26 The PCB Magazine • September 2017
Process Improvement
When you set out to improve a process,
what should your goal be? You always want
greater efficiency and higher yield, but you also
want latitude and safety. You want to set up pa-
rameters and operating conditions so that you
can make a multitude of different PCB designs
and not have to worry about it. The same is true
for the chemical variations, or if it's mainly run
time variations, such that the output is not go-
ing to be affected by these variations. If you
have a very "exacting" process, then it's easy to
fall off the peak. This is illustrated in Figure 9
with various process latitudes.
Conclusion
Process engineering is an exciting voca-
tion, and for printed circuits, a necessary one.
The electronics industry is the world's largest
industry and shows no signs of slowing down
or maturing. Components will always need a
platform, and currently that is the rigid or flex
printed circuit. It has been exciting for me for
45 years and will continue to be for at least an-
other 45 years. The only constant we can de-
pend on is change!
PCB
I-Connect007 will be publishing e-books on au-
tomation and automation planning for the process
engineer. Look for these to be coming soon to the
I-Connect007 website!
References
1. Happy's Essential Skills: the Need for To-
tal Quality Control (Six Sigma and Statistical
Tools): Part 1.
2. Happy's Essential Skills: Tip of the
Month—The NIST/SEMETECH e-Handbook of
Statistical Methods.
3. Happy's Essential Skills: Understanding
Predictive Engineering.
4. Happy's Essential Skills: Metrics and Di-
mensional Analysis.
5. Hewlett-Packard Journal, August, 1983,
pp. 3-25.
Happy Holden has worked in
printed circuit technology since
1970 with Hewlett-Packard,
NanYa/Westwood, Merix, Fox-
conn and Gentex. He is currently
a contributing editor with
I-Connect007. To read past
columns or to contact Holden, click here.
PCB PROCESS ENGINEERING: DETAILS FROM ONE OF THE ORIGINALS
Figure 9: The better the process latitude then the better the
yield responds to varying design running through a process.
What is wanted is the "expert" process that is much better
than a "typical" process and certainly not the "out-of-control"
process.
