Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1207026
48 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2020 Schmidt: Correct. It's all about efficiency. When it comes to medical manufacturing, it's also important that we have a complete collection of the cutting data so that boards can be traced back to what machine the board is being cut on, what laser power is being used, etc. Orlowski: If you're cutting maybe 300–400 parts per panel, it saves quite a bit of on throughput if you are able to avoid cutting bad parts altogether. If you have a high volume of parts in a panel, the ability to skip bad boards is valuable. Johnson: That also makes it easy to show your customers where the real issues are. Wrapping up, what are the other common issues that need attention with customers? Schmidt: The tolerance is an important part, as well as the fiducial recognition or overall positioning systems, especially in the depanel- ing world. Again, a lot of boards come in pre- routed, which means you have an artwork that has gone through photo process and chemi- cal etching. Then, you have the routing chan- nel, which is made on mechanical routers. Two completely different platforms and the depan- eling machine have to negotiate the tolerances of these two different platforms to create an optimal result. You want to create a board that is cut in the correct outside dimension, but also make sure there are no tips left over at the breakout tabs so that the small parts fit in chal- lenging housing or packaging. It is important that a depaneling system has superior optical positioning systems that can look at both the artwork on the circuit board itself as well as all the mechanical pre-routed parts on it. Orlowski: Another thing that I would like to reit- erate is that the market still needs some edu- cation about laser tools for depaneling in gen- eral. We still run into quite a few companies that believe that the depaneling tools are only used for thin flex parts. That was the case as Stephan said maybe 10 years ago, and they have evolved quite a bit over time. Right now, depaneling lasers are most popular for your standard 62-mil FR-4 board, which is still the majority of electronic manufacturing. It's an important message to make that the lasers have come a long way, and they're capable of depan- eling or drilling a wide range of materials and thicknesses. Schmidt: Since laser depaneling is a relatively young industry, it's not like routing or injec- tion molding that people know pretty much everything that there is to know. Laser depan- eling is new technology and has been damaged by multiple companies' attempts in the past to use cheap, high-power CO 2 lasers to burn the boards and separate them this way. That created a negative impression of laser depan- eling—that it's dirty, expensive, and not for anybody. Because people who looked into this in the early days of the CO 2 lasers, the results were horrific, so it's no wonder that some peo- ple would dismiss laser depaneling altogether. This has changed fundamentally, especially over the past few years. The technology has progressed so substantially with completely different laser technologies that are extremely clean, and highly precise, especially for small parts. It's cost-effective for thicker boards and cutting longer lines. We have plenty of applica- tions for the entire board is being cut by a laser, so there's no more pre-routing necessary at all. That saves space on the panel itself. The laser is much smaller than a mechanical router bit— 8-mil diameter, for instance. You save a lot of real estate by putting everything on the same panel and letting the laser do the job. More awareness is needed that lasers have come a