Uncategorised
December 2008
Given the relative abundance of Speedline and DEK
machines in use today, it would be easy to overlook just how many other
printers are available. Wednesday at Productronica proved that in
spades.
We saw four today, including a new stencil-free model that had the crowds buzzing. EKRA showed the X6, a high-end, dual lane printer capable of increased speeds and full inspection. Essemtec, best known for its placement machines, offers a full-line configuration including printer, dispenser, reflow and wave machines. Managing director/CEO Martin Ziehbrunner said most orders are for the full line. And Speedprint premiered the SP880avi large area printer, capable of handling panels up to about 21 sq. in.
Then there was Mydata. The placement company made its highly anticipated debut in the printer business with MY500, a jet printer whose nozzle is reportedly capable of 1.8 million droplets per hour. A test board containing 159 parts including 65 0201s, 1 BGA and 1 QFP was printed in 17 sec. A laser measures the height profile of the PCB before printing, and unlike an inkjet that moves back and forth, the linear-motor driven head scans the PCB at 3 to 4G acceleration and looks for the best strip on which to shoot paste. The cassette includes a holder and syringe (with a standard 100 g tube). Solder is fed to an inlet via a screw pump, and a piezo hits the piston, which ejects the solder. (Mydata declined to disclose what drives the head.) Another plus: The opening reportedly doesn’t need to be cleaned. The flux content is 15% and the powder size is type 5. The machine isn’t ready for high volume operations yet, Mydata said. The machine is priced at about 295,000 euros.
Vitronics debuted “My Selective 6745,” a selective soldering machine for high mix, low volume operations that can be integrated with other Vitronics selective soldering gear. It also showed a slick concealed tunnel system on its wave machine, said to use less oxygen during preheat, soldering and cooldown. The first machine is in place in Germany. The company is opening a tech center in Germany and adding a new demo center in Southeast Asia.
Juki has expanded its factory in North Carolina, and now has a capacity of 250 machines per month. According to president Bob Black, the monthly output is more than 200 per month, of which 100 or more are shipped to China. According to the trade group JARA, Juki is the second leading vendor of placement machines worldwide in terms of units sold. Black said “quite a few” new machines are in line for debuting in 2006, with an emphasis on improving speed. Juki expects a first-half rush on its selective soldering line; the firm installed 11 in the last four months and expects around 30 installs by mid February.
Kester debuted a new bar solder, Kester K, a SnCu alloy for low-cost consumer applications. VP Dave Torp said 30% of the company’s global production is lead-free alloy and they expect that to reach 50 to 60% by Jan. 1. Henkel’s customers have been slower to transition; the materials company says sales are currently 80% SnPb and they expect 30 to 40% to be Pb-free by April. Henkel is constantly adding capacity, and more materials are being produced in the same region as they are consumed. The firm has closed on its JV with Huawei, giving them capacity and a foothold in the China market while offering Huawei access to a larger and global customer base.
Machine Vision Products rolled out a packaging inspection machine, the 850G, capable of die placement inspection within 10 microns at 3 Sigma.
BP Microsystems showed a component programmer with a single length feeder option for handling small parts (4 x 4 mm). Its new “10 series” of concurrent programmers uses USB instead of parallel ports and supports up to 4 GB.
New RVSI president Kevin Maddy has 10 years of turnaround experience. He said the company is moving to Lean manufacturing, shorter lead times (by 80%) and outsourcing of some machine build to Asia. They doubled their Q3 sales sequentially and are looking for 65% growth next year.
ASYS, the other half of EKRA, showed a pair of modular automatic depanelers, the ADS 01F and ADS 01FR. The former features changeover time of 6 sec. and is designed for cellphones and similar sized boards, while the latter operates 70% faster.
Among FineTech’s line of benchtop rework stations was the Fineplacer Pico line for 01005 rework at 10 microns accuracy, and Fineplacer Jumbo, for large parts and with 156 micron accuracy.
Two other pieces of equipment stood out among those we saw today. The accuracy of the fully automatic 3-D solder paste inspection from Koh Young Technology has been much improved over the past two years, and is poised to make serious inroads in 2006.
