-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- pcb007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueThe Growing Industry
In this issue of PCB007 Magazine, we talk with leading economic experts, advocacy specialists in Washington, D.C., and PCB company leadership to get a well-rounded picture of what’s happening in the industry today. Don’t miss it.
The Sustainability Issue
Sustainability is one of the most widely used terms in business today, especially for electronics and manufacturing but what does it mean to you? We explore the environmental, business, and economic impacts.
The Fabricator’s Guide to IPC APEX EXPO
This issue previews many of the important events taking place at this year's show and highlights some changes and opportunities. So, buckle up. We are counting down to IPC APEX EXPO 2024.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - pcb007 Magazine
Selective Solder Mask Deposition by Inkjet
February 25, 2019 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
At IPC APEX EXPO 2019, I spoke with Joost Valeton, product manager for PiXDRO inkjet printing equipment with Meyer Burger, about their newly configured inkjet printer for PCB applications, and bringing awareness to opportunities using selective solder mask deposition.
Pete Starkey: I’m here at IPC APEX EXPO 2019 in San Diego, California, with Joost Valeton from Meyer Burger. Joost, you're launching a new inkjet printer. Is it specifically aimed at the PCB market?
Joost Valeton: In this configuration, yes.
Starkey: Can you give us a brief description of the equipment?
Valeton: Absolutely. At Meyer Burger, we have our JETx platform for volume production. For this specific application—solder mask printing for rigid PCBs—we have defined a configuration for an 18-inch x 24-inch panel size. It comes with the number of print heads and the ink supply we believe is required for this application. It's a new configuration from our well-established product family (Figure 1).
Figure 1: PiXDRO JETx-M, an IPC APEX EXPO 2019 award-winning product.
Starkey: So, this equipment is not new to Meyer Burger. You are experts in producing inkjet equipment and have chosen the characteristics of this particular machine to suit printed circuit application?
Valeton: Exactly. We identified the benefits of doing digital additive manufacturing production of solder mask, and we've looked at the requirements for such a tool in terms of resolution, feature sizes, product size, etc. We've come up with this configuration as a first launching tool in this market. This solution is suited for fast product adjustments and prototyping for PCB manufacturers serving high-tech industries, such as automotive, medical, and aerospace.
Starkey: From your position, are you an equipment supplier and have you cooperated with manufacturers of the consumable materials?
Valeton: Yes. The ink is a huge part of course. As you know, solder mask has specific requirements for the material it has to conform to—not just in color—and for that reason, we work with material suppliers. We mostly work with Agfa from Belgium—who is very close to us, which is convenient—to develop so that we match the performance of the print heads, which for us are also a consumable. We don't build those ourselves; we integrate them. In this case, we have integrated print heads of a well-known supplier. Together with Agfa, we have developed a formulation that matches very well with the characteristics of these print heads.
Starkey: I have been following the development of the market for inkjet printing technology in printed circuit manufacturing for many years. I think that the most difficult objective to realize has been solder mask mainly because solder mask is subject to so many qualifications and standards, customer, and OEM approvals. In my experience, two properties have tended to mutually exclusive. If a formulation were to jet successfully, it would be unlikely to meet qualification requirements. Meanwhile, if it were to meet qualification requirements, it would be unlikely to jet successfully. In the past, a lot of very optimistic claims had been made and then not realized, which made the market a bit apprehensive. But I feel that in the last five years, we've seen a gradual building of confidence in this technology. We have seen several inks reach the stage both of being processable with the equipment and of qualifying to the acceptance standards.
Valeton: Print-head technology has evolved enormously in recent years. Now, with the emergence of silicon MEMS print-head technology, we are finally getting the performance required for demanding applications like solder mask. You're absolutely right that material development has taken a large leap, and we now have a material that can be printed very well and also meets IPC standards on outgassing and all others. The new PiXDRO JETx-M inkjet printer offers unbeatable benefits very specific to these stringent requirements, as smallest droplets of two pL for best-in-class resolution and accuracy eliminate photo and development processes. PiXDRO JETx-M is also environmentally friendly, drastically reducing energy consumption and chemical waste while also conserving water usage (Figure 2).
Figure 2: PiXDRO solder mask best-in-class with smallest droplets.
Starkey: Now that I have the opportunity to see some examples of PCBs that have been coated with solder mask using your equipment, perhaps I had been a little complacent in presuming that I understood the current state-of-the-art technology. I've seen examples where you can selectively print in various areas of the PCB while some areas have been left uncoated, with various thicknesses for different purposes, or very fine and high-resolution features.
Valeton: Of course, the benefit of an additive process is the ability to apply the material only where you need it to be. Traditional processes would cover the entire board and remove it just where you don't want it to be. In an additive process, you can apply only where you want it, realizing substantial material savings. As a further bonus of inkjet, by changing the resolution, you can apply various amounts of material across a board in a single print job. For example, if you have a high-voltage application with a high breakdown voltage requirement for your solder mask, you can do that as opposed to the opportunity to save material by printing on other parts of the board where you don't have such stringent requirements. In older techniques, you would need to coat a uniform thickness all over the board (Figure 3).
Furthermore, it gives new possibilities where also I think the industry needs to get an understanding of what this new technology can mean for them such as including different functionalities with a QR code in the solder mask layer for product tracking. Before, it required a separate step because it was not a digital technique. You could not apply it. You would apply solder mask over the entire board so you couldn't even do it in that respect.
Page 1 of 2
Suggested Items
Connect the Dots: Designing for Reality—The Pre-Manufacturing Process
05/08/2024 | Matt Stevenson -- Column: Connect the DotsI have been working with Nolan Johnson on a podcast series about designing PCBs for the reality of manufacturing. By sharing lessons learned over a long career in the PCB industry, we hope to shorten learning curves and help designers produce better boards with less hassle and rework. Episode 2 deals with the electronic pre-manufacturing process. Moving from CAD (computer-aided design) to CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) is a key step in PCB manufacturing. CAM turns digital designs into instructions that machines can use to actually build the PCB.
AIM Solder Signs Shinil Fl Ltd. as New Distributor for Korea
05/08/2024 | AIM SolderAIM Solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, is pleased to announce a new distribution partnership with Shinil Fl Ltd., a prominent supplier of technological solutions in the SMT and semiconductor sectors.
Indium Corporation to Showcase HIA Materials at ECTC
05/07/2024 | Indium CorporationAs an industry leader in innovative materials solutions for semiconductor packaging and assembly, Indium Corporation® will feature its advanced products designed to meet the evolving challenges of heterogeneous integration and assembly (HIA) and fine-pitch system-in-package (SiP) applications at the 74th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), May 28‒31, in Denver, Colorado.
Indium Corporation Expert to Present on Pb-Free Solder for Die-Attach in Discrete Power Applications
04/30/2024 | Indium CorporationIndium Corporation Product Manager – Semiconductor Dean Payne will present at the Advanced Packaging for Power Electronics conference, hosted by IMAPS, held May 8-9 in Woburn, Massachusetts, USA.
Taiyo Circuit Automation Installs New DP3500 into Fuba Printed Circuits, Tunisia
04/25/2024 | Taiyo Circuit AutomationTaiyo Circuit Automation is proud to be partnered with Fuba Printed Circuits, Tunisia part of the OneTech Group of companies, a leading printed circuit board manufacturer based out of Bizerte, Tunisia, on their first installation of Taiyo Circuit Automation DP3500 coater.