Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1243344
68 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2020 Barry Matties: When a customer has a qual- ity problem, do they call you or the paste sup- plier? Jargon: It depends. The one who creates the problem should be the one who solves the problem. Often, customers come to us when something goes wrong, but in the meantime, we can determine where the problem might be and refer immediately to the paste supplier, if necessary. But when we see a problem in con- nection with our machine, or when we see that we can help the solder paste manufacturer, then we do that. This setup has to run in per- fect harmony. Johnson: Having the SPI included in this line, does that help give diagnostic information to more quickly figure out what went wrong with the solder paste? Jargon: When we inspect boards, we analyze the printing result. As a consequence, we can also track back if the printing pattern is poten- tially affected by wrong or bad solder paste and tell the supplier, "Let's get together and see what we can do to improve." Johnson: Right now, at Mycronic, where are you putting most of your R&D attention? What are your priorities? Jargon: The priorities are in optimizing the entire process and trying to eliminate as many issues as we can. We see a con- tinuous trend toward further miniaturization and into more complex PCBs. When the COVID- 19 pandemic is over, we potentially see an enor- mous push for 5G tech- nologies. 5G boards are increasingly more com- plex than others before. Our R&D is focusing on being much more flexible to support the trends that we see right now, such as having smaller dots and being flexible in the way we deposit the material. When customers want to handle very complex boards and still use the stencil printing process, they often have to use step stencils, but those can be very difficult to han- dle. With jet printing, we can avoid any need for step stencils. We're also focused on a broader variety of pastes for the jet print technology. There is strong demand right now, such as for low-tem- perature solder pastes. We work with almost all our partners on how to qualify and how to cer- tify low-temperature solder paste for our jetter. We work on cleanable, water-soluble pastes because we see also here a strong demand and trend. Water-soluble paste is a difficult mate- rial to deposit because it's a very aggressive material. You need to develop your ejector technology to make it fit for these demands. We also spend a lot of R&D resources on fur- ther machine integration and full-line solu- tions. We see industry standards getting more and more relevant, and we see a continuous demand for a higher level of factory integra- Mycronic MY700 with operator.