FUNDAMENTAL OF BOARD

ASSEMBLY

DR DEWI SURIYANI CHE HALIN

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 Chapter Objectives
1. Understanding the assembly process, which
typically involves mounting components on
wiring board and soldering lead to that
board.
2. Comparison the surface mount assembly and
through-hole assembly.
3. Describe generic assembly issues.

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 Chapter Outlines
• What Is a Printed Wiring Board?
• Surface Mount Technology
• Through Hole Assembly
• Generic Assembly Issues
• Summary and Future Trends

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What Is a Printed Wiring Board (PWB)
Assembly?
• Is the process of building functional electronic systems
from individual electrical components where the
assembly process typically involves mounting
component on wiring board and soldering their leads.
• Purpose of PWB:
– Providing electrical connections between the different
components.
– For component heat transfer where heat can be
dissipated.
• Two main PWB assembly process:
Change due to
component
Through-hole size reduction Surface Mount
assembly Assembly
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Printed Wiring Board Assembly

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 Assembly: Through Hole Versus Surface Mount

• Through hole assembly is achieved by inserting the leads of the components into plated holes in
the board.
• While surface mount assembly, the components are placed on the surface of the boards.
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Surface Mount Technology

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 Surface Mount Technology (SMT)
• SMT replaces through-hole by surface mount
components.
• The assembly is soldered by reflow (vapor
phase/infrared/convection) and/or wave
soldering processes if there is a mix of surface
mount and through-hole mount components.

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 Surface Mount Assembly
Placing Heating entire
Stencil-printing
component on assembly (reflow
solder paste
board soldering)
General process of Surface Mount Assembly

Example of Surface Mount Assembly Line

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 The Benefits of SMT
1. Reduction in package size resulting in greater
functionality in the same board area
2. Reduction in weight. Mobile and handheld electronic
items such as video camera, cellular telephone are
examples which have low weight and high
performance.
3. Reduction in noise, this is primarily due to smaller
electrical paths compared to leaded components. This
feature is very useful in microwave circuits where low
noise contribution is mandatory.
4. Higher operating speed resulting from shorter
interconnect distances

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 Component packages commonly
used:
• The surface mount components (SMC) also see
much higher temperatures during soldering. They
must be designed with this requirement.
• SMCs may be broadly divided into passive and
active components.
• Passive components is used for analog circuits
and are wave soldered. Passive components have
terminations instead of leads and considerably
smaller. Examples of passive components are
such as resistors, capacitors, inductors and
diodes.

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 Component packages commonly used
(cont’):
• Active components are divided in two main categories of chip carriers:
ceramic and plastic. The plastic chip carriers are primarily used in
commercial applications. The ceramic packages provide hermetic seals
(are airtight seals that prevent the invasion of oxygen, moisture, humidity,
and any outside contaminant to enter the sealed package) and are used
primarily in military applications as they are more expensive.
• When attached to PBs, both active and passive SMCs form three major
types of SMT assemblies, commonly referred to as Type 1, Type II, and
Type III.

An example of an active
component in surface
mount plastic leaded chip
carrier configuration (PLCC)
and its conventional leaded
equivalent EBT483: Advanced Electronic Packaging,
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 Types of SMT
Type I
• The type I assembly
contains only surface mount
components.
• The assembly can be either
single sided or double
sided.

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 Type III
• The type III SMT assembly
contains only discrete
surface mount components
(resistors, capacitors and
transistors) glued to the
bottom side.

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 Type II
• The type II is the
combination of type I and
III.
• It generally does not contain
any active surface mount
devices on the bottom side
but may contain discrete
surface mount components
glued to the bottom side.

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 Solder-Paste Printing
• Screen printing is an old technique used since
6th century, mostly printing paint on paper
cloth. A screen is made by polymer film supported
(and actually filled) by a fine mesh.
Screen Has openings through which paint is pressed
and transferred.
Printing Screen printing cannot be used for solder
paste printing of fine patterns, a stencil is
commonly used.
squeegee

The Screen
Printing Process

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 STENCILS
• A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper,
plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from
it, used to produce the letters or design on an
underlying surface by applying pigment through
the cut-out holes in the material.
• The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be
reused to repeatedly and rapidly produce the
same letters or design.
• The design produced with a stencil is also called a
stencil.
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• Usually made of nickel, nickel-plated brass,
stainless steel or plastic.
• Thickness ranges from 4-8mil (0.1-0.2mm).
• Methods in producing stencils are chemically
etched, laser cut and electroformed.

