Agilent SJ50, Automated Optical Inspection
Agilent SJ50 Automated Optical Inspection
Control your process and stay local
With the current discussions on the migration of European manufacturing to Asia, it's refreshing to hear about a successful European company with no plans to relocate. Netherlands based company Prodrive believes it is possible to stay local to your customers, the secret is to control your manufacturing costs and this means controlling your processes..
Agilent SP50 Automated Optical Inspection
Prodrive's founders, Pieter Janssen and Hans Verhagen formed the company in 1993. With a strong engineering background in Digital Signal Processing and Power Electronics the aim was to provide a range of design services to companies requiring products that could benefit from these two technologies. Since its inception the company has successfully applied its expertise by developing innovative products in the areas of image processing and motion control. The company now works with some of the major European companies involved in semiconductor and medical equipment and industrial electronics.
The company's aim was always to provide a total solution to meet its customers' needs and this meant taking on the responsibility for design, production and service. By implementing its own manufacturing capability the company believed it could have the control it needed to provide a rapid prototyping service and the consistent quality that its customers demanded. By linking
engineering and production expertise Prodrive can offer its customers a complete solution that meets their cost of goods targets with guaranteed time schedules and product warranties at an agreed cost.
The overriding objective set for the manufacturing process was to achieve consistent and high levels of quality. To do this the company decided from day one to invest in the latest manufacturing technology and to try and achieve as far as possible a hands-off environment. This dictated an in-line process using automated equipment at each process stage and building in Statistical Process Control (SPC) from
As Pieter Janssen comments, “Starting from a 'green field site' gave us the opportunity to design our manufacturing process from zero, we could set our own objectives for what was to be achieved and then implement based on these” Hans Verhagen adds ”We wanted a leading edge
manufacturing facility that could deliver the quality and flexibility our customers demanded. To get the very best you need to talk to the very best and we deliberately chose to work with suppliers with the strongest capabilities and reputations”
Automation was key to the company's manufacturing plans in order to give it the quality, productivity and flexibility it required. The company operates in what can be described as a high mix, low volume environment with typical run sizes of just 20 boards per product type. The ability to rapidly change from one type of board to another is
essential - especially as Prodrive uses its manufacturing line for prototype production as well.
Design for manufacture and design for test has a strong role to play in ensuring this quality and productivity. By maximising the use of common components, the company can draw many advantages in logistics, production and support. By building in Boundary Scan capabilities into each board the company can facilitate the functional test stage. By using bar code identification on each board the correct choice of process parameter or test plan can be automated with no operator intervention required.
DFM and DFT require strong interaction between design engineering and production engineering and by having total control of its projects from inception to product end of life Prodrive can achieve this. Production engineering staff are intimately involved in the design process during prototyping and the SPC methodology means that feedback is constantly available from manufacturing to design as the boards progress through their production cycle. An additional benefit of this approach is that prototype production can be used as a direct verification of the production process. Prodrive's manufacturing process starts with the receipt of bare boards from its supplier. Barcodes are attached to these and they then move to solder paste screen-printing. There are three SMT pick and place systems and a 7 stage re-flow oven. Following SMT assembly any through-hole components are attached to the board and these are wave soldered using a lead-free process. Finally there is an electrical test stage.
However, electrical test is not the only testing incorporated into the production flow. In designing its manufacturing process Prodrive was very aware of the limitations of final electrical test as a sorter of good boards from bad. For an effective quality management and SPC environment the process has to be monitored early and consistently. Prodrive selected from the start to incorporate in-line process test. An Agilent SP50 is used after solder paste application and an Agilent SJ50 is used after SMT assembly.
The Agilent SP50 is a high-speed in-line solder paste inspection system designed for SMT manufacturing. The system provides highly accurate and repeatable
measurements through 100 percent 3-dimensional inspection of solder deposits while providing reliable statistical process control outputs. The Agilent SJ50 is an industry-leading automated optical inspection systems with the flexibility to be used for paste, pre-flow and post-reflow inspection. The system provides very high call accuracy minimising the incidence of false failures.
Both Agilent systems fully support Prodrive's vision of a fully automated SPC-enabled manufacturing environment. All test routines for the two systems are stored in a database and the barcode identification on each board is used to ensure that the correct test plan is being used. The systems report their results to Prodrive's proprietary quality database so that process performance can be monitored constantly. Displays on the production line showing 1 pass yields and quality metrics are updated in real-time from the quality system. Metrics such as first pass yield give direct and instant feedback to the production team to allow them to continuously optimise the production performance.
The Agilent test systems provide a comprehensive structural test regime to ensure process parameters are kept under control. In addition to the process related test steps a test philosophy based on a combination of Flying Probe, JTAG and functional test is applied. The DFM ethos at the company means that all boards are designed with Boundary Scan to facilitate final functional test.
The key motivator for this decision is to ensure long-term product quality and reliability. Prodrive's products are becoming larger and more complex and the introduction of lead-free soldering is narrowing the process window.
The results achieved at Prodrive are impressive especially considering the complex technology and the high mix and low volume nature of its business. Total employees at the company number around 50 and only 5 of these are on the production line. First pass yields are greater than 95% and process defects are less than 10 ppm.
This level of performance gives direct benefits to the overall business model of the company and its customers. As Janssen comments “Quality is non-optional for us. Achieving a flexible manufacturing facility with
consistently high levels of quality benefits the company and its customers. By minimising operator intervention and eliminating the need for significant rework we can drive down our manufacturing costs and this feeds through directly to our customers by allowing us to offer more competitive and more cost-effective solutions.”
Verhagen has another take on this. When recently asked whether Prodrive had any intention of relocating to Asia, he responded, “Other than being close to Asian customers, there is no reason for us to relocate. Most companies go for lower costs. We have already achieved this. By controlling our processes we can minimise our costs here in Europe and that means we can stay where our
customers want us to be close to them”
Prodrive's latest investment is in an Agilent 5DX X-Ray inspection system.
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Data subject to change without notice. © Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2003 Printed in the U.S.A.
December 16, 2003 United States: Canada: Europe: Latin America: Asia Pacific: 5989-0732EN www.agilent.com/see/pcb
