Is this the next big American fabricator?
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rganic solderability preservatives, or, if you prefer, organic surface protectants, or OSPs, have been with us for decades. Did you know more than 60% of the world’s boards use OSPs? They are in everything from smartphones to tablets to medical devices, airbags, and engine controls.
Major OEMs like Intel, Apple, Cisco, Continental, Bosch, Denso, and Hitachi Automotive are known to use them. Yet when engineers discuss their preferred finishes, OSPs tend to be on the outside looking in.
A new IPC task group is trying to bring an added layer of credibility to OSPs for high-temperature soldering by developing a standard, along with a series of test methods.
Taiyo America announced Kate Han as technical sales engineer for the Western Region of the US.
Emerald EMS hired Joe Garcia as vice president of sales and marketing. He has held executive sales, marketing and business development positions with Green Circuits, Creation Technologies and Viasystems.
Flex named Murad Kurwa VP – advanced manufacturing engineering and Paul Lundstrom CFO.
iRobot named Hal Winslow senior principal manufacturing engineer.
Absolute EMS said its new Hanwha Techwin SMT lines are up and running.
Apple plans to remove carbon emissions from its entire business, including its products and sprawling supply chain, over the next decade.
Austin Precision Machining and Manufacturing launched turnkey mechanical and assembly services in Austin, TX.
Benchmark Electronics announced completion of phase two of five phases toward the delivery of mobile video surveillance systems (MVSS) to the Department of Homeland Security for use along the US southern border.
Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (BDL), an enterprise under India’s Ministry of Defense, has set up an SMT facility in Hyderabad.
Check Technology Solutions purchased a MIRTEC MV-6 Omni 3-D AOI.
Summit has three facilities in Northern and Southern California, with a combined 810 employees. ITL Circuits has over 65,000 sq. ft. of factory space and approximately 130 employees.
Summit will retain ITL’s same management team and staff, and ITL owners Adolf Czudnochowsky and Michael Campbell plan to retire.
“ITL’s capabilities complement Summit’s and will provide additional volume manufacturing capacity across a broad range of technology,” said Shane Whiteside, president and CEO of Summit Interconnect. “The additional and meaningful scale will further strengthen our ability to serve our customers and broaden our relationships with key suppliers. This is very exciting news for both Summit and ITL, and we welcome our new Toronto employees to the Summit team.”
Summit Interconnect acquired Streamline Circuits in 2018, and KCA Electronics and Marcel Electronics in 2016. Its revenue now tops $150 million, all in North America, based on the NTI-100 and PCD&F sources.
See the Printed Circuit Design & Fab/Circuits Assembly interview with Whiteside in this issue. (CD)
DANWON-GU ANSAN, SOUTH KOREA – TLB Co. is set to go public on the secondary Kosdaq stock market sometime in 2020, according to reports.
The PCB fabricator plans to file a preliminary IPO review by September.
In 2019, the company had operating income of 10.5 billion won (US$9.5 million) on sales of 149.1 billion won (US$134.2 million).
TLB’s primary focus is building printed circuit substrates for semiconductors. (CD)
The association urges Congress to support the nation’s industrial resiliency by passing a recovery package with the following measures:
- Modified unemployment insurance benefit to continue essential support for laid-off workers, helping to maintain consumer demand, while reducing disincentives to return to work.
- Common-sense liability protections shielding businesses that have taken “reasonable steps” to comply with government workplace safety guidelines.
- Paycheck Protection Program extension and the Safe and Healthy Workplace tax credit.
- Supplementary funding to sustain and rebuild the defense industrial base.
- Aid to state and local governments to ensure essential services are maintained.
The timing and scope of the legislation are still being worked out, but a package is expected to be negotiated and voted on soon, IPC says. (CD)
ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA – Cadence Design Systems in August acquired InspectAR for an undisclosed sum.
InspectAR uses augmented reality to map electronics, labeling PCB schematics on-screen in real-time. Following the deal, InspectAR will continue to operate independently from its headquarters here.
The firm has a second office in the Autodesk Technology Center residency program in San Francisco.
