Journal of

Electronic
Packaging
Technical Brief
CAPP for Electronics Manufacturing
Case Study: Fine Pitch SMT
Laser Soldering
Ismail Fidan
Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Technology,
College of Engineering, Tennessee Tech University,
Cookeville, TN 38505-5003
e-mail: idan@tntech.edu
The trend to high-density packaging in surface mount assembly
has highlighted inherent difculties in the assembly line of these
very ne pitch devices. A variety of defects is still common in
printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) technology despite all the
improvements made, and rework of PCBA is inevitable and per-
formed manually in PCBA manufacturing oors since the cost of
each component and PCB itself may be hundreds of dollars. In the
last few years, the number of rework stations available on the
market has grown considerably including the automated ones, but
there has still been no signicant reduction in the number of the
defects. In electronics manufacturing, rework is dened as the
activity that replaces defective components with those that are
acceptable such that the populated board performs to the speci-
cations. Increasing product complexity, decreasing component
size, and using double sided boards have made rework more dif-
cult and the economic reworking of PCBAs is one of the main
problems facing PCB manufacturers. PCBA manufacturing has
been relatively improved with fully automated, accurate assembly
machines and the use of robots. Although signicant improvement
in automated rework has also been made by the author, it has
been shown that the outcomes of the automated rework line have
not produced a high enough level of the reliable yield percentage.
The objective of this research project is to make a contribution
towards this surface mount rework by creating a Computer Aided
Process Planning (CAPP) system of circuit board defects so that
the defects that necessitate rework operation can be detected
through the electronics manufacturing assembly line. With the de-
velopment of CAPP tool, the rework will be removed from the
PCBA line and PCBA process parameters which cause joint level
reliability problems will be troubleshot with the help of the devel-
oped system. DOI: 10.1115/1.1646422
1 State of the Art
High value printed circuit boards used for computer and tele-
communications applications are a critical mission-sensitive ele-
ment for the 21st centurys advanced technological developments.
The growth of small-footprint and small feature surface mount
technology SMT in electronic components presents enormous
technical obstacles to the successful production of such PCBAs.
Rework refers to the general technical problem of removing
and replacing defective circuit components on a printed circuit
board. A variety of different rework methods have been success-
fully developed and tested during the last decades of the 20th
century, but it has also been proven that none of them has per-
fectly produced nal reliable joint throughputs out of the manu-
facturing line 1. Now the new objective is to develop alternative
methods instead of utilizing manual, semi-automated or auto-
mated rework systems. The technology, which has been under
investigation now focuses on eliminating the causes of these
manufacturing problems since the old technologies practiced in
rework are costly, complicated, and require skilled operators 1,2.
2 Object and Scope
The rework operation involves several steps: removing defec-
tive components, cleaning the vacant component sites, dispensing
new solder paste, placing new components, and then reowing the
joints 3. The function of the rework process is to remove and
replace individual components from a fully-populated board with-
out damaging the board itself, the surrounding components, or the
solder joints of the surrounding components. To date major ad-
vances have been made in this direction for PCBAs by the author
1,4,5. Figure 1 shows the fully automated remanufacturing cell
system created by the author 2.
The purpose of this research project is to make a contribution
towards this surface mount rework and PCBA by creating an in-
teractive knowledge base system of circuit board defects so that
defects requiring rework operation can be detected through the
PCBA line. With the development of CAPP, the rework will be
removed from the electronics manufacturing line and assembly
line process parameters, which cause some reliability problems
such as solder balls, insufcient solder at joints, burnt joint con-
nections, bridged leads, voids, skewed leads, and unformed joints
will be troubleshot directly.
3 The Inuence of Various Parameters on PCBA
Reliability
With the continual miniaturization of electronic components
and overall systems, the interconnection of the PCB and the
componentnamely the solder jointbecomes smaller as well.
This reduction in the size of the joint places more demands on the
mechanical properties of the solder to ensure joint robustness. In
addition to footprint size reduction, there is an emphasis on total
space reduction, often leading to reduced size in the packaging of
the silicon die. As SMT migrates toward smaller package dimen-
sions, the processing conditions of each packaging become more
critical 6.
Signicant differences between properties within a package
from layer to layer or between the carrier and the die can cause
extensive internal stresses. Once mounted to a PCB, the solder
joint typically must absorb all strains induced by the expansion of
the package and PCB in the thermal excursions. For SMT devices,
Contributed by the Electronic and Photonic Packaging Division for publication in
the JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC PACKAGING. Manuscript received March 2003. As-
sociate Editor: J. Lau.
