Technical Library | 2013-04-12 07:31:31.0
As change is inevitable, therefore so is obsolescence. In the electronics sector, stocks of components used in subassemblies will eventually run out, no surprise there! However on many occasions, particularly in the often long product life cycles associated with the traditional UK OEM’s in the industrial, military and medical sectors, to name but three, component supply gets ‘difficult’ long before the customers products themselves reach their ‘end of life’. Component manufacturers work to a commercial agenda; when the popularity of a specific device wanes, or indeed when new features are demanded by the market, they will cease production and redeploy their manufacturing capacity to devices that are being demanded by their high volume customers; the global players.
Technical Library | 2013-09-19 17:25:32.0
The next generation of smart phones will demand very thin multi-layer boards to reduce the product thickness again. This paper shows three different manufacturing approaches, which can be used for very thin any-layer build-ups. The technological approaches are compared on reliability level – the any-layer copper filled micro-via technology which is to be considered as state of the art technology for high end phones and the ALIVH-C/G technology that is well established in Japan. A test vehicle design featuring test coupons for comprehensive reliability test series has been defined as target application for investigation...
Technical Library | 2016-08-02 06:12:05.0
The audio device industry is set to grow in parallel with the technology triggering across the globe. Also the entertainment and hospitality industry has created an increased demand of audio devices at large. With the enhancement coming up in consumer applications every other day, the recent trend of implementing wireless technology in audio devices has captivated the attention in the market with its growing popularities all over the electronics industry. The recent audio discoveries have marked cosmic developments in the new product launch, business partnership and acquisition globally. With this, the audio device makers are now in race to present a multi featured compact device with giving an appealing dimension experience to the end users in order to survive in the electronic market.
Technical Library | 2018-01-11 10:48:48.0
Ink-jet printing is poised to impact the manufacturing of devices that are particularly attractive for flexible electronics, as more suitable and printable fluids become available. The addition of surfacants in the preparation of the inks usually results in additional process steps, potentially increasing cost, as well as material waste, where the surfactants also often have a negative impact on specific properties of the printed features, such as comprising electrical conductivity of metallic structures. (...)In this work, we have successfully formulated a suitable ink derived from a mixture of terpineolin cyclohexanone as a more environmentally friendly option for the exfoliation of bulk graphite, which we elaborate upon in more detail here.
Technical Library | 2018-01-17 22:47:02.0
Fine pitch copper (Cu) Pillar bump has been growing adoption in high performance and low-cost flip chip packages. Higher input/output (I/O) density and very fine pitch requirements are driving very small feature sizes such as small bump on a narrow pad or bond-on-lead (BOL) interconnection, while higher performance requirements are driving increased current densities, thus assembling such packages using a standard mass reflow (MR) process and maintaining its performance is a real and serious challenge. (...) In this study a comprehensive finding on the assembly challenges, package design, and reliability data will be published. Originally published in the SMTA International 2016
Technical Library | 2020-11-15 21:01:24.0
ENIG, electroless nickel immersion gold is now a well-regarded finish used to enhance and preserve the solder-ability of copper circuits. EPIG, electroless palladium immersion gold, is a new surface finish also for enhancing and preserving solder-ability but with the advantage of eliminating Electroless Nickel from the deposit layer. This feature has become increasingly important with the increasing use of high frequeny PWB designs whereby nickel's magnetic properties are detrimental. We examine these two finishes and their respective soldering characteristics as plated and after steam aging and offer an explanation for the performance deviation.
Technical Library | 2021-12-21 23:01:30.0
High density PWB (printed wiring board) with microvia technology is required for implementation of high density and high I/O area array packages (AAP). COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) AAP packaging technologies in high reliability versions with 1.27 mm pitch are now being considered for use in a number of NASA systems including the Space Shuttle and Mars Rovers. NASA functional system designs are requiring ever more denser AAP packages and board features, making board microvia technology very attractive for effectively routing a large number of package inputs/outputs.
Technical Library | 2020-08-27 01:15:10.0
Automobile surface defects like scratches or dents occur during the process of manufacturing and cross-border transportation. This will affect consumers' first impression and the service life of the car itself. In most worldwide automobile industries, the inspection process is mainly performed by human vision, which is unstable and insufficient. The combination of artificial intelligence and the automobile industry shows promise nowadays. However, it is a challenge to inspect such defects in a computer system because of imbalanced illumination, specular highlight reflection, various reflection modes and limited defect features. This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel automatic inspection system (AIS) for automobile surface defects which are the located in or close to style lines, edges and handles. The system consists of image acquisition and image processing devices, operating in a closed environment and noncontact way with four LED light sources. Specifically, we use five plane-array Charge Coupled Device (CCD) cameras to collect images of the five sides of the automobile synchronously. Then the AIS extracts candidate defect regions from the vehicle body image by a multi-scale Hessian matrix fusion method. Finally, candidate defect regions are classified into pseudo-defects, dents and scratches by feature extraction (shape, size, statistics and divergence features) and a support vector machine algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that automatic inspection system can effectively reduce false detection of pseudo-defects produced by image noise and achieve accuracies of 95.6% in dent defects and 97.1% in scratch defects, which is suitable for customs inspection of imported vehicles.
Technical Library | 2018-12-19 21:23:59.0
With the rapid trend towards miniaturization in surface mount and MEMs lid-attach technology, it is becoming increasingly challenging to dispense solder paste in ultra-fine dot applications such as those involving chip capacitors or BGA packages, as well as dispensing ultra-fine lines in MEMs lid-attach applications. In order to achieve ultra-fine dots and fine line widths while dispensing solder paste, both the solder material and dispensing equipment need to be optimized. Optimizing the equipment can be very challenging, as there are many input variables that can affect the dispense quality of the solder paste. In this paper we will evaluate the many equipment variables involved in the solder paste dispensing process, and the impact these variables have on the dispense quality of the solder paste.
Technical Library | 2020-09-02 22:02:13.0
With the adoption of Wafer Level Packages (WLP) in the latest generation mobile handsets, the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) industry has also seen the initial steps of High Density Interconnect (HDI) products migrating away from the current subtractive processes towards a more technically adept technique, based on an advanced modified Semi Additive Process (amSAP). This pattern plate process enables line and space features in the region of 20um to be produced, in combination with fully filled, laser formed microvias. However, in order to achieve these process demands, a step change in the performance of the chemical processes used for metallization of the microvia is essential. In the electroless Copper process, the critical activator step often risks cross contamination by the preceding chemistries. Such events can lead to uncontrolled buildup of Palladium rich residues on the panel surface, which can subsequently inhibit etching and lead to short circuits between the final traces. In addition, with more demands being placed on the microvia, the need for a high uniformity Copper layer has become paramount, unfortunately, as microvia shape is often far from ideal, the deposition or "throw" characteristics of the Copper bath itself are also of critical importance. This "high throwing power" is influential elsewhere in the amSAP technique, as it leads to a thinner surface Copper layer, which aids the etching process and enables the ultra-fine features being demanded by today's high end PCB applications. This paper discusses the performance of an electroless Copper plating process that has been developed to satisfy the needs of challenging amSAP applications. Through the use of a radical predip chemistry, the formation, build up and deposition of uncontrolled Pd residues arising from activator contamination has been virtually eradicated. With the adoption of a high throwing power Copper bath, sub 30um features are enabled and microvia coverage is shown to be greatly improved, even in complex via shapes which would otherwise suffer from uneven coverage and risk premature failure in service. Through a mixture of development and production data, this paper aims to highlight the benefits and robust performance of the new electroless Copper process for amSAP applications