“We’ve only gotten this far with the support of our families, friends, service providers, employees, and investors,” the company said in a statement. “Today, Cadence joins this group, and we couldn’t be more excited for this new chapter of growth and vision.”
The startup raised $850,000 in January from Royal Circuit Solutions and Advanced Assembly.
Since launching, InspectAR claims it has garnered thousands of users and has partnered with companies such as CrowdSupply and Digi-Key.
“We now have far more resources to achieve our goals, and a far broader reach to get valuable insight from customers working in every part of the hardware sphere,” InspectAR said, adding it plans to keep its platform vendor-agnostic, and plans to add additional support for EDA software and lab tools to its platform. (MB)
The first chapter is based in Taiwan.
Initial work of the committee will include establishing working groups to draft measurement standards; building industry consensus on the need for materials, equipment and manufacturing standards; and developing standards to accelerate the introduction of related FHE technologies into diverse consumer end markets.
“The SEMI Standards Flexible Hybrid Electronics Global Technical Committee sets out to clear development bottlenecks facing the industry and establish unified measurement standards for flexible smart textile, automotive, Internet of Things and related devices,” said Terry Tsao, SEMI chief marketing officer and president of SEMI Taiwan.
“The Taiwan chapter looks forward to kicking off the development of international industry standards that help Taiwan’s FHE sector promote industry growth by reducing costs and increasing competition.” (CD)
The facility has an ESD floor, cleaning equipment and process controls, and provides green manufacturing. Component placement, selective soldering, reflow ovens, and automated inspection and test equipment have been added.
“We moved into this new facility just three years ago, but business has grown, and we wanted to increase our capabilities and capacity, so we took over the entire building,” said Mo Ohady, general manager, Digicom Electronics. “We are excited about the quality and services we can offer and invite everyone to visit, bring their designs or prototypes, and see for themselves.”
Digicom specializes in complex PCBs and assemblies for medical device, military, aerospace, and industrial products. (MB)
The firm invested in automated SMT equipment, an intelligent material handling system and x-ray inspection.
Elexon provides engineering support, procurement, tooling manufacture, PCB manufacture and assembly and final product testing and packaging.
The government’s assistance helped create jobs within the company, and the program is helping other companies reshore electronics work. (CD)
The team assessed chemicals included in the US EPA List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) and common application methods, identifying those substances that minimize the risk of negative impact on electronic equipment when applied in an appropriate manner.
“With the Covid-19 crisis, several of our members have contacted iNEMI for guidance on how to mitigate the possible detrimental impact of disinfecting procedures on electronic equipment and assemblies,” said Marc Benowitz, CEO, iNEMI. “There are guidelines from groups such as the US EPA, CDC and the World Health Organization regarding cleaning and disinfecting for Covid-19, but none of these addresses the impact of disinfectants and their application methods on electronics equipment and assemblies.
“Many commonly recommended disinfection substances and/or application methods could potentially cause failures in electronic equipment if the internal electronics were inadvertently exposed to them. This is an obvious concern for electronics manufacturers who want to ensure the safety of their employees, supply chain partners and customers, while protecting the reliability and integrity of their products.”
iNEMI’s best practices are now available at inemi.org/disinfecting-best-practices-request. (CD)
Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only).
On normal days, good communications can be daunting and complex. And the past several months have been anything but normal.
Dimensions and tolerances. The electronic data alone are enough to fabricate a board most of the time. Whether it’s an omnibus file like IPC-2581 or a collection of Gerber and drill data, the hole size and locations are provided with the circuit pattern. Why take the time to use the dimensioning tool? Here’s why. Someone must inspect the PCB before it leaves the fabricator. Someone else inspects it on the way into the assembly factory. All the fab and assembly drawings are inspection documents.
PCEA updates. The PCEA virtual open house and webinar was held Jul. 14 and was moderated by PCEA director Mike Buetow. Mike welcomed the audience and introduced PCEA chairman Steph Chavez, who had grateful words to say about our sponsors and the publishing of our columns. He then took an opportunity to state the PCEA’s mission statement: “At our core, our mission statement is to Collaborate, Inspire and Educate by promoting printed circuit engineering as a profession. Our goal is to encourage, facilitate, and promote the exchange of information and the integration of new design concepts through communications, seminars, webinars, workshops, and professional development through a network of local and regional PCEA-affiliated chapters.”
