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By Dan Coada
Abstract
The solder paste printing process is an important process in the assembly of
Surface Mount Technology (SMT) devices using the reflow soldering technique.
There is a wide agreement in the industry that the paste printing process accounts
for the majority of assembly defects. Experience with this process has shown that
typically over 60% of all soldering defects are due to problems associated with the
screening process.
Operation and parameter setup of the stencil printing process are the key elements
when trying to minimize defects. Parameters such as squeegee pressure, squeegee speed,
stencil separation speed, snap-off and stencil cleaning interval are the most important
factors in the process to achieve a better yield.
Introduction
The electronic assembly technology is progressing following the consumer
electronic products demands like light, thin, short, and small goods. Surface-mounted
components are often smaller than their leaded counterparts, and potentially more reliable
products can be designed and manufactured using SMT.
The Surface Mount Technology (SMT) became the mainstream of the modern
electronic assembly industry because reduces the manufacturing cost and it is making
high quality products.
The solder paste stencil printing process is a very critical step in the surface-
mount manufacturing process
In this complex SMT manufacturing environment, many worries appear during
the manufacturing process as a result of the high-density electrical components.
Operation and setup of the stencil printing process are key elements to be
considered when trying to minimize defects.
The main reason for printing solder paste onto the Print Circuit Board (PCB) is to
supply solder alloy for the solder joints. To achieve this objective, the solder paste print
must be aligned correctly, the correct amount of solder paste for each joint must be
present and the print should form an even layer of paste for perfect component
placement. The solder paste on top of the stencil is partly rolled and pressed into the
stencil apertures and onto the PCB solder lands by a moving and angled squeegee. The
squeegee angle must be between 45 to 60 degree (usually not adjustable) and the rolling
solder paste should have a diameter of 15 to 20 millimeter for optimum conditions. Thin
steel and hard as possible squeegees are used for metal stencils. The squeegee printing
edge must be sharp to secure a well-defined print. When using an old worn out squeegee
with rounded printing edge, the squeegee angle is reduced and the solder paste will not
roll as desired
Nowadays, as packages shrink in size and increase in lead count, we see a very
high defect rates (100 to 200 PPM) on 20-mil pitch and below while manufacturing sees
six sigma quality rates on larger pitch components.
The main sources for solder paste stencil printing process defects are stencil,
environment, solder paste, and stencil printing parameter.
This document is using Six-Sigma method DMAIC to improve the process quality
of SMT solder-paste print. We will need to find out the key quality factors and evaluate
the repeatability and reproducibility of the measurement system. After confirming this
capability of the process, we will discover the key factor that affects the process, and then
using Design of Experiments (DOE) we will get the ultimate process parameters.
The specification of the solder-paste printing thickness per IPC standards is
15020m (60.8mils).
As of a result in using DOE we found the best process parameters and the average
of the solder-paste printing thickness was increased from 137.95m (5.43mils)
to144.98m (5.71 mils); Standard Deviation was reduced from 2.22 to 1.31 and Cpk was
improved from 1.16 to 3.16.
Details of Printing Process Parameters
1. Stencil
Metal stencils can be made of different materials. Besides stainless steel, they can
be made of copper, bronze, or nickel.
There are 3 different metal stencil-manufacturing methods:
Etching,
Electroforming and
Laser cutting.
The apertures in both laser-cut and electroformed stencils have very sharp edges
and are slightly conic. This makes the solder paste slip easily off the aperture edges and
thereby secures a uniform print.
The metal stencils are attached to the printing frame using tensioned mesh or
directly using a special frame with gripping systems, which can easily damage the
stencils and thereby resulting in poor printing quality.
The thickness of the metal stencil is typically 150 microns(6mils) but 100(4mils),
125(5mils) and 200(8mils) microns are also available. The thickness is chosen based on
the job in hand.
For very fine pitch such as 0.3 mm lead pitch, 100 or 125-micron stencils could
be used and for lead pitch down to 0.5 mm, 150-micron stencils can be used.
The stencil thickness together with the aperture size determines the amount of
solder paste present to form each solder joint during reflow soldering.
The minimum stencil aperture width must be at least 3 times (preferable 5 times)
the diameter of the largest solder particle and the stencil aperture width is larger than the
stencil thickness.
Rounded aperture corners reduce clogging of fine pitch apertures and smearing.
The top surface of the metal stencil is slightly roughened to achieve a perfect
solder paste roll during printing.
2. Environment
Dust and dirt from the air that ends up on the PCBs and stencils can cause defects
such as bridging and poor wet-ability in the reflow soldering process.
A small piece of fiber or hair between two fine pitch solder pads can easily cause
bridging.
It is very important that the PCBs are stored in sealed packages and if necessary,
cleaned before use.
Air draught in the production area can speed up evaporation of the solvents in the
solder paste and thereby makes the solder paste dry out. High temperature can also make
the solder paste dry out quickly.
If the room temperature in the production area varies a lot, it will be very difficult
to control the printing process because the viscosity of the solder paste changes with the
temperature and the solder paste print will sometimes be perfected and at other times,
paste will slump and result in bridging.
