Rochester-designed and manufactured parts deliver the same specifications and performance characteristics as the original products. Rochester engineers deconstruct and electrically analyze the critically needed semiconductor device, re-design the part using scope and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images, and reengineer it onto a matched mature foundry process to replicate the original components. Even when the IP and design archives are no longer available, Rochester’s design engineers can build the semiconductor component from scratch. And in some cases, Rochester engineers can add capabilities and technologies to the semiconductor device to make it RoHS compliant, or achieve commercial-to-military upgrades, radiation-hardened level enhancements, higher temperature tolerances, and other performance improvements. www.rocelec.com
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Questar automatic wedge bonder simplifies set-up, changeover Questar Products International has developed a finepitch, fine-wire (17 µ-75 µ), automatic Al/Au automatic wedge bonder designed to meet production challenges associated with smaller lot sizes, multiple product variations and frequent set-up changes. Designated the Q2170, this automatic wedge bonder supports a variety of customer needs from prototyping to medium volume production. Designed for applications such as packaging complex hybrid, COB/PCB and LED display devices, the Q2170 achieves wedge bonding for fine gold, aluminum wire and ribbon, and enables package conversions to be completed in minutes while accommodating a multitude of device configurations. www.questarproducts.com
APEX booth 1759
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 47
iSuppli’s ‘fast facts’ on SIA’s global sales report
80,000
60.0%
70,000
50.0% 40.0%
60,000
30.0%
50,000
20.0%
40,000
10.0%
30,000
0.0%
Year‐Over‐Year Percentage Growth
Millions of U.S. Dollars
iSuppli’s ‘fast facts’ on SIA’s global sales report
‐10.0%
20,000
‐20.0%
10,000
‐30.0%
0
‐40.0% Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
Q2
2009
Q3
Q4
2010 Millions of U.S. Dollars Year‐Over‐Year Percentage Growth
Global Quarterly Semiconductor Revenue Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars) [Source: iSuppli Corp.]
iSuppli Corp. issued the following fast facts on the worldwide chip market: • The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), in its Global Sales Report for January, reported that worldwide semiconductor sales rose slightly in January 2010 compared to December 2009. • Global semiconductor revenue in the first quarter will amount to US $66.5 billion, down 4.4 percent from $69.6 billion in the fourth quarter, iSuppli predicts. • However, revenue will show impressive growth compared to the first quarter of 2009, when the global semiconductor industry suffered a severe downturn. Global chip revenue in the first quarter will surge a whopping 48.5 percent compared to $44.8 billion during the same period in 2009. The attached figure presents iSuppli’s forecast of global quarterly semiconductor revenue in 2010. • “The 48.5 percent year-overyear growth in the first quarter will lay the foundation for a robust rebound in the global semiconductor business in
2010,” said Dale Ford, senior vice president at iSuppli. “iSuppli predicts global semiconductor revenue in 2010 will rise to $279.7 billion, up 21.5 percent from $230.2 billion in 2009. This will mark the first year of double-digit percentage revenue growth for the semiconductor industry since 2006. Following the 11.1 percent decline in revenue in 2009, the strong growth in 2010 represents a major improvement in market conditions for the global semiconductor industry. Semiconductor revenue growth this year will swing by 32.6 percentage points in the positive direction, from negative 11.1 percent in 2009 to positive 21.5 percent in 2010.” • In terms of semiconductor products, the strongest chip segment in the first quarter of 2010 will be memory, a category including DRAM and NAND flash, which will experience a 99.3 percent increase in revenue compared to the same period in 2009. • DRAM’s strong revenue growth in 2010 is due to the
48 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
suppliers’ deft management of manufacturing capacity, which will keep inventories in check and prevent prices from eroding too precipitously. • On the NAND flash memory side, strong sales growth of smart phones is expected to generate insatiable demand for NAND-type flash memory in 2010. This will contribute to strained supplies for the year and help to boost pricing. • Wireless communications, an area dominated by cell phones, is expected to generate major growth in semiconductor consumption in the first quarter of 2010. Semiconductor sales to the wireless communications market will amount to $13.1 billion in the first quarter, up a strong 53 percent from $8.6 billion in the first quarter of 2009. For more information on this topic, see iSuppli’s new report, Tracking a Fragile Semiconductor Industry Recovery: www.isuppli.com/Pages/Tracking-a-FragileSemiconductor-Industry-Recovery.aspx
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Title
APEX booth 1549
Thermal process tools for the new decade ESSENTIALS Just get me the profile - KIC Explorer Put my process deep in spec - KIC Navigator Verify my profile without a PCB - KIC MVP AUTOMATION Give me an automatic profile every hour - KIC Vision Inspect the process in real-time for every single board - KIC RPI GREEN TECHNOLOGY Reduce my oven’s energy consumption - KIC Auto-Focus Power
Get in spec Stay in spec
KIC World Headquarters 858.673.6050 sales@kicmail.com www.kicthermal.com
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KIC International Sales - Europe +39.06.4547.3670 europe.sales@kicmail.com www.kicthermal.com
KIC International Sales - Singapore +65.6744.4998 asia.sales@kicmail.com www.kicthermal.com
KIC International Sales - China +86.512.6763.5171 asia.sales@kicmail.com www.kic.cn
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 49
Title
Online training & education—the alternative way
Bob Willis