Augmenting reality by overlaying computer-generated images and information on our view of the world can help us in many other important contexts as well. AR is increasing productivity in the workplace and is entering the medical arena. Surgeons are beginning to appreciate the benefits of AR, like a graphical overlay from a scan or x-ray image taken previously, which can show important information about the patient during an operation, alleviate distractions and improve outcomes.
Let’s start the discussion with why weights (ounces) are used to describe thickness. If someone asked your height and you told them 180 lbs., they would think you were crazy. However, in electronics, weight is still used as a determinant for copper thickness. Why is that?
The ounce rating has its roots in the gold-foil industry and, subsequently, for copper’s use in the building industry. It’s based on spreading an ounce of a given metal over one square foot of area. Today’s copper foils for printed circuit boards are manufactured and sold by weight. The method has persisted for electronic circuits. There’s a good reason for it.
When a pair of West Coast US fabricators called Pacific Circuits and Power Circuits merged more than 30 years ago, probably no one knew the new entity would someday become the largest PCB manufacturer in the world. The deal was financed by two private equity firms, one of which was Thayer Capital Partners. With it came a rebranding to TTM Technologies. The deal was the first in a long series of M&A activities that over the next 15 years eventually rolled up Details, the PCB units of Honeywell and Tyco, Hong Kong’s Meadville PCB, and Viasystems, among others.
So, observers are forgiven then if the narrative developing with Summit Interconnect feels a little familiar.
It begins with the formation of the company in 2016 through the merger of two Southern California – where else? – board shops, KCA Electronics and Marcel Electronics. Separately, several Thayer partners had formed HCI Equity Partners, which funded the new entity, now renamed Summit. A follow-on acquisition took place in December 2018, when Santa Clara-based Streamline Circuits was added to the fold.
by DR. HAYAO NAKAHARA
Six months of effort resulted in this latest NT-100 report, now in its 25th annual edition. As mentioned many times, each year it gets harder to compile the list, thanks to many new entries from growing Chinese fabricators, only one-quarter of which are publicly traded and publish annual reports (not always in time for the purpose of this report). The data from most unlisted Chinese fabricators are extracted from the “Top 100 Fabricators” published by CPCA. Unfortunately, valuable as it is, the CPCA list has some flaws in that it misses some important fabricators, and some entries are by factory, not company. Nevertheless, without the CPCA data, the NTI-100 would not be possible. TPCA data are valuable but include only stock-listed fabricators. Therefore, this author contacted those fabricators not publicly listed. They gracefully provided their sales revenues. Likewise, only AT&S and Schweizer Electronics publish annual reports. Other European entries, including KSG, Somacis and Würth Elektronik, provided the author their revenues. Southeast Asia fabricators were likewise cooperative. The author expresses gratitude to all who provided the valuable data.
by INEMI MEDICAL PRODUCT EMULATOR GROUP (PEG)
Today, the focus in medical electronics is shifting out of the medical facilities to consumer access-based products, requiring technologies centered on portable diagnostics, remote patient monitoring and patient wellness therapy. This change in focus requires medical device manufacturers not only to meet aggressive reliability and performance requirements, but to also drive down cost for a broader, high-volume consumer market.
Three ways chiplets are remaking processors. AMD and Intel researchers are leaning on chiplets to boost performance, and CEA-Leti shows just how far the approach can go. The combined squeeze of rising costs and ever-larger chip sizes is leading to a solution in which processors are made of collections of smaller, ¬less-expensive-to-produce chiplets bound together by high-bandwidth connections within a single package. The CEA-Leti processor stacks six 16-core chiplets on top of an “active interposer” made of a thin sliver of silicon to create a 96-core processor. The interposer houses voltage-regulation systems usually found on the processor. It features a network-on-chip that uses three different communication circuits to link the cores’ on-chip SRAM memories. Developers imagine a system-on-chip industry using chiplets from multiple vendors could all be integrated with standardized interfaces. (IEEC file #11715, IEEE Spectrum, 4/29/20)
One example of this is SigmaTron International’s proprietary Manufacturing Execution System (MES) system known as Tango, whose Phase III system went live at the EMS company’s Elk Grove Village (IL) facility in June. The overarching goal of Tango is to centralize tools used throughout the company for production management, while adding enough flexibility via customization to address facility-specific or customer-specific situations.
