Technical Library | 2012-09-20 21:45:38.0
First published in the 2012 IPC APEX EXPO technical conference proceedings. An evaluation of four FR4 laminates in commonly used stack-ups was done to determine their survivability for the Pb-free HASL process followed by a worst case Pb-free manufacturin
Technical Library | 2020-07-02 13:16:32.0
Principle of shielding 1 The principle of shielding is creating a conductive layer completely surrounding the object you want to shield. This was invented by Michael Faraday and this system is known as a Faraday Cage. 2 Ideally, the shielding layer will be made up of conductive sheets or layers of metal that are connected by means of welding or soldering, without any interruptions. The shielding is perfect when there is no difference in conductivity between the used materials. When dealing with frequencies below 30 MHz, the metal thickness affects shielding effectiveness. We also offer a range of shielding methods for plastic enclosures. A complete absence of interruptions is not a realistic goal since the Faraday cage will have to be opened from time to time so electronics, equipment or people can be moved in or out. Openings are also needed for displays, ventilation, cooling, power supply, signals etc. 3 Shielding works in both directions, items inside the shielded room are shielded from outside influences. (Fig. 3.1)
Technical Library | 2016-07-14 18:21:29.0
Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and Printed Electronics (PE) both describe conductor/substrate combinations that make connections. Both PCB and PE technologies have been in use for a long time in one form or another with PCBs currently the standard for complex, high speed electronics and PE for user interface, complex form factor or other film based applications. New and innovative applications create the opportunity for promising structures. Taking advantage of the PCB shop's capability as well as the material set can help create these structures and indeed PE materials can find use in more traditional PCBs. New materials and new uses of existing materials open up many possibilities in electronic interconnecting structures. PCB manufacturers have a complex manufacturing infrastructure, well suited for both additive and subtractive conductor processing. While built around rigid material processing (flex PCB being the exception), there are opportunities for PE substrate processing. As electronics devices are applied to more and more parts of our lives, we need to continually push for better solutions. Fit, function, manufacturability, and cost are all important considerations. Crossing the PCB/PE boundary is a way to meet the challenge.
Technical Library | 2013-09-05 17:44:14.0
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are localized surface electromagnetic waves that propagate along the interface between a metal and a dielectric. Owing to their inherent subwavelength confinement, SPPs have a strong potential to become building blocks of a type of photonic circuitry built up on 2D metal surfaces; however, SPPs are difficult to control on curved surfaces conformably and flexibly to produce advanced functional devices. Here we propose the concept of conformal surface plasmons (CSPs), surface plasmon waves that can propagate on ultrathin and flexible films to long distances in a wide broadband range from microwave to mid-infrared frequencies.
Technical Library | 2014-10-27 08:54:59.0
A lot of time and effort often goes into finding the right equipment for your facility. Purchasing a new wire cut & strip machine is no different. With so many options, where does one start? Asking these five questions during the decision making process will help ensure you end up with equipment that fits all of your needs.
Technical Library | 2008-02-26 15:02:19.0
More and more chip packages need multi-GHz RF structures to meet their performance targets. The ideal chip package needs to combine RF features with Digital features for these applications. They drive low-loss, controlled impedance transmission lines, flexibility in assigned signal and power layers, and clearances of various shapes in power layers. Building these features in a chip package is difficult without making the stack-up very thick or compromising the reliability of the product. In the present paper, we have designed and built a flip-chip package test vehicle (TV) to make new RF structures, using Z-axis interconnection (Zinterconnect) building blocks.
Technical Library | 2018-03-28 14:54:36.0
Six decades of legacy experience makes the specification and production of screens and masks to produce repeatable precision results mostly an exercise in matching engineering needs with known ink and substrate performance to specify screen and stencil characteristics. New types of functional and electronic devices, flex circuits and medical sensors, industrial printing, ever finer circuit pitch, downstream additive manufacturing processes coupled with new substrates and inks that are not optimized for the rheological, mechanical and chemical characteristics for the screen printing process are becoming a customer driven norm. Many of these materials do not work within legacy screen making, curing or press set-up parameters. Many new materials and end uses require new screen specifications.This case study presents a DOE based method to pre-test new materials to categorize ink and substrate rheology, compatibility and printed feature requirement to allow more accurate screen recipes and on-press setting expectations before the project enters the production environment where time and materials are most costly and on-press adjustment methods may be constrained by locked, documented or regulatory processes, equipment limitations and employee experience.
Technical Library | 2021-11-22 20:39:44.0
Quality control is a key activity performed by manufacturing companies to verify product conformance to the requirements and specifications. Standardized quality control ensures that all the products are evaluated under the same criteria. The decreased cost of sensors and connectivity enabled an increasing digitalization of manufacturing and provided greater data availability. Such data availability has spurred the development of artificial intelligence models, which allow higher degrees of automation and reduced bias when inspecting the products. Furthermore, the increased speed of inspection reduces overall costs and time required for defect inspection. In this research, we compare five streaming machine learning algorithms applied to visual defect inspection with real world data provided by Philips Consumer Lifestyle BV. Furthermore, we compare them in a streaming active learning context, which reduces the data labeling effort in a real-world context. Our results show that active learning reduces the data labeling effort by almost 15% on average for the worst case, while keeping an acceptable classification performance. The use of machine learning models for automated visual inspection are expected to speed up the quality inspection up to 40%.
Technical Library | 2017-11-10 00:58:37.0
Modern electronics manufacturing is made up by a multiplicity of different separation and joining processes, with the later surely taking the vast majority of production technology. Alongside gluing, welding and laser processes, soldering still holds a primary position in electronic assemblies. However, soldering does not always equal soldering, because there are quite a lot of different soldering technologies. Accordingly, you have to distinguish between automated and manual soldering procedures. No matter which soldering process you analyse, all of them have one aspect in common: they produce airborne pollutants, which may have a negative impact on employees, plants and products as well.
Technical Library | 2013-03-28 16:18:22.0
For the last couple of years, the main concerns regarding the electrical performance of blank PCB boards were impedance and ohmic resistance. Just recently, the need to reduce insertion loss came up in discussions with blank board customers (...) The paper describes the test vehicle and the testing methodology and discusses in detail the electrical performance characteristics. The influence of the independent variables on the performance characteristics is presented. Finally the thermal reliability of the boards built applying different copper foils and oxide replacements was investigated.
