Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/831357
20 SMT Magazine • June 2017 standpoint, it's the data set that's going to drive you to making fewer defects in your first pass yield, which is what EMS guys are all about. The last time I have to touch a product, the more profitable I am. The issue is: what can I learn from all this data that's going to make me produce a higher first pass yield on sub- sequent builds?" said Mc- Meen. "There's an end game, which is making sure that your customer doesn't get any bad product, but more important to our profitability is the in-process data. That point needs to be brought out as a twofold thing. One is the customer doesn't care how many times you look at something as long as your product is defect-free. From our perspec- tive for profitability, we want to produce it with the least number of defects coming through the first time." Design Considerations From a designer's perspective, being able to get the view angles right could make things easier at inspection, according to McMeen. "The more you put towering parts amongst your very fine parts, the more blocks it creates in our viewing angle. We're working with de - signers so they know it's okay to have some, but don't try to build whole cities with all the real tall parts intermixed in a real small area. If you have the space to inter-disperse them, then you're going to aid in the manufactur- ability. Not all designs lend themselves to that, and that's one of the challenges that we face here on the EMS side, because ultimately, you've got to have a board that meets the de- sign objectives. I will say that for the first time, AOIs and how you electrically test boards are being driven further back into the design cycle than they have ever been before." What about Industry 4.0 Strategies? "Today, most of the systems are able to ex- port data to external databases or systems," said Peallat. "Also, for a few years now, ven- dors have developed what we call closed loop, at the SPI with the printer vendors or at the AOI with pick and place. One example is the use for small components. Stud- ies have shown that it is bet- ter to place small compo- nents on paste rather than pad, especially when you have very, very small compo- nents. Today, most of inspec- tion equipment are able to communicate to other equip- ment and also most of them, like ours, are able to commu- nicate with other software." But according to Peallat, one of the chal- lenges when it comes to communication with other equipment is getting a global view as the information exchange is very focused on a few parameters. "Because the key point here is the amount of data you can get. With a PCB supporting about 1,000 components, it's a lot of data from inspection, SPI and AOI. The big question is, again, what do you do with that? When you have global manufacturing software, users focus on key global parameters and don't get into the process level with actionable data. This is the key to improve your quality," he said. Macmeen said, "That is the goal of Indus- try 4.0—making all of that data interlinkable all down the manufacturing line." In closing, McMeen noted that the ability and the power of the 3D AOI now allows users to automate a lot of what the human inspector's been doing; not 100%, but it's moving toward that goal. "Being able to do solder fillet forma- tion and height has brought on a huge degree of efficiency, because now, we can rely on that data to ensure that we are meeting the IPC and cus- tomer standards. These machines are becoming more and more capable to solve some of the bot- tlenecks that we've had in the past. That is how you get into reliability. What does that solder fil- let wetting angle look like and how far effaced was it? Knowing that goes a long way into assur- ing that you've met the standa rd." SMT 3D: TOWARDS BETTER INSPECTION CAPABILITY