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3D Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) for PCB Assembly Introduction

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The highest demand used in quality management of electronic printed circuit boards (PCBs) and PCB assembly is automatic optical inspections and automated optical inspections (in short, AOI) (PCBA). AOI inspects the electronic assemblies such as PCBs mechanical visual inspection to ensure that the components of PCBs are in the right place and the contacts are correct.

Automated optical inspection (AOI) is an intelligent visual inspection of the production of the printed circuit board, where all catastrophic failures (such as broken components) and quality faults can be scanned automatically by a sensor.

It is widely used in the production phase because it is a way of testing without touch. It ensures the multi-layer circuit boards provide a high degree of durability.

For the following various applications, it is essential:

  • Infringements of line spacing
  • Violation of spacing
  • Copper excess
  • The shortage of pad
  • Short circuits
  • high frequency
PC board
PC board

What does AOI inspect?

AOI is a primary method used to build and test electronic printed circuit boards and PCBs for automatic or automatic optical inspection. Automated optical inspection, AOI allows quick and precise assessment of electronic assemblies and, especially, pcb assembly to ensure that the standard of goods is good and that the object is appropriately and without processing defects.

What is the need for AOI inspection?

Current circuits are much more complex than boards were a few years back, notwithstanding the significant changes that have been developed. With the advent of surface mounting technologies and more size decreases, boards are exceptionally lightweight. Even comparatively ordinary panels have millions of fused joints, and most issues are observed.

This growth in board difficulty also implies that manual examination is currently not a feasible choice. Even if the solution was approved, the inspectors quickly fatigued it, and poor and wrong design was easily overlooked. With great demand, high-quality goods on the market now require very simple, very stable, and fast.

To ensure that the product quality continues to be good, methods are required. AOI is an indispensable instrument within the context of an advanced electronic test plan, ensuring that the expense is held to the lowest possible levels by identifying faults at an early stage of manufacturing.

Benefits over manual visual inspection

PCB devices switch to ultra-thin, lightweight, higher densities, and exemplary size components. The part assembly width of the circuit board has increased, the width and distance of the Printed Circuit Board -line and the pad are decreasing and reaching the micro-level. The manual process of visual examination cannot be achieved. Furthermore, people seem to be tired and emotionally affected, according to the textbook. Inspection equipment is more stable, repeatable, and precise when it comes to machine vision.

Manual visual examination is a vital part of our BES operation. All new boards, either we order from a new supplier or a well-experienced BES company, are visually inspected by us. From solder masks to solder joints, we test all on the floor. Shipping packaging is also evaluated. When we develop our projects, manual visual testing is also helpful throughout the development, from designing to large-scale production. It was the first phase in our identification and repetition of design or manufacturing problems.

  • The usual general information SMT operator will fit well for quick and easy manual visual inspection.
  • Manual visual inspection with high flexibility;
  • The original costs are minimal, and only the initial Labour costs are spent, and high expenses are not available;
  • Preparation is fast.

How can time save done from the visual inspection process?

Visual inspection proves to be a game-changer, with many apps in almost every domain. The company is now moving into manufacturing and production, enabling them to use the power of profound learning and thus have quicker, safer, and superior automation.

  • More quickly

CPU speeds, as calculated in FLOPs and even accurate measurements, result in observations and conclusions, which are done incredibly quickly.

  •  Accurate

An automated machine can standardize the measurement of absolute measurements.

  • Trustworthy

The machine is impartial and programmable as required and without doubt following instructions. It is undoubtedly a result of this technological transition that is moving global producers into different production and productivity levels.

Final Thoughts

AOI is a vital factor in ensuring the accuracy of your completed electronics items is defective and accurate. It gives a shorter timeframe, more efficiencies, and lower prices, which would have increased if reworking was required.

The AOI process provides reliable monitoring and resulting information which enables improved quality control procedures management and the correction of potential issues. The algorithms will monitor the successful and defective PC Board components and record them. Efficiency is also improved from the point of view of process control, organizational integrity, and reporting.

The controls provide search, identification, and measurements or diagnosis for the outgoing product condition. Inspection is an operation. Tasks of supervision have typically been assigned to people. Efforts to simplify industrial inspections to eliminate mistakes and reduce monotony have encountered technical constraints and cost factors of deployment. A prototyping model is an occasional compromise. Reviews have released new study status on manual, hybrid, and automatic inspection.

Perhaps the most critical inspection process is the visual inspection of the parts made. Draw the section and equate the area with the painting visually. For units with several functions, this is particularly relevant. Anything may go wrong, and one of the several production cycles.

