Palomar Technologies recently exhibited at the 2011 Electronic Components and Technology Conference (better known as ECTC), held this year in Orlando, Florida. The conference was well attended by major semiconductor companies, suppliers and local university students. The show drove quite an international interest as attending engineers represented Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.
The ECTC exhibit hall was the place to network with industry peers. In between attendees showing off their virtual soccer skills in the Xbox Kinect™ display, there were plenty of timely discussions on the show floor as everyone is looking to build the next best thing. High-accuracy die attach seemed to be the core of the equipment-focused conversations—Palomar Technologies had a lot to offer at +/- 7µm placement accuracy and repeatability of 3.5µm at 3-sigma on the 3800 Die Bonder; and 1.5µm (post-process accuracy), 3µm eutectic/adhesive placement accuracy and high-precision wafer scale packaging on the 6500 Die Bonder.
The conference keynote session was led by Dr. Nasser Grayeli, Vice President of the Technology and Manufacturing Group and Director of the Corporate Quality Network at Intel. The session was very auspicious as industry leaders shared their insight on the future of electronic components. During the keynote address, Dr. Grayeli asked: “Are we ready for the future Digital World?” My honest first reaction was: “How much more digital can we get?” Dr. Grayeli answered his rhetorical question by first summarizing the past 40 years of electronic advancement up through today, which is labeled as the “Smart Era.” He shared a prediction that by 2015 we will have 1 billion more Internet users and 10 billion more connected devices than from present day.
Dr. Grayeli also stressed that the time from initial introduction to 10 million units will become shorter as we move forward. He cited the recent Xbox Kinect™ as an example. The Kinect™ went from initial release to 10 million units in all of four months. That’s pretty staggering when you think about it, and also brings up the potential for a major disaster should there be a “bug” or an unforeseen problem with the units. By the time you discover the “problem”, you have already shipped millions of units—all the better reason for a tightly regulated production process flow, especially for high-yield manufacturing.
Assembly Services, the precision microelectronic contract assembly division of Palomar Technologies, uses a rigorous process flow to ensure product and time-to-market success in high-volume, high-reliability automated commercial production, which is supported by equipment certification, product inspection and SPC data collection methods.
Watch to learn more about the high-precision component placement accuracy on the 6500 Die Bonder.
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Dale Perry
Regional Sales Manager, Eastern North America
Palomar Technologies