Copyright 2004 by ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging MARCH 2004, Vol. 126 173
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such as quad at packages, the leads and solder joints provide the
compliance needed to compensate for the mismatch in the coef-
cient of thermal expansion of the package and PCB. As joints
become smaller, their quality becomes more critical. Physical de-
fects e.g., poor solderability, voids, solder balls, and bridging
can have a negative impact on joint robustness and solder yields.
Factors that affect PCBA yields can be classied into several
main categories, including assembly materials, PCBs, and compo-
nents, process methods, and human performance 2. Figure 2
illustrates the factors that inuence reliable PCBA yields.
The assembly materials category can be subdivided further into
solder paste and ux related materials, such as applied volume,
reow parameters, uxing, and solder paste deposition methods,
and handling and storage conditions. The most critical issue
within this category is the proper uxing of the attachment sur-
faces and the creation of metallurgical bonds during the reow
operation. The PCB category contains many factors inuencing
the overall solder joint reliability, including board thickness, pad
size, base material, via formation technology, PCB layer count,
and solder mask technology. The component subgroup parameters
that inuence the assembly reliability may include pitch size, pin
count, package size, and base material.
The process methods category is inuenced heavily by the in-
dividual steps in the PCBA. Factors such as reow methodology
convection vs. infrared IR radiation and ambient conditions
will affect solder-wetting, joint formation/shape and presence of
voids. Joint quality is affected by almost all assembly variables,
but is inuenced strongly by the solder paste dispensing, compo-
nent placement, and reow conditions.
Dispensing. The most common method for solder paste depo-
sition in SMT is stencil printing. In this process, solder paste is
deposited onto the attachment pads of the board through corre-
sponding holes made in a metal foil. For ne-pitch SMT, the
printing process becomes critical because there is insufcient
room to elongate the solder stencil aperture. For 0.5-mm-pitch
components, it is not uncommon to achieve a print efciency of
less than 60 percent 6. Aperture size and stencil thickness need
to be adjusted properly to ensure the highest transfer ratio paste
deposited vs. aperture volume 7. In general, the apertures
should be oversized slightly compared to the attachment pad ge-
ometry to increase the solder deposit volume and transfer ratio.
However this may lead to an increase in solder ball formation.
Nitrogen may help counteract the tendency of the paste to form
solder balls during paste overprinting 8. Figure 3 shows the
number of all possible factors in dispensing affecting solder joint
quality output.
Placement. The strategies used to place components on
boards can be divided into in-line, mass, sequential, and simulta-
neous placement 10. In high volume manufacturing, dedicated
sequential or mass placement may be performed. In most cases,
exibility is important to accommodate new products and compo-
nents. Typically SMT assembly uses sequential component place-
ment. Two types of placement equipment are used for sequential
pick-and-place operations; the rst is an X-Y gantry style, and the
second is xed xed-head moving-table placement machines 6.
The overhead equipment offers high exibility, medium place-
ment speed, high accuracy, and minimal accelerations or move-
ment of the PCB. In contrast, the table movement machines usu-
Fig. 1 Fully-automated PCBA manufacturing and remanufac-
turing cell system developed by the author
Fig. 2 PCBA yield causes and effects
Fig. 3 The number of factors in dispensing affecting solder
joint quality output 9
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ally rotary turret heads offer high placement speeds and medium
accuracy and exibility, and impose high accelerations on the
PCB 11.
Another important feature of the placement system that affects
the PCBA is the vision system 11,12. A major issue is the ability
of the equipment to recognize features on the board and compo-
nent and accurately place the device by aligning the device leads
to the attachment pads on the PCB. Illumination of the package
from a lower angle, namely side-lighting, may be required to pre-
vent erroneous placements with SMT 13.
Reow. The heat transfer mechanisms used in the mass re-
ow solder process include convection, radiation using radiation
sources and condensation vapor phase 14. The most popular
method of reowing solder is based on forced convection or IR
radiation. Some other methods of solder are vapor phase, laser,
and hot bar. In addition to mass reow soldering, PCBAs often are
subjected to wave soldering operation. In wave-solder applica-
tions, the PCBA is passed over a wave of solder where the solder
is attracted to all wettable surfaces, including component leads.
Wave temperature must be controlled carefully to prevent the sol-
der joints from burning. Uniformity of temperature across the
PCB and within a component is a primary goal of any reow
system 2,15. For the SMT systems, a temperature gradient of
10C or less should be maintained to prevent warpage of the pack-
age and to ensure that all joints reow properly.
