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46 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2024 and excels in scenarios involving tall com- ponents, where precise droplet placement is crucial. Nolan Johnson: Sunny, let's start with a description of Camalot and your role there. Sunny Agarwal: e company was founded in 1987 and made its initial foray into electronics assembly through the design of an automated liquid dispensing system for an aerospace application. We created a legacy of innova- tion and a solid reputation of producing high- quality, durable products, and have progressed with a series of high-speed dispensing systems. Innovation has continued around the dispens- ing technology. We work on the CBI model—customer-based innovation—so we understand the custom- er's pain points and build a product to address those pain points. I joined Camalot in 2013 as a research assistant, and now I'm a senior applications engineer. I'm highly involved in the product development of a high-speed fluid dispensing system for PCB assembly applica- tions. I also guide regional process engineer- ing teams located in Asia, Europe, and Mex- ico on full scale project implementation from in-house process development and testing for new hardware capability assessment to onsite new product evaluation, followed by post-sale operations support. We provide application support to existing and new customers to resolve their applica- tion needs. If they have a new process require- ment, they come to us. We provide them with the correct configuration for the machine they need to do all that setup in a PCB manufactur- ing environment. Thank you. Now, what is dispensing? Dispensing covers a very broad spectrum as it is material driven. It has been around since the 1970s and has progressed a lot since then, espe- cially from the mid-1990s, when jet dispensing came into existence. Before jet dispensing, everything was man- ual on a benchtop system. It was a traditional fluid dispensing method. It could be like a time pressure dispensing, a rotary auger, or a posi- tive displacement dispensing. But in the mid- 1990s, when jet dispensing came into existence, everything changed; all these traditional fluid dispensing methods were contact dispensing. at means the dispense valve is coming down very close to the substrate with a needle and depositing the material. You're within microns of the substrate. Jet dispensing dispenses more of an individual droplet, meaning the dispense valve can stay off the substrate at a certain height—two millime- ters, say, depending on the requirements—and stay at that height. ere is no Z-axis motion, so it was faster and more precise. Some people still prefer traditional fluid dispensing methods. Everything is material dependent. Dispensing can range from some- thing that's water-like to something sand-like. If you compare it to water where viscosity is around 1 centipoise at 25°C, an equivalent material would be something like a non-filled underfill, which has no filler particles in it. It has a viscosity of 300 centipoise. It's not water, but it's very low viscosity. e other end of the spectrum could be something Sunny Agarwal