Also, Transition Automation’s
Permalex metal squeegee is infused with a polymer lubricant that
reduces friction and stencil wear. The novel wiping system is
retrofitable and has already been proven for lead-free pastes – no flux
adjustment is necessary – and has reportedly caught the attention of
Siemens, which is already trying it out on its DEK printers in Germany. “It’s a mechanical solution that doesn’t require chemistry change,” TA's president Mark Curtin told PCB UPdate.
Mimot (mimot.com) showed a six-head inline positive displacement dispenser said to be capable of 40,000 dph. The machine can put down paste, adhesive, epoxy or underfill.
Fresh off its wildly successful TraceExpert manufacturing execution system, Valor (valor.com) is looking to expand into manual assembly and box-build. “We want to create meaningful data for customers, and help them turn SPC databases into knowledge,” Europe president David Bengal told PCB UPdate. “We want to create a ‘dashboard’ for the manufacturing manager who sits outside the floor and helps with decision-making based on real-time and historical data.” Stay tuned for that.
One observation we made this week is how much more aesthetically pleasing the equipment is. Rounded corners, splashy colors and sleek shapes are all adding up to machines that look as cool as they function.
Ed.: This report was first published Nov. 16.
We saw four today, including a new stencil-free model that had the crowds buzzing. EKRA showed the X6, a high-end, dual lane printer capable of increased speeds and full inspection. Essemtec, best known for its placement machines, offers a full-line configuration including printer, dispenser, reflow and wave machines. Managing director/CEO Martin Ziehbrunner said most orders are for the full line. And Speedprint premiered the SP880avi large area printer, capable of handling panels up to about 21 sq. in.
Then there was Mydata. The placement company made its highly anticipated debut in the printer business with MY500, a jet printer whose nozzle is reportedly capable of 1.8 million droplets per hour. A test board containing 159 parts including 65 0201s, 1 BGA and 1 QFP was printed in 17 sec. A laser measures the height profile of the PCB before printing, and unlike an inkjet that moves back and forth, the linear-motor driven head scans the PCB at 3 to 4G acceleration and looks for the best strip on which to shoot paste. The cassette includes a holder and syringe (with a standard 100 g tube). Solder is fed to an inlet via a screw pump, and a piezo hits the piston, which ejects the solder. (Mydata declined to disclose what drives the head.) Another plus: The opening reportedly doesn’t need to be cleaned. The flux content is 15% and the powder size is type 5. The machine isn’t ready for high volume operations yet, Mydata said. The machine is priced at about 295,000 euros.
Vitronics debuted “My Selective 6745,” a selective soldering machine for high mix, low volume operations that can be integrated with other Vitronics selective soldering gear. It also showed a slick concealed tunnel system on its wave machine, said to use less oxygen during preheat, soldering and cooldown. The first machine is in place in Germany. The company is opening a tech center in Germany and adding a new demo center in Southeast Asia.
Juki has expanded its factory in North Carolina, and now has a capacity of 250 machines per month. According to president Bob Black, the monthly output is more than 200 per month, of which 100 or more are shipped to China. According to the trade group JARA, Juki is the second leading vendor of placement machines worldwide in terms of units sold. Black said “quite a few” new machines are in line for debuting in 2006, with an emphasis on improving speed. Juki expects a first-half rush on its selective soldering line; the firm installed 11 in the last four months and expects around 30 installs by mid February.
Kester debuted a new bar solder, Kester K, a SnCu alloy for low-cost consumer applications. VP Dave Torp said 30% of the company’s global production is lead-free alloy and they expect that to reach 50 to 60% by Jan. 1. Henkel’s customers have been slower to transition; the materials company says sales are currently 80% SnPb and they expect 30 to 40% to be Pb-free by April. Henkel is constantly adding capacity, and more materials are being produced in the same region as they are consumed. The firm has closed on its JV with Huawei, giving them capacity and a foothold in the China market while offering Huawei access to a larger and global customer base.