During AOI, optical inspection algorithms usually use visual techniques to ensure defects on written platforms. They can identify a range of material removals, such as nodules, scratches, and marks, as well as known dimension faults, such as open circuits, shorts, and solder integrity. They will also spot faulty components, missing components, and parts that have been misplaced. All system is designed to monitor tests conducted by manual operators can be carried out much quicker and more reliably.

How can We (PNC ONLINE) help you in 3D Automatic Optical Inspection?

At PNC, you will get your design checked from two (2) Mirtec MV-6 OMNI machines which itself is high-speed/high-performance 3D AOI MACHINE FIFTEEN MEGAPIXEL CoaXPress Camera Technology. It has an advanced eight-phase Color Lighting System Ten Micron / Pixel Precision Telecentric Compound Lens. It is designed with an Integrated Ten Mega Pixel SIDE-VIEWER® Camera System Precision Closed Loop AC Servo Drive Motor System which is extremely simple to program and operate. It also has 3D Co-Planarity Inspection – Gull Wing Device with an example as shown below:

PCB Assembly
PCB Assembly

We follow all the system parameters and are set up to meet IPC inspection requirements. Get your Automatic Optical Inspection done for your 3D design at PNC. Contact us at sales@pnconline.com

 

Main aspects of the PCB industry – PCB Design, Manufacturing & Assembling

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In this article, you’ll get to know the fundamentals of PCB manufacturers and how our company “PNC Inc.” is unique from other manufacturers in the United States.

What are the three main aspects of the PCB industry?

According to our experience of more than 50 years as the leading PCB Company in the industry, we can easily write that three main aspects in the PCB industry for which most clients look for are:

• PCB Design
• PCB Manufacturing
• PCB Assembly

Design, Manufacturing, and assembling of PCB is a systematic method for examining the parts and components which is needed to execute. It included obtaining costs of a commodity and seeks to cut costs before actual development begins. There are specific manufacturing, design, and assembling principles required to be following during the PCB process execution of any electrical or electronics part. Eventually, a final design concludes the series with a review among the most common issues related to the PC Board or Printed Circuit Board.

Until continuous description, it is important to explain how the word ‘manufacturing design’ is used when speaking more generally and when talking more directly about PCB output. In general, design for manufacturing and assembling may lead to the simplification and optimization of a model or theoretical design in anticipation of their production. As these words are used to describe PCBs, they also imply a more straightforward study of possible production problems.

Ideal Design can Help PCB Fabrication:

The purpose of addressing the nature of manufacturing and assembling, in general, is to decide how a commodity can be produced and installed most cost-effectively. Manufacturing is to be done in a way to reduce the total cost and, more evidently, assembly design is required to be done to reduce commodity inputs, capital operating costs, and labor reduction. The emphasis is both on applying standards to lower manufacturing costs and also aim to shorten the product creation period. The fusion of these methods is often widely called manufacturing and assembly design for Mil-Spec PC Board.

Rules of PCB Manufacturer and Assembly:

After the conceptual Circuit Board Fabrication design has been developed, the company is required to research opting towards the most economical way of executing the PCB fabrication. The construction of a prototype or the development of a new version of a product could require a conceptual design. Once a conceptual design has been developed, a designer review will analyze the design’s bill of materials.

Try to use fewer parts in a design:

Reducing the number of components in PC board manufacturers is a simple aim with clear advantages. It would minimize construction costs and assembly difficulty, while not as obvious, it is of great advantage. When PCB assemblies are supplied using devices, for example, they are restricted to the number of modules they may be supported in a single port.

Being aware that if use many parts are used by pick and place machines in circuit boards fabrication will contribute to non-assembly. Cost savings are obvious. For example, if a design needs a resistance of 20K ohms, and 10K ohms resistance has been already used in the design, it might also be easier to use two 10K ohms resistors in sequence if this reduces the amount of time the computer picks and places simulation.

In the same way, you can speed assembly time up and transfer portions of the test requisites to the IC maker in search of regularly integrated circuits that can combine part of the specification into one IC. Having in mind the number and form of PCB components is perhaps the most significant move towards reducing total PCB manufacturing costs. In a term, the elimination of a component for the final design would decrease BOM costs, minimize purchase costs, production time, test time, and workload assembly feedback.

Use Original Components:

The use of composite materials will dramatically reduce construction time and expense. It goes without saying that defining a specific custom approach would significantly raise the initial cost of every product which may render a concept unfeasible. In addition, the use of more generic materials will shorten the supply chain of a commodity and mitigate supply issues. The fact that their measurements are easier checked until they are included in a PCB design specification is another advantage to prefer electronic interfaces.

