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NEPCON NEC -- SMT Across the Pond
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
By Michelle M. Boisvert, Managing Editor
With 415 exhibiting companies and 3,340 visitors, NEPCON NEC, May 9-11, 2006, in Birmingham, U.K. was a productive show for those involved generating several qualified leads and interest. This was my first trip to the U.K., and because I was staying in downtown Birmingham, I was able to get the lay of the land on my daily walks to and from the train station.
On the first day, I visited with Andy Kellard, business manager of Speedprint Technology, a Blakell Europlacer Company, who introduced me to the company's SP88avi large-area inline printer and the SP200avi inline stencil printer for medium- to high-throughput, high-mix applications, first introduced in 2002. The 200avi was developed because of a need to automate, said Kellard. Because 90-95% of manufacturers in the EU favor smaller stencils, the 23" SP200 is a suitable option. But Speedprint also wanted to introduce a printer specific to the Asian market. The 29" SP88avi, which accommodates board sizes of 400 x 450 mm, targets North American and Asian manufacturers. This system uses a patented look-down/look-down approach for vision and alignment. Two identical roaming cameras mounted on independent X/Y gantries enable precise alignment, while the vision system uses a paste-on-stencil method to determine that there is enough paste on the stencil prior to printing. Speedprint is looking to evolve in terms of speed, commented Kellard, and plans to unveil some new developments later this year.
In the same booth, I met with Derek Gaston, general director of Dorset, U.K.-based Europlacer, a designer and manufacturer of SMT placement systems. The company was demonstrating its 25 Xpress placement machine, a compact system that can place devices ranging from 0201s to 50- x 50-mm QFPs. The company expects to offer the ability to place smaller components by the end of next year; and Gaston noted that they have placed some. But he also recommends that companies test in real-life situations before buying a new system, instead of just going by whether or not a machine meets IPC specs. The machine also features an intelligent feeder technology. Gaston stressed the importance of the feeder system. "If you can't feed well, you can't place correctly," he said.
Surrey, U.K.-based HumiSeal Europe highlighted its UV40 range of UV-curable conformal coatings, which was initially introduced at Productronica in November 2005. This low-viscosity polymer blend material offers a wide temperature range and processes cracks or craters. It can also shorten cycle times, said David Greenman, managing director of HumiSeal Europe. UV-curing ovens tend to be more compact than other solutions, offering a footprint savings in workspace. The material also has a sweet spot in the automotive market, including in-cabin and undercarriage electronics, where extreme thermal stresses can cause cracking. Other target markets include industrial controls and high-reliability, aggressive environments such as aerospace. The company has also qualified its 1H20 water-based conformal coating product with a large U.S.-based aerospace company. As for the year ahead, HumiSeal Europe is looking to expand its production facilities and product lines, said Greenman.
DEK (Zurich) is making a powerful move into the fuel cell arena targeting mass-generation for emergency power units. "We see enormous potential in this market," said Richard Castle, manager, sales and distribution for DEK. In the U.K. market, nearly 45-50% of DEK's SMT business is in alternate applications. The company isn't looking seriously at the automotive fuel cell market, he added, but in the future, there will be amore on-board sensors in autos, so the potential is there.
Universal Instruments has been realigning its global business infrastructure to meet customers' needs. With this realignment, personnel shifts have also taken place Peter Bollinger was named the director of European relations, operating from the company's Bad Vilbel, Germany office. He replaced Brad Bennett, who relocated to the company's Binghamton, N.Y. facility. The company is also driving toward automating the placement of odd-form components, said Karen Moore-Watts, director of global marketing for Universal Instruments. Currently, most odd-form component placement is manual, but there is great potential for the automating this, added Moore-Watts.
