Automated board assembly line offers rigorous testing

8th January 2015

Javad Electronic Manufacturing Services (JEMS)

Barney Scott

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With the use of HDI printed circuit boards, more densely populated boards using high pin count BGAs, QFNs and LGAs, micro BGAs, and smaller and smaller devices including 10005s, it seems that assemblies should be getting smaller in size. However, in some cases printed circuit boards are getting larger, prompting Javad EMS (JEMS) to make a sizeable investment to provide large PCB capability to customers.

With a planned expenditure and installation of more than $1.45m in Q3/14, the company will have the capability of handling boards that are up to 22x26" in an in-line manufacturing process to complement its three other existing Juki surface mount lines.

To provide this capability, JEMS purchased new equipment and upgraded some existing equipment. The additions include a Juki K3 screen printer, a CyberOptics SE500-X 3D solder paste inspection system, a Juki RX-6 flexible placement system and a ViTrox 800 XXL 3D X-ray system. These machines combine with existing Juki 3070/3080 placement systems, a Juki RS-1000 N₂ reflow system and a Nordson YESTECH AOI system to ensure that boards can pass through the entire process without being taken on/off and handled from standalone machines, as is common with large board assembly due to the nature and volume of the typical requirements.

In the past, traditional EMS companies used a batch process approach to assemble large boards. In a batch process, the board is manually moved from one machine to another during the assembly process. This was acceptable when board thickness was more than 0.100". However, over time, the boards themselves have become thinner and the components much smaller, creating the need for an inline process with value-added process controls such as SPI, AOI, 3-D and X-ray.

JEMS’s process parameters and commitment to producing large boards will follow the same production procedures as all its other assemblies. All boards, regardless of volume, will be produced in an in-line process on the same lines as production quantity assemblies. All boards will have 100% 3D solder paste inspection, AOI wherever possible whether a prototype or production-level build, and automated 3D X-ray inspection.