Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1411055
SEPTEMBER 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 55 which can handle seamlessly and efficiently multiple diameter drilling. e SX TWIN can accommodate an optional spooler able to dis- pense fresh entry material at every single hole for a best hole quality result, fundamental for today's high-end PCBs. Johnson: Indeed. So, we have accuracy, we have higher quality holes, and we have multi- ple diameters of drilling onboard—all improv- ing throughput. D'Angelo: Yes, double diameter drilling nor- mally requires double processing or lengthy tool changes. We are now doing this in one shot saving 30% of process time and improving the productivity for the HDI, mSAP, or sub- strate PCB's applications, which is the market we are targeting. is segment has been a little bit marginal for us because we have been fo- cusing on very high layer counts, special mate- rial, complex boards, special applications, etc., for a long time. With these new machines, we want to move a little bit closer to the volume market, which is the largest in China. Johnson: What has been the customer response to these machines? D'Angelo: As we have de- veloped the features by fol- lowing market requests, we've gotten a good re- sponse. In our estimation, this kind of manufacture in China is growing and we expect that our lead- ing edge will help more customers to achieve the level of accuracy and pro- ductivity required by that kind of product. Today this represents the larg- est manufacture volume, and those manufacturing plants are huge. Johnson: Yes, they are. D'Angelo: High layer count multilayers are nor- mally produced in small volume, high mix, and in a limited environment while for HDI, high- end HDI, substrate, etc., the number of panels to be produced are orders of magnitude high- er. is requires larger plants and more equip- ment. Many of these companies need automa- tion to cope with the requirements of quality, traceability, and yield. at is the area we have been focusing on during the past year: automa- tion, improving yield, throughput, connectiv- ity, flexibility for any kind of production, and delivering useful data for productivity with the highest level of accuracy and quality. Johnson: Usable data is now a critical function for machinery being installed on the manufac- turing floor. With that, many pieces of machin- ery on the manufacturing floor, an efficient op- erator interface on your X-ray drill, and your machinery is important for labor savings. Has Pluritec done work to improve the user inter- face of the machine itself ? D'Angelo: With the number of machines in use growing and a higher volume of manufacture, the human interaction with the machine poses Integrated automation of an X-ray INSPECTA SX using an anthropomorphic robot for front-loading and rear off-loading. Front loader is equipped with buffer stations to handle panel delivery queue while the off-loader takes care of scaling error sorting.