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56 SMT Magazine • July 2016 by Jens Mille and Jens Kokott GOEPEL ELECTRONIC GMBH Where the production of electrical PCBs is concerned, manufacturers are faced with steadily increasing miniaturization and higher packing density. Coupled with this, increased requirements are placed on production and testing technologies. The same applies to the manufacturers of connection technology such as connectors and individual pins. Here, too, an increasing number of contacts have to be ac- commodated in ever smaller areas. Packing densities in particular repeatedly create challenges in terms of testability, espe- cially when high components such as connec- tors are fitted in close proximity to other com- ponents. Connectors are also included in the scope of testing, and their design means that they have completely different handling and testing requirements. In addition to the traditional sol- der joint inspection, the mechanical integrity of the pins must also be checked. Two param- eters are of interest in this context: On the one hand, the lateral location of the pin tip, and on the other hand, its height. The horizontal as well as the vertical posi- tion of each individual pin must be tested if these connectors are to be used to establish an electrical connection to other assemblies in a subsequent automated process, or they are pre- cisely fitted into a housing. Automated instal- lation is no longer possible if the pins were de- formed through mechanical influences during the preliminary stages. The examination of the pin displacement on a lateral plane is called swash circumfer- ence testing. Swash circumference testing can be carried out using orthogonal inspection. This can generally already be ensured through standard 2D AOI systems. However, it must be considered that the pins, whose diameter is often smaller than one millimetre, have a tip that is only a few tenths of a millimetre in size. The illumination of the test object is therefore FEATURE