Online training & education—the alternative way Continued education is something everyone needs, but what are the alternatives to successfully disseminating experience and technical information in a cost effective manner? Your columnist first got into training during the 80s when working with GEC/ Marconi as a quality engineer. It was never a responsibility to run training sessions, but it seemed the best solution at the time when the level of continued education was limited in our manufacturing facility. Basically we started running classes for groups of staff on a Friday afternoon for one to two hours. Each session’s content was defined by the group of staff, not management, provided it was relevant to the business. Our director at the time complained that what I was doing was not in my job description; I argued that better education on materials and process had an overall benefit on quality levels. He was
also getting a pat on the back for setting up a successful project!! When I started my training and consultancy business over 20 years ago, I also started producing training videos for companies that wanted an alternative onsite training resource. This then moved to interactive training CD-ROMs, video CD (VCD) and photo albums to assist training departments create their own training resources. So what are the options available in the industry? Practical hands-on workshops There are no substitutes for practical, hands-on training. Sometimes things do not go perfectly, and that is why some trainers don’t like the practical stuff, but that is the reality in the real world of manufacture—and learning about problems is very valuable. I was once involved in
training classes on printing that were machine specific and lasted three or four days. In all that time, no solder paste was ever applied to the printer. I could not believe it. Training must involve the machine, yes, but doing what it is intended to do in production. You may be learning about the software and the way the machine reacts with changes in parameters, but you must look at the result on the process and product. This is particularly true on wave, reflow and selective soldering systems. Practical training is also key to the success of manual skills like hand soldering and rework. You may have the best equipment in the world but not all staff members have either the aptitude or the level of interest in these tasks. As a trainer, expect to have some of your group to be better than others, and not all have the skills to meet the speed and quality requirements in
Figure 1. Online video training session on pin-in-hole intrusive reflow (PIHR), featuring video, animation and text. Simple approach allowing staff to stop the training session and resume at any point in the future.
50 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
www.globalsmt.net
vjt.com
JT X -RAY
Title
www.globalsmt.net
VJ Technologies leads the way in providing robust and practical X-ray solutions to solve real production issues. Innovation and simplicity govern system design to maximize ease-ofuse with programmed inspection and a simple 1, 2, Go! user interface. Vertex X-ray systems are production ready, offering superior uptime and unmatched value. The Vertex Series is configurable with a variety of X-ray tubes, detectors and product manipulators.
APEX booth 2059
VJ TECHNOLOGIES
Because Performance Matters! Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 51
Reliability—keystone of a sustainable electronics industry
Figure 2. Online training session on counterfeit components can feature a range of video, graphics and text plus student assessment. A simple BGA solderability testing method was specifically produced as a short 15-minute session to overcome a manufacturing process issue in Malaysia. It was implemented in a couple of days with online support to assess results.
manufacture. Seminars/workshops These are events outside the company and organised commercially, normally for four to six hours on a defined subject. They are valuable in allowing engineers from different parts of the industry to discuss common issues and allow networking. They are an ideal way of hearing many different speakers with different views, provided you can avoid the commercial spin. Some presenters cannot talk technical without selling. However, I know many of my peers in the industry that sell for suppliers but know how not to sell when
speaking. With associated travel expenses and time out of the office, however, seminars and workshops can take a major part of a company’s training budget. Interactive CDs A CD-ROM is an ideal way of incorporating all forms of training medium: text, images, video, sound and interactivity. It can also be linked to the Internet for the latest information files. CDs can take a long time to produce, just like a video, and can be time consuming to update on a regular basis, however.
52 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
Interactive CDs are a good way of oneto-one training, or they can be provided as a continued training opportunity with class based-sessions. It is difficult to remember all you hear at a seminar and retain the information, even when handouts are provided. The CD allows staff to go back to specific areas of the course information they may not have retained, or it provides a perfect future reference source if provided with the training. A CD or other computer-based training resource guarantees a consistent education platform. Everyone gets the same story rather than a different slant. If you attend an open training class,
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Reliability—keystone of a sustainable electronics industry
the content can change based on other students questions or experiences. A major benefit of this type of training platform is you can produce it yourself or have custom packages produced to target a single problem like handling solder paste or cleaning and inspection of stencils—short, focused training sessions Training videos There are very few providers of training videos in electronic manufacture; IPC has the largest collection and are very cost effective when you consider how many staff can be trained with one video. The key point of using video effectively is making sure the responsible trainer discusses the content with the students and also asks the attendees questions after watching the video. If the video is longer than 30 to 40 minutes, stop the tape and review the content before continuing. Never use video as a production line tool, training large groups one after another without any interaction. It does happen, it’s boring and it’s bad training practice. Video is just one of the many tools an engineer can use to show staff something that can be difficult to actually show in manufacture.
