-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
ASTER Collaborates with IPC and Keysight to Demonstrate Full CFX Support at productronica
November 5, 2019 | ASTER TechnologiesEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
ASTER Technologies, a leading provider of high-level software tools for optimizing PCB Assembly and Test, announces a series of innovations designed to stimulate adoption of the IPC Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) standard by the electronic manufacturing industry.
IPC-CFX, as part of the Connected Factory Initiative, is a consensus-based standard, for “plug & play”, omnidirectional, Industrial IoT (IIoT) data exchange, across all vendors. It connects every process: automated, semi-automated and manual, to enable smart, digital, computerized Industry 4.0 operations. It, therefore, reduces the number of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) to one, providing a single interface connection to Enterprise Systems.
This year at Productronica Munich, the Connected Factory Initiative task group, pulls the entire industry together to showcase real-time standardized IoT machine data collection and monitoring, powered by CFX. The SMT & Assembly CFX data monitoring demonstration line comprises of; PCB handler, oven, screen printer, solder paste inspection, optical inspection and in-circuit tester. Each machine publishes its own activities, using CFX messaging. State-of-the-art software such as ASTER’s QUAD® analyses the CFX messages and generates real-time analytical reports, such as OEE (overall equipment effectiveness), unit counts, and First Pass Yield (FPY).
QUAD (QUality ADvisor) is a software suite built around a centralized database for optimizing and streamlining the collaboration between different disciplines to improve productivity, quality and reliability. It has been designed to provide traceability of any board /systems electronic production data. It offers powerful support for PCBA fault diagnosis and collects board repair data, for paperless repair. QUAD provides access to detailed information in real-time, that can be presented clearly and precisely using advanced reporting. By providing an open data viewing software environment, it allows real time monitoring of manufacturing issues to improve yield. It also supports links to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, finite capacity scheduling, SPQ/SPC modules, and complex bills of materials (BOMs) and engineering change orders (ECOs).
ASTER is an active member of the CFX committee and is collaborating with assembly, test and inspection machine providers to reach an unprecedented level of CFX functionality. During Productronica 2019 and for the first time in Europe, ASTER introduces 3 major functionalities, powered by QUAD through IPC-CFX: Assembly line control, Fault diagnosis and Total CFX connectivity.
For assembly line control, QUAD collects the IPC demonstration line CFX messages from each machine and displays the “Work-in-Process” (WIP) status in real-time. It provides a strategic report that indicates the boards held at each process step and helps to understand the capital investment that could be unlocked, by the removal of the bottleneck.
Among the active contributors, ASTER has collaborated with Keysight Technologies to show how CFX messages can be analysed to unlock the power of in-circuit test (ICT). The demonstration illustrates the benefits of standardized CFX messages, generated by Keysight i3070 Series 6 In-Circuit Test, to perform Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Fault diagnosis. Using statistical techniques, SPC applied to electrical measurement allows control of the manufacturing process and reduce variations. In high-volume industries like Automotive, where repair is not allowed, fault-diagnosis becomes key to understanding the root cause and organize preventative remedial actions. QUAD includes a number of dedicated technologies to perform SPC and facilitate diagnostics, such as interactive fault-tickets, fault-advisor, and short-circuit analyser.
Total CFX connectivity: SMT & assembly lines are usually composed of 5 to 10 machines from various vendors. Some machines are fully compatible with the latest CFX messages, or will be. Some legacy machines will never be CFX compatible. Does it mean that 100% CFX is an unreachable target? No, with its CFX Machine Enabler, ASTER is able to bridge any non-CFX legacy machines and deliver standard CFX messages to the broker. It, therefore, becomes easy to interconnect all machines to a native CFX traceability solution.
For more information, or to get a demonstration of these new features, why not visit ASTER Technologies at Hall 1, stand number 232 during productronica 2019.
Suggested Items
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.
Vicor Power Orders Hentec Industries/RPS Automation Pulsar Solderability Testing System
04/24/2024 | Hentec Industries/RPS AutomationHentec Industries/RPS Automation, a leading manufacturer of selective soldering, lead tinning and solderability test equipment, is pleased to announce that Vicor Power has finalized the purchase of a Pulsar solderability testing system.
AIM Solder’s Dillon Zhu to Present on Ultraminiature Soldering at SMTA China East
04/22/2024 | AIMAIM Solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, is pleased to announce that Dillon Zhu will present on the topic: Ultraminiature Soldering: Techniques, Technologies, and Standards at SMTA China East. This event is being held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center from April 24-25.
AIM to Highlight NC259FPA Ultrafine No Clean Solder Paste at SMTA Wisconsin Expo & Tech Forum
04/18/2024 | AIMAIM Solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming SMTA Wisconsin Expo & Tech Forum taking place on May 7 at the Four Points by Sheraton | Milwaukee Airport, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.