Machine Vision Products rolled out a packaging inspection machine, the 850G, capable of die placement inspection within 10 microns at 3 Sigma.
BP Microsystems showed a component programmer with a single length feeder option for handling small parts (4 x 4 mm). Its new “10 series” of concurrent programmers uses USB instead of parallel ports and supports up to 4 GB.
New RVSI president Kevin Maddy has 10 years of turnaround experience. He said the company is moving to Lean manufacturing, shorter lead times (by 80%) and outsourcing of some machine build to Asia. They doubled their Q3 sales sequentially and are looking for 65% growth next year.
ASYS, the other half of EKRA, showed a pair of modular automatic depanelers, the ADS 01F and ADS 01FR. The former features changeover time of 6 sec. and is designed for cellphones and similar sized boards, while the latter operates 70% faster.
Among FineTech’s line of benchtop rework stations was the Fineplacer Pico line for 01005 rework at 10 microns accuracy, and Fineplacer Jumbo, for large parts and with 156 micron accuracy.
Two other pieces of equipment stood out among those we saw today. The accuracy of the fully automatic 3-D solder paste inspection from Koh Young Technology has been much improved over the past two years, and is poised to make serious inroads in 2006.
 Transition Automation's Permalex squeegee has caught the attention of Siemens. |
Mimot (mimot.com) showed a six-head inline positive displacement dispenser said to be capable of 40,000 dph. The machine can put down paste, adhesive, epoxy or underfill.
Fresh off its wildly successful TraceExpert manufacturing execution system, Valor (valor.com) is looking to expand into manual assembly and box-build. “We want to create meaningful data for customers, and help them turn SPC databases into knowledge,” Europe president David Bengal told PCB UPdate. “We want to create a ‘dashboard’ for the manufacturing manager who sits outside the floor and helps with decision-making based on real-time and historical data.” Stay tuned for that.
One observation we made this week is how much more aesthetically pleasing the equipment is. Rounded corners, splashy colors and sleek shapes are all adding up to machines that look as cool as they function.
Ed.: This report was first published Nov. 16.
Productronica is still the king of trade shows. The Munich
exhibition opened Nov. 15 to strong crowds, massive booths and general
optimism.
One of the brightest lookers was Siemens Automation and Drives president
Tilo Brandis, who told reporters that the company projects sales of
placement machines to reach 1,730 units in 2006, up from 1,579 in 2005.
Siemens currently claims 33% market share in assembly placement
equipment, up about 6 points from 2004.
The
company is committed to improving the modularity of its Siplace
pick-and-place (changeover of heads, dual lane configuration, etc.).
The dual lane configuration works in asynchronous (placing the top side
only with no downtime) and synchronous (top and bottom simultaneously)
modes.
Samsung Techwin introduced the next-generation SM310 placement machine, featuring a dual-lane conveyor and nonstop tape feeder, three-camera vision system, and a reported placement accuracy of 50 microns at 3 Sigma. The placement speed is 30,000 cph per the IPC-9850 standard.
Speedline Technologies debuted XyFlex+, said to have a 30% increase in throughput and twice the accuracy of previous dispensers, and OmniFlex, a 10-zone reflow oven that reduces power and nitrogen consumption by 30-40%. The company is forecasting a solid 2006, with growth coming from expansion and replacement orders. Sales of its Accuflex printer should overtake its MPM Ultraprint 2000 by December 2006, and the company expects to add up to two more manufacturing lines (for a total of four) for its Accela printer, which debuted just this year.
Lead-free will likely lead to extra touchup, asserts ERSA president and COO Mark Cannon. That has led the equipment maker to develop a combination AOI and automatic rework system. Ecoselect AOI+R performs pass/fail inspection on assemblies, then repairs bridges and other PTH defects by means of selective soldering nozzle contained in the same 4.4 x 6.9' unit.
Assembléon added to its M series of pick-and-place machines, rolling out the MG-8. The three-head machine, adapted from Yamaha in
Japan, has a new area CCD camera and handles from 01005 through 55 sq.
mm and oddforms (height up to 25.5 mm). Accuracy is 50 microns for
chips and 30 microns for QFPs; throughput rate for ICs and QFPs is
8,400 cph. New president Dr. Leon Hussen was on hand.