The temperature window should be between 21 25C.
3. Solder Paste
Several paste characteristics must be carefully controlled to achieve optimum
production results.
These include: percent of metal, viscosity, slump, solder balls, flux activity
working life and shelf life.
Squeegee
Pressure Squeegee/Printing
Speed
Squeegee Stencil
angle 45 Aperture
Snap-off
Pad
Solder paste printing completed w/ the board off from the stencil
Separation
Speed
Experiment Design and Result Analysis
1. Experimental Design
Five factors and their actual low and high levels can be chosen for the screening
experiment that might influence both: the average amount of solder paste applied and the
process variability
a. Squeegee pressure; levels (4 and 7 kg).
b. Squeegee speed; levels (30 and 60 mm/s).
c. Snap off; levels (0.1 and 0.1 mm).
d. Separation speed; levels (1 and 5 mm/s).
e. Cleaning internal (Stroke) (5 and 10)
There were also another two potential factors identified: temperature and
humidity but because large variation in these factors could potentially adversely affect the
experimental results was decided to hold these factors constant during the experiment.
Even if all the above factors are controlled, we will pay close attention to the
height of deposited solder paste during process.
For this study a product with the highest failure data from ETMS (EPIC Technologies
Manufacturing Systems) was chosen:
Vocollect1000-5087 Hudson Hydra, lead free, VP reflow
This product will use the existing manufacturing machines / inspection
equipment:
1. A DEK INFINITY solder printing machine ( model year 2000)
2. EM907 Kester no clean lead free solder paste (EPIC # 1601-0955)
3. A CyberOptics LSM ( Laser Section Microscope) that measures deposited
solder paste thickness
4. An OMEGA i -Server MicroServer TM networked device which monitors
the level of temperature and humidity to be constant in the plant.
Information of the PCB board
(CAD file, Gerber file: overall size, thickness, fiducial locations)
Component placement
OK
No Good
Scrapped Packaging
PCB Loader, Solder Paste Printer, Glue Machine Chip Shooters (Component Placement Machines) Reflow Oven
INPUT OUTPUT
Process
2. Input (Inputs) -provides the process information and materials in the consumption or
conversion.
This soldering print study is for the printed circuit board assembly Vocollect 1000-
5087 Hudson Hydra, lead free:
0.062-inch panels
EPIC recommendations for nominal solder thickness per IPC standards
is 150m or 5.9 mils (max 170m or 6.7 mils and min 130m or 5.2
mils).
Measurement method:
Printing Samples
Operator Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 134.67 135.46 133.75 133.6 134.44 134.29 133.07 136.61 133.02 132.92
2 134.68 135.48 133.62 133.29 134.47 134.19 133.04 136.47 132.87 133.06
A 3 134.67 135.53 133.73 133.31 134.29 134.21 133.02 136.36 133.05 132.94
1 134.69 135.46 133.70 133.58 134.34 134.11 132.99 136.58 133.03 132.94
2 134.77 135.58 133.69 133.53 134.39 134.31 133.02 136.48 133.05 132.97
B 3 134.85 135.54 133.49 133.49 134.42 134.16 133.00 136.40 133.07 132.99
1 134.68 135.55 133.75 133.45 134.40 134.20 133.02 136.22 132.89 132.84
2 134.91 135.44 133.56 133.76 134.48 134.11 133.13 136.32 132.95 132.92
C 3 134.56 135.40 133.65 133.73 134.33 134.28 133.08 136.29 132.91 132.97
It is assumed that main factor A has a levels (and A = a-1 df), main factor B has b
levels (and B = b-1 df), n is the sample size of each printing, and N = abn is the total
sample size. The overall degrees of freedom df is one less than the total sample size.
We use the Gage R & R analysis to determine the uncertainty of our measurement
system before we can compare, control or optimize our printing processes.
a. REPEATABILITY is the variation obtained from LSM and one operator
when measuring the same solder height several times.
b. REPRODUCIBILITY is the difference in the average measurements
made by different operators using the same LSM when measuring the
same solder height.
c. As it can be seen below the solder print height measurement change is
8.41 %< 10% which indicates a good measurement with the LSM
% Contribution
Source VarComp (of VarComp)
Total Gage R&R 0.00948 0.71
Repeatability 0.00759 0.57
Reproducibility 0.00189 0.14
Operators 0 0
Op*P/N 0.00189 0.14
Part-To-Part 1.3298 99.29
Total Variation 1.33927 100
(Unit: m; 1m=0.039mils)
Solder Solder Solder Solder Solder
paste paste paste paste paste
Thickness Thickness Thickness Thickness Thickness
No. No. No. No. No.