Use Multifunctional Parts for Printed Circuit Design:

When an electric power part may be used for many uses in a model, the designer must take account of it. For instance, utilizing a container that can also act as hot in a design can give considerable cost control. A further definition of a dual-use mechanism through the use of a blockade as a link to ground from PCB board assembly.

Install all PCB Assembly Directions:

If practicable, all the board companies would plan all pieces to be assembled from the same side of an assembly around one axis. This is also referred to as a “Top Down” assembly in which all parts from top to bottom are placed. The use of this kind of single-sided assembly method saves time when a product is turned and rotated during assembly. As for all of the design choices, PCB design engineers would then have to consider whether producing a smaller PCB fabrication with components placed on every s sides of the board safer is compared with developing a larger PCB.

Advantages of PCB Manufacturers and Assembly:

• Fewer pieces ought to be handled and recorded.
• The expense of billing products should be minimized.
• The cost of handling can be reduced to some degree.
• Labor and input of electricity should be reduced.
• The total production period may be reduced to significantly increase manufacturing productivity.
• Lower sophistication results in greater efficiency.
• Increasingly competitive products should be.
• High Replacement margins are achieved.

The Circuit Printed Boards Manufacturers and prototype PCB manufacturers should have a simple way to reduce the next design bill. The advantages of reducing the number of designs are evident. Materials will become more viable as they are cheaper and less vulnerable to loss, however by lowering the number of materials used in the production of product costs, paperwork needs will be decreased and the work required for SMT assembly. All these factors contribute to lower manufacturing costs and encourage either better commodity or price profits at more affordable prices.

In addition, the processing period is shortened so the goods can be delivered to customers in less time. An optimal printed circuit board may be built with the right PCBA assembly considering all the above implementation of these objectives.

At PNC Inc., You’ll get your PCB done from any of the following design tools of your choice as we have an in-house facility available for all the tools.

• Cadence Allegro v16
• OrCAD Capture v16.3 & OrCAD PCB Designer v16.3
• PADS v9
• Signal Integrity Analysis: Hyperlynx

You will get the following deliverables from us:
• Gerber, drill files & PCB File
• Assembly and fabrication files
• Formal drawings on your (client) desired format

Why you should choose us & why we are better than others in the Market?

At PNC Inc., we have got the facility of executing all the design, manufacturing, and assembling in the same building. In this way, you don’t have to visit different places to check the progress of your work. You’ll get all the things done in the same building at our Nutley, New Jersey facility. That’s why we are a “one-stop-shop” and providing all the services under the same roof.

Work with PNC to Reduce PC Board Costs

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When it comes to reducing the manufacturing cost of a PCB, it is important to remember that a significant part of the cost of a PCB assembly is already baked in at the design concept stage.  The product concept defines the PCB size and shape, while the performance of the system dictates the microprocessor, memory and other functional elements of the circuit.

However, some of the assembly cost can still be affected by design choices made by the PCB designer.  A PCB that is designed for manufacturing (DFM) can reduce both the fabrication cost of the PCB and the costs of component assembly and soldering. A DFM approach to design can also reduce the likelihood of the hidden costs of poor yield in production.

The best way to achieve the lowest cost, most manufacturable design is to work closely with the prospective  manufacturer, since the way to maximize DFM cost savings is to design for a manufacturer’s specific equipment and technology, rather than to rely on general rules.

Reducing PCB Fabrication Costs

The first step to reducing costs in PCB fabrication to reduce the number of operations performed by the manufacturer.  The second step is to optimize the PCB design to leverage a manufacturer’s particular fabrication technology.

One way to reduce costs is to eliminate or minimize the amount of machining required around the board edge or within the PCB itself.  Rectilinear PCB outlines without internal slots will minimize machining, and the rectangular shape allows the PCB to be grouped in larger panels that are separated after assembly.  These large panels streamline assembly by allowing a several PCB to go through component assembly and reflow at the same time, improving throughput. For example, PNC can process a maximum panel size of 18” X 24.” To ensure that the components on the PCB are not damaged during the scoring and separation from the panel, components should be kept 200 mil from the board edge.

Reducing board layers to reduce fabrication costs

The generally accepted rule that reducing the number of PCB layers in a stack-up will reduce cost has become more complicated with the advent of HDI technology.   The reason is that the cost of an additional Printed Circuit Board layer is not linear, so a cost calculation needs to be made for each jump in the number of layers. Is it cheaper to use finer trace widths and buried vias to reduce the layer count from six to four?  Only the manufacturer is going to know.  However, as a board gets past eight layers costs increase non-linearly with each additional layer.  The aspect ratio of the through hole vias begin to become a factor, as well as the sheer number of vias that need to be drilled and plated to connect all those layers.   At an eight layer stack up or above, the additional cost of HDI technology begins to make economic sense if it is used to reduce the number of stack-up layers required.