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Textbooks These are a great resource for education and available on most subjects relating to modern printed board assembly. Having been a book reviewer for many for many magazines over the years, I know the true value of a good book. However it’s uncommon for companies to actively allow staff to read a book during work time. It has to be done during their own time, and as we get older it’s more difficult to learn this way. Many staff have a firm dividing line between work and play, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is difficult for some people to believe that some of us like reading textbooks on holiday!! Textbooks are very flexible as you can read them anywhere at any time. They may be expensive but any publisher probably sells 100s and never 1000s of soldering books. Just think of the way all software manuals moved online or are provided as PDFs for cost reasons. A book is better—just look at the growth in third party software guides, or is it another way of making more money? Online training Whilst this has been available for a few years, it is only with fast Internet access this type of education is now a reality
to the majority of companies worldwide with limited impact, with the exception of time zone and language. Online training is the most cost effective way of training either groups or a single staff member in a particular subject and can often be taken at a time convenient to the company. It is very easy to identify a process or product failure, then implement a short training session for 30-60 minutes within a couple of days. This is particularly valuable when a customer is based in the US, the design team is in Europe and manufacture is in the Far East. Many organisations provide this type of training, but it’s important to know the provider, know the speaker’s style, and/or have a recommendation. Suffering death by PowerPoint in a classroom is not as bad as it is in an online session. Bob Willis is also a process engineer providing engineering support in conventional and surface mount assembly processes. He runs production lines for suppliers at exhibitions and also provides seminar and workshops worldwide. Bob will be presenting three Master Classes at IPC APEX Las Vegas and SMT Nuremberg in Germany for engineers visiting these shows. For further information on how Bob may be able to support your staff contact him via his web site, www.bobwillis.co.uk
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 53
Title Association & institutes news
Association & institutes news SMTA Accepting Applications for Board of Directors The SMTA is currently seeking committed individuals for its Board of Directors. Candidates should have valuable skills and ideas to continue our mission of helping members succeed in electronics assembly and related business operations. The SMTA is a volunteer-driven organization, meaning that from our chapters and educational programs to strategic planning and budget allocation, the SMTA relies on volunteers for the dynamic leadership which is so important to our members. Nominations are being accepted through April 23, 2010 for the term that begins at SMTA International, October 2428 in Orlando, FL. The only requirement is that candidates are SMTA members who have demonstrated commitment to the association. In addition to leadership opportunities, the numerous benefits of serving on the board include exposure to personal and professional contacts and the chance to exchange ideas with fellow leaders. If you are interested in serving or know of potential board members, visit the website listed below for more information or contact JoAnn Stromberg at joann@ smta.org, 952-920-7682. Visit www.smta.org/nominations/ nominations.cfm for more information and to submit your nomination. SMTA announces new West Coast offering of counterfeit electronic parts symposium SMTA and CALCE are pleased to announce a new Symposium on Avoiding, Detecting, and Preventing Counterfeit Electronic Parts event to be held on the west coast. The new event will take place June 8-10, 2010, in Honeywell Deer Valley, Deer Valley (Phoenix), AZ. The first three symposia were overwhelming successes with participation of part manufacturers, distributors, users, government and law enforcement agencies, legal professionals, authentication technology manufacturers, academic institutions, supply chain and brand protection professionals. Abstracts
for presentations are now being accepted through April 9, 2010. Going beyond anecdotes and examples of counterfeit parts, this symposium focuses on the solutions available and under development by all sectors of the industry. Topics will include: • Electronic parts supply chain • Sources of counterfeit parts • Proven methodologies for reducing chances of being victims of counterfeit parts • Supply chain management tools to mitigate counterfeit part risks • Inspections tools and techniques for detecting counterfeit parts • Authentication techniques for securing electronic part supply chain • Trade and business issues adopted by industry • Law enforcement and international cooperation The conference is organized by SMTA in conjunction with the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) at the University of Maryland. This symposium will be valuable to supply chain managers, component engineers, brand protection specialists, marketing and procurement policy makers, contracts management, security specialists and other interested engineers. Our focus is to provide relevant information to the professionals that can be used for solving problems today while planning for a different business and technology environment in the future. Please provide an abstract (within 300 words) on any relevant topics to Dr. Diganta Das via email to diganta@umd. edu no later than April 9th. The final presentations are due May 14th. For more information, please visit www.smta.org/ education/education.cfm#counterfeit_west.