4 CAPP Development for Fine Pitch SMT Laser
Soldering
Laser soldering is the most common reow process practiced in
printed circuit board rework. None of the other attachment pro-
cesses has potentially been practiced in rework since lasers local-
ized application feature makes it the best for attachment. A CAPP
tool for laser reow has been developed by the author 1. This
developed system uses VB 5.0. This developed system will also
be included into the nal CAPP for Electronics Manufacturing
eventually. The developed system for the laser reow runs as fol-
lows: After clicking on the Reow tab four buttons are dis-
played on the window. Each of those buttons is labeled with a
different process that could be used in that step. Next the user
selects one of the buttons; we will use Laser. This results in the
parameters for laser reowing being displayed in Fig. 4. Some of
the parameters are Laser Source, Beam Power, and Scan Speed
etc. This particular process provides all of the values in drop-
down lists for the user. Once all the required information is se-
lected the user can click on Evaluate Settings to evaluate the
settings and return the outcome of actually implementing this set
of parameter values in the electronics manufacturing process.
A sample list of the laser attachment knowledge collected by
the author is as follows:
Case 1
Solder Type: Sn-Ag
Laser Power: 40 Watts
Laser Type: Nd:YAG
Scan Rate: 20 & 30 mm/s
Beam Size: 3.05.0 mm
Beam Type: CW
Pitch Size: 25 mil
Number of the Leads: 132
Component: QFP
Height from the PCB: 15 to 25 mm
Quality Output: Good Quality, Reliable Solder Joint
Case 2
Solder Type: Sn-Ag
Laser Power: 30 Watts
Laser Type: Nd:YAG
Scan Rate: 30 & 40 & 50 mm/s
Beam Size: 3.04.0 mm
Beam Type: CW
Pitch Size: 12 mil
Number of the Leads: 64
Component: QFP
Height from the PCB: 5 to 10 mm
Quality Output: Bad Quality, Unreliable Solder Joint
Case 3
Solder Type: Pb-Sn
Laser Power: 15 & 10 Watts
Laser Type: Nd:YAG
Scan Rate: 0.5 & 1.0 & 1.5 mm/s
Beam Size: 3.0 & 5.0 mm
Beam Type: CW
Pitch Size: 12 mil
Number of the Leads: 132
Component: QFP
Height from the PCB: 5 to 10 mm
Quality Output: Bad Quality, Unreliable Solder Joint
Fig. 4 CAPP tool developed for ne pitch SMT laser soldering
Fig. 5 Visual inspection of joints reowed by laser
Journal of Electronic Packaging MARCH 2004, Vol. 126 175
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The knowledge collected and the outcomes of the knowledge
base system developed have been double-checked and bench-
marked with the experimental tests performed at the Iowa Laser
Inc. and UNI Material Testing Lab.
The joints that have solder balls, unformed joints, bridging,
voids, and bent were classied as unreliable as the ones that
have no such things were called reliable. Figure 5 shows some
samples for the reliable and unreliable classication used in
analysis.
5 Results and Benets
Although semi-automated and fully-automated surface mounted
rework stations have been developed in the past, none of them
was able to remove the rework process out of the PCBA line 15.
Now one possible solution is detecting the problems causing the
joint level defects and trying to nd some process level solutions
to obtain high quality, defect-free outcomes 1. In order to ac-
complish this objective the best option is to create an expert
computer-aided process-planning tool. Such a tool contains all the
knowledge needed in surface mount assembly manufacturing and
reduces the defect level to zero eventually. In this new research
initiation, the rst development has been done for the laser attach-
ment since the author had the industrial partners in this eld. The
following list summarizes the benets for this CAPP system for
laser soldering.
The developed system provides a cost-effective means for
assembly line enhancement.
The number of the defects causing scrapped circuit boards is
reduced or totally eliminated.
Quality and productivity increase while reducing the defect
rates.
Cause-and-effect relationships in the knowledge base of
CAPP tool decrease the time spent in new design efforts.
CAPP system could be used for updating the PCBA line pro-
cesses required by new technological advances in electronic de-
signs.
Modular nature of the CAPP increases the system utilization,
allowing the manufacturers to solve specic problems in the
PCBA line.
6 Future Research Directions
This intuitive CAPP system will denitely eliminate the major
problems causing the surface mount rework operation. The other
common reow methods, solder paste dispensing, and new
component placement will be added into the current system in
the future. Cause and effect relationship and the reduction in the
number of the defects will also be tabulated for the CAPPs
justication.
Acknowledgments
This research project was funded by NASA/ISGC. The author
greatly appreciate the technical assistance of Iowa Laser Technol-
ogy, Inc., Cedar Falls, IA, Center for Integrated Electronics and
Electronics Manufacturing, RPI, Troy, NY, and Advanced Innova-
tive Technologies, Inc., Troy, NY. The personnel of UNI Material
Testing Lab are also appreciated for their support of the experi-
mental benchmarking results. Special thanks are also extended to
Alan Lamborn, Dr. Marc Timmerman, and Dr. Recayi Pecen.
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