Tom Forsythe, vice president of sales and marketing for Kyzen Corporation, talked about the lead-free transition and cleaning trends and difficulties, particularly in electronics packaging. Forsythe feels the transition to lead-free is going pretty well, and see many parallels to the ban on CFCs the industry faced years ago. He states that there are good reasons why not all areas, such as multichip modules, high-reliability applications, and military/aerospace devices that must possess high shock resistance do not want to switch to lead-free. But because of tin/lead-component phase-outs, notes Forsythe, the military will have to live with some amount of lead-free components. On the cleaning side, many packaging companies have been using water-soluble solutions. Only a small percentage can get away with it, said Forsythe. We also discussed the need for cleaning no-clean solder pastes. "No-clean was a great marketing tool," said Forsythe. "But when customers and accounting groups decide that it's time to clean, this often is because of yields." Most modern engineers don't know that cleaning is an option, he added. "They don't realize this is a low-cost choice. The high-reliability guys are using no-clean, but still cleaning." Kyzen expects to introduce a new cleaning product in September of this year.
I also discussed how the transition was going for Kester. "It will be different for someone who has not been running lead-free paste; they may have issues," said Jeff King, vice president of European operations for Kester. In the last two years, added King, Kester has had the capability of making lead-free bar and wire solder in the EU. Although some companies have left the European market because of cost, Kester claims to have found a niche in there for advanced products.
One very interesting product I saw at the show was a solder recovery system from EVS International, an Isle of Wight, U.K.-based company. Unlike other dross removal/solder recovery systems that use a chemistry process, the EVS Series is an enclosed automated system in which hot dross is loaded into a hopper and sealed in the machine. The process recovers solder in ingot form and moves the spent dross through a chute to a covered bin. The recovered solder is said to be 99.9% pure. The machine takes about 10 minutes from inputting spent solder to recover. A four-part filtration system helps keep factory-floor air safe. Steve Thompson, a Scotland-based electronics engineer for IBM developed the process while conducting environmental waste recovery research for the company. He patented the unit in 1996 and soon after set up a company to develop the concept. EVS bought the patents in 2003, and redesigned the unit into the current system. Unfortunately, because of environmental regulations on the show floor, I wasn't able to see the machine in action.
Karen Harrison, brand coordinator for Derbyshire, U.K.-based Electrolube, a division of H.K. Wentworth Limited, gave me an overview of some of the company's conformal coating technologies and cleaning products.
X-Tek's Stuart Wright spoke about their X-ray technology, as well the company's recent launch of its Hong Kong office X-Tek Asia. Wright noted that one hot spot for the inspection industry seems to be S. Korea; the company is seeing more interest for product in that area.
BTU Europe was demonstrating its Pyramax 125 and was involved in The SMART Group's Lead-free Experience 4, an area of the exhibition floor dedicated to giving attendees a hands-on experience with several lead-free materials and assembly equipment. This was the fourth year the company had showcased a product in the lead-free area.
Bob Willis, chairman for The SMART Group and trainer and consultant for Electronic Presentation Services (EPS), led me through the Lead-free Experience and spoke about the state of lead-free. Willis noted that lead-free education and training will still be valuable after the RoHS July 1st deadline because lead-free manufacturing will be the way the industry does things from then on. It will be the standard for manufacturing once the deadline hype dies down. Despite this, commented Willis, this may be the last year for the Lead-free Experience at NEPCON NEC. While walking around "The Experience," I met with Ron Gow, lead-free project manager for DKL Metals (West Lothian, U.K.). DKL Metals supplied its SN100C lead-free solder alloy for the Nousstar wave solder machine (Figure 1).The Altus Group was at the show, serving as the U.K distributor of the Nousstar system.
Being the accidental tourist that I am, I didn't get to see much of the U.K. outside of the show floor. I had planned to visit Warwick Castle on my last day, but, as my luck would have it, the train to Warwick was cancelled and some major travel re-routing would have had to occur. It's really a shame as the weather there was sunny and warm for my entire visit. I guess I will just have to make another trip to the U.K. The show is slated for May 15-17, 2007 in Hall 1 of the NEC Birmingham, and will be co-located with Total Processing and Packaging and The Packaging Innovation Show. For more information, visit www.nepcon.co.uk.