Loading The Stencils

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 • Use a stencil which is a thin sheet of metal which has
a pattern of holes through which solder paste is
pushed by squeegee onto desired place.
• Allows smaller openings than screen and far more
accurate.
Stencil • The process depends on the interaction of several
Printing factors:
– the stencil and squeegee
– the board material and pad design
– the physical properties of the solder paste
– the printing operation (squeegee pressure and speed).
• If one of these factors is incorrect, printing quality
will be poor.
Board is fixed by Board is then
vacuum or Use squeegee lowered
Solder paste is Stencil to push and from the
mechanically to a
added to the Alignment wipe solder stencil then
flat plate then a
stencil paste sent for next
stencil is placed on
top. process
The Solder Paste Printing Process

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Stencil Printing

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Stencils From Different
Manufacturing Methods

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 Chemically Etched
• Usually produced either from brass (which may
subsequently be nickel plated) or from an
etchable grade of stainless steel. Stainless steel is
more expensive, but has improved durability.
• Etching is the least expensive manufacturing
method.
• Etching is also the least accurate method in terms
of aperture positioning, and it is difficult to
produce a quality stencil with openings for
components with pitches smaller than 0.5mm.
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 Manufacturing steps
for chemically etched
stencils

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 Laser Cut
• The laser cutting operation is carried out from the
bottom side of the stencil (board-side during
printing), to ensure that the slight taper
introduced by the cutting process opens out
towards the board.
• Size and positioning are very accurate, and laser
cutting can be used for component lead pitches
down to 0.3mm.
• Stencil can be cut from measurements of an
actual board, rather than the artwork from which
it was generated

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Manufacturing steps
for laser cut stencils

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 Electroformed
• Electroformed stencils are made of nickel, by an ‘additive’ electrochemical
process.
• The advantage of this type of stencil is the extreme smoothness of the
aperture walls which results in easier flow of the paste into the aperture
during printing, and possibly lower adhesion of the paste to the walls
during release. A slight tapering of the stencil walls is also present.

Steps:
1. Photoresist is applied to a metal base plate and exposed through a
photoplot of the aperture pattern.
2. After processing, a resist pattern is left only where apertures are
required.
3. A plating process builds up nickel to the required thickness around the
resist areas. The resist is removed and the electroformed stencil
separated from the metal base.

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Manufacturing steps
for an electroformed
stencil

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 Solder paste
• Consists of small solder spheres, flux and solvent.
• It is a thick gray paste with viscosity close to that a toothpaste.
• Solder pastes are separated into types according to its solder
sphere diameter.
• The higher numbers have smaller solder spheres and are
more suitable for fine pitch devices.
Type Solder Sphere Diameter
Type 1 75-150um
Type 2 45-75um
Type 3 20-45um
Type 4 20-36um
Type 5 15-25um
Type 6 5-15um

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 Pick and Place
• Component assembly is almost always automated
where equipment used are commonly called pick-and-
place machines.
• Component assembly starts with the board being
transported into the machine on a conveyor and fixed
in position. Next a camera is moved over the board to
find the marks use for optical alignment. These marks
are called fiducial.
• The accuracy of the mechanical alignment of the board
is not good enough for assembly of fine pitch
components, and this is why optical alignment is used.

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Board Fiducials

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 Pick and Place (cont’)
Optical Alignment

• Optical alignment means that the component is presented to a

camera and from the image retrieved, the center of component can
be calculated.
• The placement machine is programmed to know approximately
where to look for the fiducials and when it reaches that position, it
begins to search for an expected image.
• Once all fiducials are found, the machine can calculate X, Y and θ
offsets then a vacuum nozzle is used to lift the component up from
its feeder and transport it to the correct position.
• This is done automatically while moving the component between
pick-up and placement positions.

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Mechanical Centering Versus Optical
Alignment

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 Pick and Place (cont’)
• Machines used for pick and place small components
like resistors, capacitors or inductors are called chip-
shooters.
• It is very fast and have moderate placement accuracy.
• Assembly machines for fine pitch and larger sized
components have better accuracy than chip-shooters
and have more flexibility but slower.
• Types of chip-shooter:
1. Turret Head Chip Shooter
2. Revolver Head Chip Shooter
3. Multimodule Chip Shooter
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 Turret Head Chip-Shooter

• Has a fixed component placement position and the board

moves on an XY table.
• The turret head is a horizontally rotating drum, which has a
number of nozzles around the periphery.
• The components feeders are mounted on a moving
carriage, which transports the next component to be picked
up to the nozzle at the pick up position.

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 Revolver Head Chip-Shooter

• It has a number of nozzles pointing outwards, mounted on

a vertical wheal. The wheel is carried by a Cartesian robot
between the component feeders.
• Centering, component rotation etc., take place on the
revolver head while moving.
• Neither the PWB nor the feeders move during assembly.

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 Multimodule Chip-Shooter

• It has several pick-and-place modules, packed together

to form one machine.
• This type utilizes a number of robots in parallel.
• The feeders do not move during the assembly but the
PWB is moved forward in steps so that all parts of the
board can be reached during pick-and-place.
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 Definition of Co-planarity

• Defined as the variation in height of components leads.

