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46 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2024 every day globally with few repair options on the market 2 , representing the fastest-growing category of waste in developed countries 3 . Changing an electrical component is a tedious job. Desoldering it from the board, removing the extra solder from the pads, apply- ing fresh solder and flux to the component or pads, placing the new component, and finally soldering the component again are the typical processes involved. Regarding soldering, there are two ways to perform this process, the first is heating only the affected component locally, and the second is using low-temperature sol- der, which allows submitting the whole prod- uct to temperature. Two main disadvantages Feature Article by Irving Rodríguez ESSEMTEC, A NANO DIMENSION DIVISION AESCH, LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND is paper was presented at the technical con- ference during IPC APEX EXPO 2023 in San Diego, Calif. Introduction Did you ever have to consider repairing an electronic product? Repairing populated boards is getting more and more popular due to several reasons, for example, placement of wrong components, refurbishment or func- tion enhancement of existing products, coun- terfeit components, etc. e cost of the top five most counterfeited parts represents $169 bil- lion worth of semiconductor revenue 1 . Around 140,000 tons of electronic products are wasted TECHNICAL PAPER Novel Automatic Repair of Populated PCBs in a Cost-effective and Adaptive Way