Respect drill to copper clearance and aspect ratio design rules

Respect the design rules for hole sizes and hole to copper clearance.  If the real estate on the PCB allows it, selecting hole sizes clearances and annular ring sizes larger than the absolute minimum will improve fabrication yield. Here are the through hole design rules for PNC:

Non-Plated Through Hole (NPTH)
● Finished hole size (minimum)= 0.006″
● Edge to edge clearance (from any other surface element) (minimum)= 0.005″
Plated Through Hole (PTH)
● Finished hole size (Minimum) = 0.004″
● Annular ring size (Minimum)= 0.004”
● Edge to edge clearance (from any other surface element) (minimum) = 0.009″

PCB assembly
PCB assembly

Reducing PCB Assembly Costs

To reduce assembly costs the objective is the same as reducing PCB fabrication costs; reduce the number of operations, and optimize the PCB design to leverage a manufacturer’s particular fabrication technology.

One easy way to reduce assembly costs is to stay away from the smallest passive packages.  0603 passives are easier to place than 0402 or the almost invisible 0201.  If possible, chose active parts that have leads rather than ball grids, because they are easier to place, they can be visually inspected instead of x-rayed, and they are easier to rework.

Avoid parts that have to be manually soldered.

Manual operations are always expensive, and the designer should do everything they can to avoid the need for them.

Component manufacturers have recognized this and now offer through-hole components (typically connectors) that can be reflow soldered.  This technology called “Through-Hole Reflow” allows through-hole components to be soldered in the same reflow process as the SMD components, eliminating a pass through the wave soldering machine or manual soldering.

Finally, if possible, avoid putting components on both sides of the board.  The cost of a higher density PCB with components on one side may be cheaper than a lower density PCB with components on both sides.

Don’t wait until the PCB design is finished before talking with PNC

The best time to talk with the PC Board design experts at PNC is early in the layout process.  They can tell you when to use HDI to reduce costs and can advise on how to optimize panel size. The experts in the assembly department can also work with you to select components that will reduce assembly costs and increase yield.

Give PNC a call today.

Embedded software development along with PCB Assembly

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No company can excel at every aspect of new product development and trying to do everything can dilute an organization’s focus on the tasks that are essential to its success. For example, most companies have long ago outsourced the PCB design and fabrication steps of new product development. This same need to focus on the essential is true of software development too. It is difficult for a software company to excel at every type of software development because of the ever expanding universe of software languages, operating systems, and architectures.  A cloud based SAAS or PC based application is very different from embedded software running C on a 16-bit processor, and it takes very different software development skills to develop that kind of embedded application.

Unlike cloud based or PC based applications, embedded software is optimized to run on a specific custom hardware platform with limited processing power and memory.  It often runs on a real time operating system or no operating systems at all, and the interface of an embedded device may consist of only a small display, or just a few buttons and LEDs.

The unique challenges working with embedded systems is why many software companies outsource their embedded software projects to experts like PNC.  Here are three reasons why they do.

The embedded system is not the organization’s primary product line.

Many products on the market require options or accessories that are important to the customer, but not are not similar technically to the primary product. A cable set top box remote is a good example.  Customers expect a cable set-top box to have a remote, but the low power microcontroller embedded in the remote is likely to be completely different from the high power processor and OS driving the set-top box functions.  Similarly, Industrial or commercial equipment may have optional modules to provide additional functionality like a cellular modem.   These optional modules have independent processors and embedded software which is unrelated to the primary product software.

In these cases, software companies will choose to focus their development resources on the primary product, recognizing that it is more cost effective to outsource the software development for the ancillary embedded products to a company that is familiar with embedded microcontrollers and the constraints that come with low power operation. If that company can design the hardware and perform SMT assembly too, it becomes an even better value.

Embedded software development along with PCB Assembly
Embedded software development along with PCB Assembly

The software is deeply embedded and invisible to the user

Successful software companies are highly focused on the customer experience with their product. They are constantly refining the look and feel of the industrial design and user interface to make the product more attractive, and easier to use.  But what if the product doesn’t have a user interface?   What if it is a router or a motor controller?  Products like these need a simple interface for initial configuration, but they typically operate in the background, invisible to the customer.  In this case the goal is to optimize for cost and performance rather than user experience.  Deeply embedded applications without a sophisticated customer facing interface  are ideal to outsource to a company like PNC because the product requirements are centered on the embedded functionality – there is no need to maintain the same look and feel as the company’s customer facing products.

