Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/686649
30 SMT Magazine • June 2016 Bredin: It is very dependent on the type of elec- tronics you're going to do. Screen printing is fantastic technology that's proven itself for de- cades, but it's come to an end where you most likely cannot see any future development areas where it can expand into. With the jet printer, even though it's existed for just a decade, we are in the beginning of the development and we're now working very close with some of the major solder paste producers. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of development in what is doable. With the jet printer, you can do every kind of board. Takt time might be an issue, but that is something that can be solved by having mul- tiple machines. I wouldn't be surprised if one day there will be jet dispensers with more than one ejector at a time. My advice: in order to be future-proof, consider a jet printer. Maybe not at the speed or throughput of big volume producers, but with a combination of a screen printer and jet printer, then you can definitely have both. If you don't have the luxury to in- vest in both, then I would say it depends on the technology and complexity of the board. If you were to say that you may have cavities coming into your production, then of course a screen printer will have great difficulties to do that. A jet printer doing non-takt can even do 3D printing and shoot into cavities. We can also jet on top of packages, like package on pack- age, and have a lot more freedom. If you are an EMS company, a jet printer is a great choice. For OEMs, it's more dependent on the volume you're looking at and the complexity of the board. Las Marias: What is Mycronic 4.0 all about? Bredin: It is our way to try and make Industry 4.0 a little bit more understandable. This is our way to present what we actually have had for many years. We've been Industry 4.0 ready and compatible for some time, and we've made it into a package we call Mycronic 4.0. The ma- chine will sort and store automatically, choose the right program and help production to be less operator dependent. The machines com- municate with each other and makes sure every machine in line is actually busy doing the same revision of the same board. Our products in the line talk to each oth- er. We are also capable to interface with other equipment and software that is controlling the entire factory. That is pretty much Industry 4.0. Many people are interested in Industry 4.0 and they want to be there, but they don't fully un- derstand what it is exactly, or what implication it will have on their production. I wouldn't say that we have scaled it down, but we're trying to make it more hands-on and understandable. To do a full Industry 4.0 factory where ev- ery single machine is talking to each other is SOLDER JET PRINTING: KEEPING UP WITH THE CHALLENGES Figure 1: The challenge for many is to keep track of where they have their materials and to have an offi- cial material flow in the factory. Mycronic's material handling system can track the quantity and current location of each individual reel, stick or tray.