Product category:
PCB Assembly Equipment and Tools
News Release from: Assembleon | Subject: FCM Ceramic
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 09 May 2002
Component mounter goes easy on the
ceramics
The FCM Ceramic is the latest addition to the FCM fast component mounter family from Assembl?on.
The FCM Ceramic is the latest addition to the FCM fast component mounter family from Assembl?on Specifically designed for high-volume production of ceramic boards, the FCM Ceramic becomes the market leader in terms of lowest cost per placement
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 4 Jun 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Ceramic substrates are gaining in popularity due to their suitability for high-frequency and 'miniaturised' applications.
Their dielectric and thermal properties make them especially valuable for communications applications such as mobile phones and Bluetooth, and automotive applications such as engine controls and rectifiers.
Ceramic substrates are proving effective for MCM (multichip module) manufacturing, and for flip chip applications where their coefficient of expansion more closely matches that of the component, removing the need for a separate underfill process.
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Pick and place machine accurate to within 30micron
A fine-pitch pick-and-place-machine places fine-pitch and odd-form components with an accuracy to within 30um at a rate of 6,800 components per hour.
However, ceramic boards present transportation and positioning problems for standard pick-and-place equipment.
They are fragile, especially when routed, and abrasive enough to cause wear in transportation parts.
Hitherto, even in high-volume applications, single substrates have had to be loaded into a carrier or pallet to match PCB size with the placement equipment.
To overcome these problems, Assembl?on has developed an extension to its FCM range based on its considerable experiencing in handling ceramic technology.
The FCM Ceramic is one of few placement machines on the market allowing fully automated, high-volume processing of ceramic boards.
Furthermore, offering fast and flexible setup, 75,000 component per hour placement speed on ceramic boards, and high uptime, the robust FCM Ceramic delivers the lowest cost per placement, with accuracy of 75um at 3 Sigma or better.
Contributing to this high-speed operation, a sophisticated vision system performs bad-mark recognition, and fiducial measurement for board and circuit, in parallel with placement actions, eliminating the usual cycle time penalty for these operations.
This unique feature provides significant time savings in multicircuit applications.
The machine makes use of alignment nests to position the ceramic substrate for placement of components without the need for carriers and pallets.
The nest also fully supports the ceramic to prevent any substrate damage.
Nests are quickly and easily interchanged for boards of different sizes, with all movements controlled by encoders and sensors to ensure a reliable process.
In addition, two nest sets can be mounted on the same base-plate, with 120 to 240mm pitch.
The standard FCM Ceramic handles board sizes from 30 x 30 to 221 x 307mm, and substrate thicknesses from one to 10mm.
Because the substrate is held in the alignment nest by edge fingers, the complete surface of the substrate can be populated.
A component range from 0201 up to 25 x 25mm ICs, as well as small odds and labels, can be handled with the FCM Ceramic.
Operational flexibility is assured by the versatility of the FCM Ceramic to accommodate a wide variety of packaging types using twin-bulk, twin-tape, label and SurfTape feeders and with capability for handling tripads and bondpads.
Fast exchange of feeder trolleys, component laser module and pick-and-place robots contributes to the high uptime which has been proved in numerous applications.
To demonstrate the unique efficiency of high-volume production on the FCM Ceramic, Assembl?on offers prospective users a computer simulation service predicting line output for specific board designs.
The company can also retrofit the ceramic handling option to existing FCM lines.
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