Technical Library | 2017-04-27 17:10:16.0
Using modern laser systems for the depanelization of circuit boards can create some challenges for the production engineer when it is compared to traditional mechanical singulation methods. Understanding the effects of the laser energy to the substrate material properly is essential in order to take advantage of the technology without creating unintended side effects. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the various laser system operating parameters that were performed to determine the resulting substrate material temperature changes. A theoretical model was developed and compared to actual measurements. The investigation includes how the temperature increase resulting from laser energy during depaneling affects the properties of the PCB substrate, which varies from no measurable change to a lowering of the surface resistance of the cut wall depending on the cutting parameters.
Technical Library | 2019-09-11 23:33:04.0
There are numerous techniques to singulate printed circuit boards after assembly including break-out, routing, wheel cutting and now laser cutting. Lasers have several desirable advantages such as very narrow kerf widths as well as virtually no dust, no mechanical stress, visual pattern recognition and fast set-up changes. The very narrow kerf width resulting from laser ablation and the very tight tolerance of the cutting path placement allows for more usable space on the panel. However, the energy used in the laser cutting process can also create unwanted products on the cut walls as a result of the direct laser ablation. The question raised often is: What are these products, and how far can the creation of such products be mitigated through variation of the laser cutting process, laser parameters and material handling? This paper discusses the type and quantity of the products found on sidewalls of laser depaneled circuit boards and it quantifies the results through measurements of breakdown voltage, as well as electrical impedance. Further this paper discusses mitigation strategies to prevent or limit the amount of change in surface quality as a result of the laser cutting process. Depending on the final application of the circuit board it may prompt a need for proper specification of the expected results in terms of cut surface quality. This in turn will impact the placement of runs and components during layout. It will assist designers and engineers in defining these parameters sufficiently in order to have a predictable quality of the circuit boards after depaneling.
Technical Library | 2022-01-05 23:10:11.0
Waste electrical and electronic equipment or e-waste generation has been skyrocketing over the last decades. This poses waste management and value recovery challenges, especially in developing countries. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are mainly employed in value recovery operations. Despite the high energy costs of generating crushed and milled particles of the order of several microns, those are employed in conventional hydrometallurgical techniques. Coarse PCB pieces (of order a few centimetres) based value recovery operations are not reported at the industrial scale as the complexities of the internal structure of PCBs limit efficient metal and non-metal separation.
Technical Library | 2018-06-18 13:43:56.0
Thermal influences can significantly compromise the service life, capacity and especially the operational safety of HV batteries. In order to prevent damage due to excessive temperatures, large quantities of heat-conducting potting media are used here. Scheugenpflug has developed a new system solution for fast and reliable application of these materials.
Technical Library | 2023-04-17 17:05:47.0
In an ideal world, manufacturing devices would work all of the time, however, every company receives customer returns for a variety of reasons. If these returned parts contributed to a fail, most companies will perform failure analysis (FA) on the returned parts to determine the root cause of the failure. Failure can occur for a multitude of reasons, for example: wear out, fatigue, design issues, manufacturing flaw or defect. This information is then used to improve the overall quality of the product and prevent reoccurrence. If no defect is found, it is possible that in fact the product has no defect. On the other hand, the defect could be elusive and the FA techniques insufficient to detect said deficiency. No-clean flux residues can cause intermittent or elusive, hard to find defects. In an attempt to understand the effects of no-clean flux residues from the secondary soldering and cleaning processes, a matrix of varying process and cleaning operation was investigated. Of special interest, traveling flux residues and entrapped residues were examined, as well as localized and batch cleaning processes. Various techniques were employed to test the remaining residues in order to assess their propensity to cause a latent failure. These techniques include Surface Insulation Resistance1 (SIR) testing at 40⁰C/90% RH, 5 VDC bias along with C32 testing and Ion Exchange Chromatography (IC). These techniques facilitate the assessment of the capillary effect the tight spacing these component structures have when flux residues are present. It is expected that dendritic shorting and measurable current leakage will occur, indicating a failing SIR test. However, since the residue resides under the discrete components, there will be no visual evidence of dendritic growth or metal migration.
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