Component Management

Surface mount assembly robots are amazing machines. The pick and place heads in the fastest, highest volume SMT machines travel so fast, that they are just short of supersonic. The placement logic takes into consideration the distortion and swing of the hardened steel head and nozzle, and deposits the component at just the right point in the deflection arc. That kind of speed demands precision. By Duane Benson

Scientists and engineers from the University of Bath have developed biodegradable cellulose microbeads from a sustainable source that could potentially replace harmful plastic ones that contribute to ocean pollution. Microbeads are little spheres of plastic less than 0.5 mm in size that are added to personal care and cleaning products including cosmetics, sunscreens and fillers to give them a smooth texture.

Magnetic materials form the basis of technologies that play increasingly pivotal roles in our lives today, including sensing and hardDisk data storage. But as our innovative dreams conjure wishes for ever-smaller and faster devices, researchers are seeking new magnetic materials that are more compact, more efficient and can be controlled using precise, reliable methods.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology have reported an unusual charge distribution of Pb2+Pb4+3Co2+2Co3+2O12 for a perovskite PbCoO3 synthesised at 12 GPa, with charge orderings in the A and B sites of an ABO3 perovskite. This strategy can possibly lead to the production of next-generation materials with fascinating properties such as superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, and high the...

Carbodeon of Finland has worked with metal finishing specialist CCT Plating of Germany, to develop a new NanoDiamond enhanced electroless nickel plating with significantly improved performance in sliding applications. Electroless nickel coatings offer many advantages over other coating types, such as excellent corrosion and abrasion resistance, creating an even coating thickness over complex geometries and at relatively low cost.

Master Bond MB600G is an aqueous based, sodium silicate system with graphite filler. It is intended for use in applications where moderate shielding effectiveness is required and cost is a more significant consideration. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) are very important factors in electronic applications. The energy emitted from various sources such as radios, appliances, etc. can interfere with other el...

Electrolube is selectively partnering with key dispensing equipment manufacturers (including PVA, Nordson Asymtek and others) to ensure that its 2K conformal coatings enable customers to obtain optimum results from its range of two-part coating systems. Electrolube’s systems are specifically designed to combine the protection and properties of a resin with the straightforward application of a conformal coating without the use of harmful sol...

Indium Corporation will feature its semiconductor-grade gold-germanium solder preforms at IMAPS High Temperature Electronics Network 2017 in Cambridge. Semiconductor-grade preforms are designed to meet the challenges faced as RF and power semiconductor devices continue to get smaller.

UNSW Sydney chemists have invented a new, cheap catalyst for splitting water with an electrical current to efficiently produce clean hydrogen fuel. The technology is based on the creation of ultrathin slices of porous metal-organic complex materials coated onto a foam electrode, which the researchers have unexpectedly shown is highly conductive of electricity and active for splitting water.

  To create electronic devices like those in today’s mobile phones requires complex chemical and physical processes, not unlike those used to capture and develop images with film-based cameras.