SMT Boot Camp Featuing Phil Zarrow

BEST Boot Camp will teach you the basics of the board assembly process featuring Phil; Zarrow SME from ITM Consulting “Live” PLUS hands-on and local tours

Phil Zarrow has been involved with PCB fabrication and assembly for more than thirty-five years. His expertise includes the manufacture of equipment for circuit board fabrication and assembly of through-hole and surface mount technologies. In addition to his background in automated assembly and cleaning, Mr. Zarrow is recognized for his expertise in surface mount reflow soldering technology and in the design and implementation of SMT placement equipment and reflow soldering systems. Having held key technical and management positions with Vitronics Corporation, Excellon-Micronetics and Universal Instruments Corporation, he has extensive hands-on experience with set-up and troubleshooting through-hole and SMT processes throughout the world. During his tenure as Director of Technology Development for GSS/Array Technology, he was responsible for specifying and setting up medium- and high-speed assembly lines, as well as investigating and implementing emerging and leading-edge technologies, equipment and processes.

Mr. Zarrow is a popular speaker and workshop instructor. He has chaired and instructed at numerous seminars and conferences in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. He has published many technical papers and magazine articles as well as contributed a number of chapters to industry books including "SMT Glossary- Terms and Definitions". Mr. Zarrow holds two US Patents concerning PCB fabrication and assembly processes and audit methodologies.

Who Should attend?: This class is for those wanting to get a high level view of SMT assembly and have their questions answered by someone who has a lot of experience and expertise in the field of board assembly. New engineers to this field, applications engineers from device manufacturers as well as designers would do well by spending 3 days in this seminar/tour formatted class.

Day 1-2

Introduction

• Introduction and overview of the SMT assembly process.
• RoHS

PCB Board Fab

• How boards fabbed
• Surface finishes
• Laminates
• Flex

Solder paste

• Basics of  the soldering process including alloys, fluxes, solder paste, rheology and intermetallic bond.  
• Analysis of the stencil printing process including using Gerber data to manufacture stencils, different stencil considerations, squeegee selection and considerations, etc.  Paste deposition will be discussed along with common defects found during the stenciling process and the best resolution. 

Stencil design

• Chem-etch, laser cut, e-form
• Aperture designs
• IPC-7525 stencil design guidelines

Printing parameters

• Squeegee speed and pressure plus other important parameters
• Under stencil wiping-wet and dry
• Solder paste inspection
• Defects typically associated with the printing process

Component Placement

• Analysis of component placement process, machine types, where typical defects can occur and the best resolution. 
• Machine architecture
  • Turret machines
  • Modular-all manufacturers now
  • Hybrid machines

Overview of the placement process in SMT-tour

• Board Profiling
• Reflow

Analysis of the reflow process and profiling. 

• How to build a robust SMT profile, typical defects and the best resolution. 
• Straight ramp vs ramp/soak/spike
• Impact of cooling cycle
• Effects of N2
• Defects causes by improper profile

Wave Soldering

• Analysis of the wave solder and selective solder process including profile generation, flux application and defect recognition/root cause analysis.  Hands on at the wave solder machine.
• Flux application-spray, foam, drop jet
• Effects of N2
• Defects at the wave

Cleaning and cleanliness testing

• Why Clean
• Cleaning Chemistries
• Manual Cleaning
• Cleaning Equipment – Automated Cleaning
  • Vapor Degreaser
  • Aqueous/Semi Aqueous-Batch and In-Line
• Cleanliness testing

Testing

• Overview of the test process including AOI, AXI, ICT, flying probe and functional.

Day 3-

• Component ID
• PCB board fab process and tour
• Stencil fab process
• Stencil fab tour
• Printing demonstration
• Solder paste printing and placement demo
• X-ray equipment demo
• Tour of testing facility ICT and flying probe

Testing and certification