Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/978458
78 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2018 Full Automation PCB Fab." Whelen Engineer- ing is an automotive electronics OEM head- quartered in Connecticut. After many years, they decided to build their own PCB fabri- cation facility on their New Hampshire cam- pus. Built in 2015, this represented the new- est PCB fab in the world and it is remarkable be- cause of the green zero- effluent strategy and the fact that it was fully au- tomated, thus requiring no production workers. The chemical/water recy- cling scheme, in addition to not requiring a water or wastewater permit, al- lowed a 30% reduction in purchased chemical costs and a total cost of one- third to one-half of the former prices of boards from China. Their prod- uct turn-around went from many weeks to less than one week. The heart of the Whelen PCB process is the continuous, conveyorized system seen in Fig- ure 17. It has 60% fewer fabrication steps be- cause of its speed and no human handling. The continuous process starts after drilling and PREDICTED DATA PRODUCT TOOLING PROC FAB DATA PRODUCTION DATA PCB PRODUCTION FLOW EMAIL, ALERTS RFVIEW QUALIF INTERNAL EXTERNAL RAW DATA CAPTURE LINEAR/NON-LINEAR FABRICATION COMPENSATION DATA ANALYSIS RULES ENGINE DATA STORAGE REPORTING PREDICTION ENGINE PROCESS FEEDBACK API AUTOMATION Stencil MES ERP Artwork NC Tooling CAM Lamination Metal Finish Etch Develop Etch Coat Image Clean Clean Layup Prep AOI Strip Develop De-Pin Coat Image Clean Drill / Laser Drill X-ray Drill Prep AOI Strip Inspection S Mask Activation E Test Rout Figure 16: Coordinated analysis of all data leads to better actions and data to predict the future. ENIG final finish 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 34 35 36 Pinless layup Vacuum lamination Drills / Routers L/F HASL 2 3 4 4' 1 23 24 26 27 29 31 32 33 27' 37 38 27 Chemical Dosing WHELEN PROCESS SEQUENCE (I/L) 20 min. 5 In Line Load/unload 6 Pre-clean 7 30 Panel Buffer (FI/FO) 8 Inkjet Primary Image 9 In Line Load/unload 10 30 Panel Buffer (FI/FO) 12 FIFO Buffer 14 90 Degree Turn 15 Etch 16 Resist Strip (Print & Etch) 17 In Line Load/unload 25 14 22 28 30 Figure 17: The Whelen continuous process line including final finishes is only 38 stations from load (after drill) to unload (to soldermask and final fab). This has 60% fewer steps than the normal outer layer process and takes only 205 minutes.