The application requires specialized expertise

 Sometimes a software company needs embedded expertise that it just doesn’t have in-house.  For example, they may need a Zigbee or Bluetooth RF stack, or expertise with digital signal processing on low power Digital Signal Processors DSP.  In some challenging embedded applications, a company may need a partner with the expertise to  iterate the design of both the hardware and software simultaneously to arrive at an optimized embedded solution.  In that case you need a full service provider like PNC.

PNC offers the full solution to developing embedded products

When it comes to product development, PNC is not just a PCB manufacturer.  The engineers at PNC can work with you to design and manufacture the product hardware, and then develop the embedded software to run on that hardware.   If you have a challenging embedded software or hardware project, contact PNC today and find out how they can help.

Minimizing Crosstalk in PC Board Layout

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In this ongoing series on PCB layout from the design team at PNC, previous posts have looked at some of the initial steps to turn a circuit schematic into a manufacturable, reliable PCB. These posts have looked at  component placement, selecting appropriate trace widths, and BGA routing.   In this post we are going to take a deeper dive into methods for reducing crosstalk in the PCB design. After the power and ground have been routed, the next task is to route high speed signal traces, and the traces that could either generate or receive crosstalk.

 What is Crosstalk?

Crosstalk occurs when the signal on an aggressor trace on a PCB appears on a nearby victim trace, due to capacitive and inductive coupling between the two traces.  Typical aggressor signal traces are:

● High speed digital signals, especially clock signals
● Noise from switching power suppliers
● High frequency RF.

Victim signal traces, on the other hand, carry high impedance signals like op amp input lines or reset lines, or low impedance signals with long loops.   Low amplitude signals such as a sensitive analog measuring circuit traces are also susceptible.

Crosstalk occurs when aggressor trace and victim trace are close together and run in parallel for a distance.  The aggressor and victim(s) can be side to side on the same layer or on top of each other on adjacent signal layers. Coupling between traces on adjacent layers separated by just a thin section of laminate is called broadside coupling.

Minimizing Crosstalk in PC Board Layout
Minimizing Crosstalk in PC Board Layout

 

 

 

 

 

Printed Circuit Board Design guidelines to reduce crosstalk

There are several design rules to reduce crosstalk between signal traces.  Before applying these rules, the first step is to use the general guidelines described above to identify and flag any potential aggressor signal traces and their potential victims.

Since crosstalk occurs between two traces running in parallel, try to reduce the distance that the aggressor and victim traces run in parallel. Unfortunately, this may be difficult if the signals originate and terminate from the same locations.  To minimize broadside coupling try to orient the signal traces east-west on one layer and north-south on the second layer.

It is essential to have a broad contiguous ground plane directly under (or over) the signal layer.  A ground plane located between two signal layers can prevent broadside coupling. However, make sure that ground planes located on adjacent layers but not electrically connected do not overlap.  The overlapping ground planes separated by a dielectric form a capacitor, which can transmit noise from one ground plane to the other. This can defeat the purpose of separate ground planes if they were created to isolate the noisy elements of a circuit from the noise sensitive ones.

Increasing trce spacing

The most effective method of reducing crosstalk is to increase the spacing between the aggressor signal trace and the potential victim traces.  Like all electromagnetic radiation, electrical or magnetic coupling between the two traces drops with the square of the distance between them.  The amount of spacing required between the traces is dependent on the height of the traces above the ground plane.   The formula defining this relationship is from Douglas Brooks “Crosstalk Coupling: Single-Ended vs. Differential”   The coupling between two traces is proportional to:

Where S is the spacing between traces, and H is the distance from the trace to the ground plane.  Once H is defined by the lamination stack-up, the relative change in coupling can be easily plotted as a function of S.  Douglas Brooks looks in detail at the coupling between traces under several scenarios.  For those looking for some general guidance, a spacing of 5H is considered conservative.  The PC Board design team at PNC can assist designing a PCB stack up that will minimize the spacing needed between coupled traces, ensuring that crosstalk is minimized while maintaining routing density.

Finally, for very high speed digital signal traces, consider the use of differential pairs.  For many designers, the most common applications for a differential pair is for a high speed serial bus like USB, SATA, or HDMI.  The design rules for the layout of differential traces is beyond the scope of this post.

The most important part of reducing crosstalk in your PCB design is to first recognize in which signal traces crosstalk is likely to occur, then follow the guidelines above to minimize it.  PNC’s Printed Circuit Board designers have experience with high speed digital and RF circuits and can help you select the correct PCB layer stack-up and review your designs for areas where crosstalk is likely and suggest ways to minimize it. Request a design review from PNC today