Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1243344
MAY 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 71 Jargon: We can shoot with 300 hertz, which is a million dots per hour. That is a phenom- enal speed, but it's not as fast as stencil printing. When you do standard PCBs in high-vol- ume applications—where you don't change the PCB design at all, always the same board—you might still prefer using a stencil printer. We would love to com- pletely eliminate stencil printing in any factory, but we also have to be fair and realistic. To be even faster than 300 hertz and keep the same quality is a real challenge, and it might even not make sense. There is still room for stencil printing technology in high volume when changing over doesn't matter. Develop- ing a machine even faster might increase the price up to the point that it wouldn't be com- petitive anymore. Matties: The economics of it would be in the quality of the board. If you're suffering from field failure, then the cost may be warranted for jet printers. Jargon: Yes. When high-volume customers also want to rely on the benefit of jet printer tech- nologies, they combine it and set up an add-on solution. The high volume solder paste depo- sition will be done by the stencils. They posi- tion our jet printer after the stencil printer, and any more challenging patterns or deposits that can't be done by the stencil printer will then be done by the add-on jet printer. Johnson: In a high-mix, low-volume produc- tion environment, doing all of your solder paste work with a general technology seems to make sense because it would be easy to adjust to your product mix, and keep produc- tion going. In a high-volume, low-mix envi- ronment, it makes sense to start with a sten- cil print, do an inspection, repair any mistakes from the stencil print using the jet technology, and get an automated first pass. At what point is the trade-off? How high-volume do you need to be when you start changing from jetting to stencil plus jetting? Jargon: You could do this step by step. As you said, in a high-mix, low-volume area, we already have a couple of customers around the globe who eliminated stencil printing com- pletely. When you need more speed and go toward mid-volume, then you can connect two jet printers together. We call it a twin solution. We can balance two printers in line, which means four printing heads, this gives even more speed supporting the mid-volume market When you look at the demand of a high-vol- ume EMS company that produces smartphones or other high-volume industrial applications, this jet printer speed might not be sufficient. But you can connect three jet printers. When there are three jet printers this means six heads connected and balanced, the economics might already be challenging. In this case, customers better decide to install an add-on-solution. For anything in high-mix, low-volume, and entry mid-volume, this can be done with jet printing. When you go beyond that, you have to incor- porate stencil printing. Matties: Thank you, Clemens. Jargon: Thanks. SMT007 Mycronic jet printer.