We are used to editing, cropping and modifying cellphone photos to improve and enhance the original images. This is often achieved by adjusting their contrast and brightness, and applying software filters that could, for example, sharpen or otherwise change the look and details. Why should images taken for x-ray inspection be any different? They are not, of course. The images you see in my columns, as well as in probably every other piece of technical literature, together with virtually every other image seen in today’s media, are likely modified on some level. While we may accept this situation intellectually, I would suggest we often too implicitly trust what our eyes see, and therefore any inherent image manipulation is often taken as fact. This can cause the details we see and accept to possibly mislead us as to the reality of the original. As we use such images to make value judgments on the quality and possible faults in electronics manufacture, is this an issue we should be concerned with, or is it a manipulation we need, but also need to understand why we do it, so we can make the best analysis?
“We need to audit your quality system. You’re a new vendor with contingent qualification. We can’t make it permanent without an audit.”
What do you mean we’re a new vendor? We’ve been doing business with you for 11 years.
“Doesn’t matter. New regime in place. Since you’re a great big unknown to us, who are new, consider yourself, as we do, a new vendor. Clean slate. Get used to it. Plus, you had a recent test escape, and we need to determine the root cause. Might as well do the full workup.”
IN PCB DESIGN and fabrication, possibly the most frequently used, yet least understood, term is impedance.
Most of us have seen the buzzwords that accompany it: impedance Zo, 50Ω, 10%, balanced lines, microstrip, stripline ground plane, dielectric loss, dielectric constant, and others. What do they mean?
In this first of a two-part column, we’ll start by defining them in common terms for the novice. By the end, a few more people might make better sense of what is happening inside the circuit board. The second half will take a more thorough look at impedance.
This month we illustrate high-temperature soldering of through-hole connectors. In this case both the PCB nickel/gold surface and the tin surface of the pin were perfectly solderable. The time to preheat the board and connector before soldering was not optimized for robotic soldering, however. To obtain the correct process setting, balance all settings, but to increase throughput in an inline process using a robot, many applications require preheating. Robots are flexible, but an operator can see and judge the time required.
Nitrogen used on robotic point soldering can improve wetting but more importantly increase preheat to the joint area. Soldering trials have shown it can increase throughput with small increases of flow rate. Another option is to have the waiting boards on the conveyor first pass over a preheater or through a heated tunnel.
Authors: Tanja Braun, Karl-Friedrich Becker, Ole Hoelck, Steve Voges, Ruben Kahle, Marc Dreissigacker and Martin Schneider-Ramelow; tanja.braun@izm.fraunhofer.de.
Abstract: Fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) is one of the latest packaging trends in microelectronics. Besides technology developments toward heterogeneous integration, including multiple die packaging, passive component integration in packages and redistribution layers or package-on-package approaches, larger substrate formats are also targeted. Manufacturing is currently done on a wafer level of up to 12″/300mm and 330mm, respectively. For a higher productivity and, consequently, lower costs, larger form factors are introduced. Instead of following the wafer-level roadmaps to 450mm, panel-level packaging (PLP) might be the next big step. Both technology approaches offer many opportunities as high miniaturization and are well-suited for heterogeneous integration. Hence, FOWLP and PLP are well-suited for packaging a highly miniaturized energy harvester system consisting of a piezo-based harvester, a power management unit and a supercapacitor for energy storage. In this study, the FOWLP and PLP approaches were chosen for an ASIC package development with integrated SMD capacitors. The process developments and successful overall proof-of-concept for the packaging approach have been done on a 200mm wafer size. In a second step, the technology was scaled up to a 457 x 305mm2 panel size using the same materials, equipment and process flow, demonstrating the low cost and large area capabilities of the approach. (Micromachines, May 2019; www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562530)