• The coplanarity must be less than the solder paste
height for all leads to be soldered.
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 Fine Pitch Surface Mount Assembly
Challenges:
1. Smaller apertures in solder-paste printing,
requiring smaller powder sizes in the solder-
paste and thinner screen stencils to avoid
clogging in the apertures.
2. Tighter process control in screen-printing and
more careful choice of process materials and
process parameters.
3. More difficult pick up and handling of the small
components, and the need for better placement
accuracy for the pick-and-place machines.
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Through-Hole Assembly

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Advantages of Through Hole Assembly
• It is used for large and heavy components due to its
strong mechanical fastening to the board.
• It is also beneficial for components that are exposed to
large dynamic forces such as connectors that are
frequently plugged in and out.
• It is also necessary to be used for large current.
• Typical example: power supply units which have heavy
transformers and coils, large connectors and large
currents.
• Most through hole components can be separated into
these groups: axial. Radial and dual in line (DIL or DIP).
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Different Through-Hole Component Types: (a) Axial, (b)
Radial; and (c) Dual-in-line-package (DIP)

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 Component Insertion
• Through hole assembly is done by inserting the
components leads into plated holes in the PWB
and soldering them.
• The soldering can be performed using either a
wave soldering machine, a selective soldering
system or a common solder iron.
• Components can be fixed in their position before
soldering by clinching the leads on the backside
of board.
• Component insertion can be either manual or
automatically.
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 Component insertion (cont’)
• When doing manual assembly, reversible
fixtures are sometimes used in order to access
both sides of boards. First, the components
are mounted then the lid of the fixture is
closed and the board can be turned over for
cutting of the leads or for soldering without
components falling out.
• Automated assembly can be separated into
axial, radial and DIL insertion.

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Axial Insertion

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 Wave Soldering
• Is the most common soldering method for through hole assembly.
• Unlike reflow soldering, wave soldering both applies the solder, and
provides the necessary heat for the solder joint to form.
• The assembled boards are usually placed in a fixture and that
fixture carries the boards through the wave soldering machine.
• The fixture with the board travels through a fluxing station, preheat
zone, solder wave and cleaning depend on type of flux used.
• Passing the solder wave, the bottom side of the boards just
touching the solder and all components leads get soldered in one
pass.

Wave Soldering Machine

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 Press Fit Assembly
• Apart from surface mount and through hole
technology, there is also a technique called
press-fit.
• A press fit connection between a PWB and a
connector pin is made by pressing the pin into
a plated through hole of the PWB.
• The fundamental idea is the pin must have
larger diameter than the hole.

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 Generic Board Assembly Issue
Additive Materials
• Additive materials can include flux, conductive
adhesive, non conductive adhesive, thermally
conductive grease, conductive film or other tape.
• Conductive are usually thermally curable epoxies, filled
with conductive particles for example silver.
• The advantages of being lead free and does not have
high processing temperature as solder.
• The disadvantages are that there is no self alignment of
the components. It is also difficult to match the
thermal, mechanical and electrical performance of
solder.

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Cleaning
• Cleaning is done to remove contamination on board assemblies
that might cause corrosion or hinder the soldering process causing
assembly yields to go down.
• In high volume production, the use of no clean fluxes means big
cost saving and time saving since the cleaning step can be excluded.
The no clean fluxes are soluble in organic liquids and do not
normally require any washing after soldering.
• Aqueous cleaning is needed for water soluble flux. Water soluble
flux used in this process leaves residues that require washing
immediately after soldering to prevent corrosion.
• Semi-aqueous cleaning: The big difference from pure aqueous
cleaning is that the assembly is 1st cleaned with an organic solvent
before water rinse. Ultrasonic sound waves can help in cleaning but
in some cases, the ultrasonic treatment might have a negative
impact on the reliability of high performance devices.

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Rework and Repair
• The choice of tool to use for rework is very much
dependent on which type of component is to be
replaced.
• Most components from small chip resistors to rather
big flatpack components can be replaced with standard
soldering iron or thermal tweezers.
• The tool must be chosen so that no thermal or
mechanical damage or degradation is caused to any
traces, solder pads or other components on boards.
• For more advanced SMDs including BGAs and flip chip
require hot gas or IR rework system for removal and
replacement.

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(a) Standard Soldering Iron, (b) a Hot-gas Tool
and (c) Thermal Tweezers

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Electrostatic Discharge
• An electrostatic discharge is achieved when two
materials are rubbed against each other or two
materials are separated.
• Even if the discharge is not harmful to humans,
the high voltage and power can easily damage a
component or assembly.
• The effect of ESD is something that is not easy to
prove. In worst case, ESD damage cannot be
detected in production but it will show up much
later out in the field when customer uses the
product.

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Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)
Sensitive Material or Product

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 Summary and Future Trends
• High expectations on increased performance, decreased size, weight and
cost, in combination with tough competition are powerful drivers for the
future development of electronic assembly.
• Flip Chip: One promising techniques. Main benefits of FC are minimal size,
low cost for ICs package and potentially good electrical performance due
to the short signal paths.
• Challenges to overcome when using FC on glass-fiber reinforced epoxy
boards, is the coefficient thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between
silicon die and board material. Other challenges are high placement
accuracy due to fine pitch and added cost due to additional cost.
• Integral Passive Components: Integral passive devices are resistors,
capacitors and inductances. The use of integral passive devices instead of
discrete components have a large impact on future electronic assembly if
they become common.
• Environment: Eliminating toxic lead by using lead free solders is one way
of protecting environment. Recycling of electronic products is also starting
to catch on.

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 THANK YOU
FOR LENDING ME YOUR EARS

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