1 135.8 11 137.2 21 137.9 31 136.7 41 133.4
2 142.3 12 136.4 22 134.6 32 135.8 42 138.4
3 136.9 13 138.5 23 137.6 33 140.7 43 141.4
4 138.5 14 137.4 24 138.6 34 139.9 44 137.3
5 136.4 15 140.2 25 135.9 35 139.9 45 136.5
6 140.8 16 140.5 26 134.7 36 140.6 46 139.2
7 138.4 17 138.3 27 138.4 37 140.8 47 137.8
8 135.2 18 135.7 28 137.6 38 138.9 48 137.5
9 140.1 19 136.3 29 134.9 39 138.3 49 135.5
10 136.4 20 137.1 30 144.2 40 140.4 50 135.7
Process Improvement
(1m=0.039mils)
Average Value Std Deviation Cpk
Solder Paste
Thickness 137.95m 2.22 m 1.16
The potential variables that are impacting the printing process would be:
a. Blades Material
b. Blade angles
c. Blade speed
d. Squeegee pressure
The SMT solder paste printing process takes place in a fully controlled
environment: 23 1C, 50 5% RH,
Cause-and-Effect Diagram
Measurements Material
The DOE steps are defined as identifying the response or output, identifying factors
for the study, determination of factor levels and range of factor setting, choice of
appropriate experimental design, run the experiment, collect and analyze the data,
draw conclusion and act on the results. These steps can be summarized and
used as a strategy in designing, performing and analyzing experiment.
General Linear Model: solder paste thickness versus blade material, squeegee angles, squeegee speed, squeegee pressure
30mm/sec, 45 30mm/sec, 60
Blade Type
Solder
Paste
Thickness
60mm/sec, 45 60mm/sec, 60
4 kg 7 kg
Squeegee Pressure
Squeegee variables: blade speed, blade angles
The results indicate that Squeegee Pressure, Squeegee angles, Squeegee speed have a
result of the P value <0.05 therefore because the interaction is not significant, we will
delete one the factors and keep the effect of the other three factors.
Pareto Chart of the Standardized Effects
(Response is Solder Paste Thickness, Alpha = .05)
Squeegee Pressure
Blade Angles
Blade Speed
Estimated Effects and Coefficients for Solder Paste Thickness
In the normal map P test value is greater than 0.05, so the configuration model is in line
with the assumptions.
In order to find the optimum conditions we draw the main factor effect diagram and
interaction effect.
In this experiment that results in three main factor maps (Factorial plots), we can observe:
1. If the squeegee pressure is lower, the solder paste thickness is minimum
2. Greater the squeegee blade angles, higher the solder paste thickness.
3. The use of a lower speed for the squeegee blade allows higher solder paste
thickness.
Main Effects Plot (data means) for Solder Paste Thickness
Squeegee Pressure Blade Speed
Blade Angles
45 60 75
Based on experimental results, we have decided that the best factor level settings are:
Squeegee material electroform ( E-form)
Squeegee blade angles - 75
Squeegee speed - 5 mm/s
Squeegee pressure - 11 kg
Snap off (0.1 mm)- constant
Separation speed ( 1 mm/s)- constant
Cleaning internal (5 Internal) constant
Temperature and Humidity 23 1C, 50 5% RH -constant in the plant
In the same time the use of MINITAB statistical software analysis of the surface
regression model estimated that the regression model for the solder paste thickness is:
y = 6.32153 +1565.97 X1 +0.1297 X2-0.0112879X3,
where X1 is squeegee pressure; X2 squeegee angle and X3 is the squeegee blade speed
The contour map drawing verifies that the above settings are the best solder paste printing
parameters.
2. Verification and Validity
Control phase
Two solder paste printed samples were taken every half an hour. The settings for the
screen printing are the ones shown above.
As it can be seen the P value> 0.05 is in line with the normal distribution of data.
The data resulted from the process is stable and in line with the assumption of normal
distribution:
The average paste thickness 144.98m
Standard deviation is 1.31m,
The process ability indicators Cpk = 3.16.
Solder Solder Solder Solder Solder
Paste Paste Paste Paste Paste
No. Thickness No. Thickness No. Thickness No. Thickness No. Thickness
1 144.9 11 146.8 21 145.1 31 145.4 41 143.9
2 145.6 12 145.7 22 145.6 32 143.4 42 147.6
3 143.6 13 149.9 23 143.4 33 145.7 43 144.2
4 144.7 14 144.1 24 145.6 34 144.2 44 143.9
5 145.6 15 143.1 25 144.6 35 145.2 45 145.6
6 144.6 16 146.2 26 143.5 36 144.8 46 144.5
7 142.8 17 144.9 27 145.6 37 143.7 47 143.6
8 146.6 18 145.6 28 144.9 38 146.7 48 144.7
9 144.7 19 142.8 29 143.5 39 145.9 49 145.8
10 145.6 20 145.8 30 146.2 40 144.2 50 144.5
Figure 4.17 after the solder paste process to improve the thickness normal machine rate
plans
In order to maintain the process stability and the process performance, we need to
monitor the process by using the process control chart and sample measure daily the
solder paste thickness deposits for the product we chose for our experiment.
The results of the experimental process compared with the initial status quo shows that
the average solder paste deposit thickness increased significantly reducing the standard
deviation.
Comparison of the process improvement before and after