MUNICH -- Productronica was off and running today, with 03015 packages the clear winner among the technical discussion trends. Attendance was generally strong all day on the assembly side, while the fabrication hall (singular) was light bordering on sparse.

For those readers who have not been to Productronica, it is massive. It occupies six large convention halls, most of which are tightly packed with booths. Unlike Asian or other Western shows, most exhibitors are grouped according to their products. Thus, for instance, if one were looking for digital microscopes, they could choose from the likes of Leica, Tagarno, Optilia and so on, side-by-side along the same wall. One hall is dedicated to test and AOI: Agilent, Aeroflex, atg, Goepel, JTAG, Landrex, Omron, Seica, Sonoscan, and Teradyne are among scores of vendors duking it out for visitors. There's no hiding from the competition here. Also, if the 2013 show looks similar to years' past, one reason may be because several exhibitors opted for the same booth locations as in 2011.

Among the more than 30 companies we visited today included several that were touting their 03015 capability, Asys, Juki and Mirtec among them.

We heard comments that Nordson Dage, which is already doing some really neat stuff with its X-plane x-ray technology, announced two years ago, that uses a CT technique to create 2D "slices" in any plane of the PCB, is now able to look at the layers of the die. There were other clear crowd-pleasers. Beta Layout drew attendees to its embedded RFID technology. while Mirtec was busy all day, with plenty of attention on its MV-9 AOI.

About those 03015s. It appears most suppliers believe think they can be printed them using 2 mil stencils, although one suggested that 3 mil could work, provided the stencil quality was sufficient. Inspection might not be so easy with camera-based AOI.

Most companies were showing technology that had been rolled out either earlier this year or, in some cases, at Productronica two years ago. Assembleon, which three years ago became the first company to inform me 03015s were coming, had five iFlex placement machines (and one Mirae) at its booth.

Juki has rebranded all the former Sony equipment, which the placement machines now known as the RX series. They won't be rolled out in the US immediately, however. Combined, the newly merged operations can boast some 36,000 placement machines installed. Juki's Bob Black said that even with the merger with Sony Manufacturing Services, Juki's license deal with GKG remains unchanged.

Speedline demonstrated its new Prodigy dispenser, with Nanoshot pump technology. The company is looking again at developing jetting technology. On the printer side, the Compact has made significant gains with the high-volume, smaller board end-market. Wolfgang Lentzen said successful 03015 printing would come down primarily to the stencil, remarking that there is great variation between stencil manufacturers.

Several suppliers proved automated odd-form and axial leaded assembly is alive and well, JOT Automation, Lazpiur and Panasonic, among them. It was probably underappreciated at the time, but a tremendous number of new machines debuted at the IPC Apex show in February, and Productronica was likely the victim. All of Panasonic's equipment, for instance, was previously shown last spring.

Mirtec demonstrated its MV-9 2D/3D AOI with a 25Mp camera. The machine features a top camera and four moire probes which that eight images each, and a total of 37 images per frame, and is capable of viewing 03015s at 7.7 microns, Brian D'Amico reports.

Parmi's Jeff Mogensen smiled when asked about 03015s, saying for the SPI/AOI maker, "For us, it's better. The smaller the market goes, the more people need SPI."

Koh Young's response was similar, with Andre Myny saying the inspection OEM can already measure to one micron, and therefore the new parts are inspectable with standard equipment.

Goepel added an AOI option to its x-ray machine, a new top-down camera (built by Goepel) for checking polarity and missing components.

Vi Tech has made impressive throughput gains with its π SPI, the result of a four-year, $25 million investment. The machine has 32 cameras in all, permitting 362 images per area. The software provides automated programming and first-pass yield data.

LaserJob was among those suggesting a 2 mil stencil would be necessary for 03015 part printing, although the stencil maker has not performed tests on the new parts yet.

In the fabrication hall, Orbotech and Schmoll had significant presences. Orbotech showed the new PerFix 200 automated rework machine (below), which is three times faster than the 100 model. As for Schmoll, one would think it was Hitachi's much bigger brother.

It was a bit eye-opening to hear how Isola has cut its Duren workforce by 700 workers over the past decade yet its laminate output remains the same. UCamco demonstrated the latest version of its Integr8or software, which includes Checkpoint 1.1, a DFM review tool that checks copper, drill, and solder mask files among others and indicates critical errors. The firm also rolled out UCAM-X 1.1, a 64-bit CAM tool that ultimately will replace UCAM, featuring a new GUI and user-defined windows. The company's Karel Tavernier also explained the company is working on an updated version of Gerber with attributes.

There remain quite a few companies that don't push products outside of Europe. Of them Dima SMT, a supplier of full line SMT process equipment, might be the largest, but many other smaller firms are here as well. Iemme Group showed a 6-ft. lead-free wave and a 24-zone (20 heating, four cooling) convection reflow oven. A Korean distributor was promoting an all-Korea SMT line, a novelty.

Finally, we talked to a couple EMS companies. Unfortunately, there was nothing notable to report.

More tomorrow from Munich.

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