Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing 1998

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-118-1

THE NEED FOR OPTIMIZED PANEL DESIGN IN THE ELECTRONIC ASSEMBLY PROCESS

DOI: 10.1615/FAIM1998.320
pages 365-376

要約

This paper introduces the concept of printed circuit board (PCB) panel design and describes its impact upon both the printed circuit card assembly (PCCA) process and cost issues. In the manufacture of smaller, hand-held electronic devices, the PCB are of sufficiently small dimensions that multiple boards are etched on a single, larger panel. The panel must ultimately be separated, or "singulated," into its individual boards at some point in the manufacturing process, prior to final assembly of the electronic product. The panel design problem affects the electronic assembly manufacturer's process line, given that the conveyors, screen printing, assembly, singulation, and test stations have dimensional and capacity limits imposed upon the products they process. A set of simple test problems were analyzed to illustrated that the panel design issue is a combination of several problems: Geometric nesting of the PCB within panel dimensions, capacity requirements, test yields, and other manufacturing issues. This paper illustrates these problems individually and proposes that a common factor, cost, can be used to integrate the different problem areas in a minimization effort during the product and manufacturing line design process.