Technical Library | 1999-08-09 11:11:55.0
A great deal of controversy continues to surround the use of Hot Air Solder Leveling (HASL) in the production of printed circuit boards (PCBs). The financial burden, technological limitations and environmental issues surrounding the HASL process continue to grow. This requires an in-depth review by the printed circuit board manufacturing plant, as well as the assembly operation and instrument designers ( OEMs), to determine what alternative surface finishes are appropriate.
Technical Library | 2018-01-04 11:05:34.0
Traceability has grown from being a specialized need for certain safety critical segments of the industry, to now being a recognized value-add tool for the industry as a whole. The perception of traceability data collection however persists as being a burden that may provide value only when the most rare and disastrous of events take place. Disparate standards have evolved in the industry, mainly dictated by large OEM companies in the market create confusion, as a multitude of requirements and definitions proliferate. The intent of the IPC-1782 project is to bring the whole principle and perception of traceability up to date. Traceability, as defined in this standard will represent the most effective quality tool available, becoming an intrinsic part of best practice operations, with the encouragement of automated data collection from existing manufacturing systems, integrating quality, reliability, predictive (routine, preventative, and corrective) maintenance, throughput, manufacturing, engineering and supply-chain data, reducing cost of ownership as well as ensuring timeliness and accuracy all the way from a finished product back through to the initial materials and granular attributes about the processes along the way.
Technical Library | 2019-09-04 21:35:53.0
Since the European Directives, RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals), entered into force in 2006-7, the number of regulated substances continues to grow. REACH adds new substances roughly twice a year, and more substances will be added to RoHS in 2019. While these open-ended regulations represent an ongoing burden for supply chain reporting, some ability to remain ahead of new substance restrictions can be achieved through full material declarations (FMD) specifically the IPC-1752A Class D Standard (the "Standard"), which was developed by the IPC - Association Connecting Electronic Industries. What is important to the supply chain is access to user-friendly, easily accessible or free, fully supported tools that allow suppliers to create and modify XML (Extensible Markup Language) files as specified in the Standard. Some tools will provide enhancements that validate required data entry and provide real-time interactive messages to facilitate the resolution of errors. In addition, validation and auto-population of substance CAS (Chemical Abstract Service) numbers, and Class D weight rollup validation ensure greater success in the acceptance of the declarations in customer systems that automate data gathering and reporting. A good tool should support importing existing IPC-1752A files for editing; this capability reduces the effort to update older declarations and greatly benefits suppliers of a family of products with similar composition. One of the problems with FMDs is the use of "wildcard" non-CAS numbers based on a declarable substance list (DSL). While the substances in different company's lists tend to have some overlap, no two DSL’s are the same. We provide an understanding of the commonality and differences between representative DSLs, and the ability to configure how much of a non-DSL substance percent is allowed. Case studies are discussed to show how supplier compliance data, can be automatically loaded into the customer's enterprise compliance system. Finally, we briefly discuss future enhancements and other developments like Once an Article, Always an Article (O5A) that will continue to require IPC standards and supporting tools to evolve.
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