Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

Green Monster! ESD stencil wiping rolls prevent static buildup and do not use weak paper or tissue fibers. Paper or tissue is typically only held together by weak hydrogen bonds which are quickly destroyed when wet. Instead, they use thicker and coarser rayon fibers that absorb solvents.

With coarse fibers, the porosity is higher, more vacuum can be used to clean solder paste from the apertures, and they are conducive to an aggressive cleaning surface.

High-Tech Conversions, high-techconversions.com

32K443-800 connector has a four-hole flange mounting structure, with a separate center contact pin soldered to the signal via the board. The connector is reusable, extra center contact pins are available. Said to have excellent electrical performance up to 18 GHz.

SMCC (surface mount coaxial connector) products provide an impedance match if the signal trace or signal via on the board is 50 Ohm.

Rosenberger provides custom footprints to its customers, developed based on the connector and board models that optimize RF performance.

Rosenberger of North America, rosenbergerna.com

GÖPEL electronic and Scorpion Technologies have developed a JTAG/Boundary Scan option for the Scorpion Flying Probe Tester (FPT).

Is based on the integration of the Cascon Galaxy software and Scanflex hardware into the FPT with up to 24 probes that can be freely positioned and used as virtual Boundary Scan pins.

Bettina Becker, marketing and international sales manager for GÖPEL, said: “The direct control of the ICT pin electronics by the Boundary Scan environment has the advantage of each probe acting as additional virtual scan pin in a Boundary Scan test. The user is now able to achieve a significant increase in test coverage for digital as well as mixed signal ICs, whereby Boundary Scan procedures already utilized in the lab can be completely reused without modifications.”

The integration is based on PCI controller models SFX/PCI1149-x with programmable TCK frequencies up to 20 MHz (A type) and 50 MHz (B type), respectively. The connection to the UUT is realized using a transceiver model SFX-TAP4/C, which provides four parallel TAP and up to eight programmable interface parameters for adaptation to the UUT. The UUT is connected by means of the standard FPT interface. The reliable TAP-Transceiver with CION-Interface enables direct control of UUTs up to 1.5 m. No additional electronics are required. 32 dynamic I/O pins are available on the hardware.

All Cascon software editions can run on the FPT.

GÖPEL electronic, goepel.com

Scorpion Technologies AG, scorpion-tech.com

Novatec, a French research laboratory, announces an new tool for board support ¾ VacuNest Shape Memory Tooling.

Board support is critical in printers, dispensers and pick-and-place machines to run a repeatable process.

The shape memory tool combines the benefits of a custom tooling plate with the versatility of pins. An antistatic membrane covers a foam former surrounded by polymer granules.

Place a golden board onto the modules, press down, pull a vacuum and the memory of the board shape profile is held. The chambers are profiled to the shape of the underside of the board ¾ on activation of the vacuum this shape is now held. Simple, secure and a custom board support is created within seconds. The shape will hold for weeks/days/months until the vacuum is released. The modules return to their original form, awaiting the next version of board.

Cuts risk of damage to a component due to the pin/printing pressure; supports forces evenly spread over the entire board.
Can handle high-density boards and requires little to no lead-time.

Guarantees board flatness and is not sensitive to solder paste contamination.

Novatec, novatec-eap.com

AirMax VS high-speed connector system includes mezzanine, co-planar, high-power, I/O and backplane header versions. Said to offer scalability, flexibility, high density and performance headroom through its use of air as the dielectric and its Insert Molded Leadframe Assembly (IMLA).

Uses edge-coupling technology and an air dielectric between adjacent conductors, delivering high signal density with low insertion loss and low crosstalk, without metal shields.

Dual-beam receptacle contact provides two points of contact, one on each side of the header blade. Vertical header features a robust housing providing generous “lead in.” Comes with protective cover that also serves as press-in block during connector installation.

Comprised of a full set of building blocks for backplane, co-planar, mezzanine and cable-to-board applications. Are scaleable to the number of columns; available with housings in various IMLA counts.

Allow for custom pin assignments (differential or single-ended signals as well as power), so system data rates can grow from 2.5 Gb/s to over 12 Gb/s without re-design of the basic platform.

FCI, fciconnect.com/airmax

Owens Design partnered with Questar Products International to develop a line of automatic wire bonders built on Kulicke and Soffa’s former Hybrid bonder platforms. Capabilities include fine pitch, large table travel and ball bumping, with user friendly, customizable software. The Questar Q2100 series bonders are designed for a range of complex devices.

John Apgar, president of Owens Design, said, “Our customer challenged us to come up with a cost effective design, replacing and upgrading older technology components, solving difficult electronics layout challenges, while packaging the system and all electronics in a very small footprint, and conforming to all SEMI and CE standards.”

Questar Products International, questarinc.com
Owens Design, owensdesign.com