54 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
New IPC Standard Helps Define How Clean Is Clean How clean is clean when it comes to printed circuit boards and assemblies? While John Perry, IPC technical project manager, can enumerate a litany of complex variables that come into play with an answer to that question, a new cleaning standard, IPC-5704, Cleanliness Requirements for Unpopulated Printed Boards, defines the recommended requirements for the cleanliness of unpopulated single, double-sided and multilayer printed boards. A vital complement to the June 2007 release of IPC-5702 which describes factors to consider when determining what tests to run for assessing the impact/ risk of residues on long-term life (e.g., end-use environment, design/service life and technology involved), IPC-5704 provides the hard specifications and requirements for maximum limits of ionic contamination using ion chromatography testing. In addition, IPC-5704 delivers industry guidance on cleanliness testing for both product acceptance and process control, verifying that all equipment and chemistries are stable. “The cleanliness of a printed board can directly impact the effectiveness or quality of an assembled printed board,” explains Perry. “Residues increase the risk of field failures or can electrically impede a printed board’s function, so having acceptance criteria for various levels of testing as well as direction on how many samples should be tested is extremely important.” Referenced in the new cleanliness standard, IPC-TM-650 Method 2.3.28.2, Bare Printed Board Cleanliness by Ion Chromatography is the new test procedure that should be used in conjunction with IPC-5704 to measure the level of anionic and cationic residues on the surface of unpopulated (bare) printed boards by ion chromatography. For more information on IPC-5704, visit www.ipc.org/ipc-5704 or contact Perry at JohnPerry@ipc.org or +1 847-597-2818
www.globalsmt.net
Title
APEX booth 1735
www.globalsmt.net
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 55
Title International Diary
International Diary 6-8 April IPC APEX Expo Las Vegas, Nevada goipcshows.org
18-19 May National Electronics Week London, UK nationalelectronicsweek.co.uk
13-14 April Printed Electronics Europe Dresden, Germany idtechex.com
2-4 June Protec JISSO/JPCA Tokyo, Japan www.jpcashow.com
20-22 April Expo Electronica Moscow, Russia www.expoelectronica.ru/eng
8-10 June SMT/Hybrid/Packaging Nuremberg, Germany www.smt-exhibition.com
20-22 April NEPCON China Shanghai, China www.nepconchina.com
7-10 September electronica India/productronica India Bangalore, India www.productronica-india.com 15-17 September GlobalTRONICS Singapore www.globaltronics.com.sg
13-15 July Semicon West San Francisco, California www.semiconwest.org
APEX booth 1635
Complex components need reliable protection.
When you need to precisely spray and dispense liquid coatings, the SCS Precisioncoat selective spray and dispense coating system provides maximum accuracy and flexibility. The system applies 100% solids, solvent-based and water-based coatings via three to five axes. Optional features, such as needle calibration, vision system, offline programming and barcode reader capability, meet any production requirement. SCS Precisioncoat systems connect seamlessly with SCS thermal and UV cure units, enabling components to move from coating to curing without operator intervention. Contact SCS to find out more about our innovative solutions for your advanced technologies. World Headquarters (US): 317.244.1200 www.scsequip.com/spray
56 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
www.globalsmt.net
Title
APEX booth 1925
www.globalsmt.net
Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010 – 57
Title
u bo s a S ot t A ee h P 2 E 2 X 2 8
smart manufacturing
just got smarter
Farid Anani
Manufacturing Manager
smart solutions
just got smarter Smart companies use Valor.
MSS
Manufacturing System Solutions
Computrol is a high-mix company that focuses on complex products. We need a tool that enables us to be production ready in hours not days. Since implementation, the Valor Manufacturing System Solutions which include vPlan, vCheck and Trilogy solutions have reduced the time necessary to create production work instructions, inspection instructions, SMT programs, AOI programs and various other factory floor required data, while collecting real-time and automated quality data through equipment-specific interfaces. Additionally, Valor’s Box Build module that allows Computrol to deliver box build instructions and collect quality data from our box build cells while performing in-process serial registration and enforced routing ensuring highest quality products was implemented. Computrol uses the dynamic Web reports portal to allow quality engineers to drill down on issues real-time. These professional looking web reports are used to report required quality reports to our customers maintaining the accuracy and customer satisfaction needed in business today. The Trilogy DFM tool is an impressive package that finds PCB Design issues that pose manufacturing challenges. On several occasions I was told by customers that the delivered DFM report pointed issues that saved a PCB spin. These time improvements and satisfaction improvements lead to reduction in cost and increase in revenue. The entire Valor software suite is supported by a customer-oriented team at Valor. The deployment and implementation and ongoing technical support we get from Valor is outstanding.
58 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – March 2010
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