DEK president
Richard Heimsch said 2005 is expected to end on a high note, the second
straight solid year for the printer company. Its Galaxy and Europa
platforms rose 10 and 6 points, respectively, as a percentage of the
company’s sales. The third quarter was particularly strong, Heimsch
said.
OK International rolled out an
array of soldering and rework irons and fume extractors. The firm noted
that the approach by many operators to crank up the heat when
hand-soldering with Pb-free alloys results in shorter tip and equipment
life, but doesn’t have much impact for soldering. Instead, it’s the
power generated through the tip that is the key factor.
Polar Instruments showed
off its new field solver. The slick new tool, Si9000, models loss and
attenuation, performs extractions of S parameters and can graph
impedance and frequency. Polar is also opening an office in Japan.
Sales at AOI and x-ray equipment maker Viscom are
up 15% this year following a 40% spike in 2004. Viscom showed its
S6056, a high-end inspection machine capable of 10 micron resolution.
The AOI has a dual track, dual shuttle transport system, and is
designed to prohibit gases from coming up to the sensor, so the lens
doesn’t need cleaning. The machine can inspect two PCBs simultaneously.
Concoat, fresh off the Nov. 14 merger with Chase Corp. (the parent company of Humiseal),
debuted a UV curable conformal coating and a water-based cleaner for
Pb-free. It’s “business as usual” for Concoat’s sales and distribution,
company officials said. Concoat Systems, the equipment side of the
business, remains a separate entity and will change its name sometime
in the next several months.
Adeon, the
Dutch software vendor, introduced CXInsight, a project and content
management system for electronics designers, fabricators and
assemblers. The e-collaboration tool is product oriented and comes with
a server and seat license. They have one installation already at a
major automotive supplier. (Adeon is a longtime distributor for Valor.)
Managing director Paul Walter said PCBA test gear maker Dage is
working with Jedec to standardize on its bond tester for Pb-free. A
standard could be released within a year. Jedec is coordinating with
EIAJ on the specification.
The IPC
Solder Products Value Council will preview a soon-to-be-released report
on voiding in Pb-free solder joints. In what is likely to stir some
controversy, according to IPC’s Tony Hilvers, the Council (made up of
most of the world’s leading solder vendors) found no correlation
between voids and failures.
Overheard: One
equipment president said he thinks knockoffs of Western SMT equipment
brands made by Chinese firms would surface in North America.
The number of screen printers sold in 2005 is slightly behind 2004.
Now that it has finalized the purchase of Concoat, expect Humiseal to make a global push.
And finally …This is Productronica’s 30th
year, as illustrated by a large memorial with pictures of past events.
Walking the dimly lit and eerily quiet exhibit proved a brief but
welcome respite from the bustle of the rest of the show.
Ed.: This report was first published Nov. 15. For more information on products released at Productronica, click here.
Aerial MY double-sided flying probe tester for loaded boards has vertical, double-sided probing. Includes the Viva Integrated Platform (VIP). Has One Touch Per Net (OTPN) option with DSP-based multifrequency net analysis. Autolearns programs from a good board.
Seica, seica.com
Booth A1, 445
 EKRA's Steve Hall |
The merger of ASYS and EKRA in July surprised many observers who felt the screen-printer OEM would be absorbed by one of its main competitors. “Merger” might be misleading: The companies will remain separate legal entities and a new printer will be rolled out under the EKRA brand name this week. EKRA managing director Steve Hall spoke with Circuits Assembly editor-in-chief Mike Buetow last week.
Press Releases
- Cirtronics Welcomes Patrick Moody as New CEO to Lead Next Era of Growth
- Kurtz Ersa: New Factory Launched in Ciudad Juárez
- Bright Machines Appoints Seasoned Enterprise Technology Executive Chris Stori as CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth
- Amtech Electrocircuits Modernizes AmtechOS with AI and Advanced Automation