In November 2006, I was honored to be elected a Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE CPMT Society. At the inaugural IEMT conference in Malaysia, I gave a keynote on packaging and board assembly technology trends and the impact on the supply chain. The conference was very well organized and attended.

As I traveled across continents, the topic of industry and technology roadmaps continued to be one of great interest in the discussions. In a past issue of this column (August 2006), I discussed the objectives and methodology for technology roadmapping. One of the examples given was the iNEMI Roadmap. Since 1994, iNEMI has been developing a biennial technology roadmap spanning a ten-year horizon. The 2007 iNEMI Roadmap will be highlighted at APEX in a keynote presentation on Thursday, February 22. It contains 19 technology roadmaps that identify technology gaps and strategic concerns, paradigm shifts, future R&D and implementation needs, as well as key recommendations, to continue the growth of the worldwide electronics industry. Working with key North American, Asian and European firms and linkage with other electronics associations help to ensure that the technology projections represent a global view.

Board assembly is a critical part of the overall electronics supply chain. The Board Assembly Roadmap, which I chaired, is the result of work over eight months, by a team of 85 contributors from 45 companies, located in several continents. Team members represent different segments of the supply chain, including OEM companies (automotive, aerospace/defense, network infrastructure, etc), EMS, and suppliers. The level of participation and global representation is unprecedented.

Eight focus teams worked on board assembly technology areas, including assembly materials; printing/reflow/cleaning; part placement; direct chip attach; dispensing; wave/selective soldering; press-fit; and rework. The teams focused on the equipment and process gaps, show stoppers and research and technology needs of these areas.

The 2007 Board Assembly Roadmap, which is a revision of the 2004 version, is over 20,000 words long and contains nine figures and 23 tables. The chapter has sections covering situational/infrastructure analysis; roadmap of quantified key attributes; and critical infrastructure and technology issues. Both business aspects and technical aspects (in each of the focus areas) are covered in each section.

Four main drivers are highlighted for development in board assembly processes, including conversion cost reduction, reduction in NPI time, increased component I/O density, and transition to environmental and regulatory compliance. One of the profound business environment impacts highlighted is the higher level of service demands or opportunities placed on EMS. Today’s EMS companies are expanding offerings to include services in a wider range of a product’s life cycle.

The Roadmap also highlights several key business issues faced by the industry, such as the ability for the supply chain to support both Pb containing and Pb-free BOMs and the need for government, academia and industry consortia to adopt and develop emerging technologies (such as nanotechnology) into the board assembly process. Another area of importance is DFM in the global outsourcing environment, which requires closer interaction and collaboration across the supply chain. Industry standards need to be further developed to facilitate and streamline the information flow.
 
For the supply chain, several critical technical areas are identified for future development, including:

• PWB/substrate to provide a low cost, fine line technology for higher density;
• Equipment to support material handling of flexible/low loss substrates;
• Availability of 01005 with required values;
• Solder materials to replace the high cost Ag-containing alloys for certain cost-sensitive applications, coupled with the need for low temperature attachment requirements for new polymer based products;
• and Pb-free solder alloys to overcome several critical concerns (such as Cu dissolution during wave/selective soldering, reliability under mechanical shock, etc.).

For the board assembly process, a number of key technology gaps have been identified:

• Non-traditional technologies for solder paste deposition to meet the needs of the widening range of required paste volumes deposited on mixed technology assemblies, with consistency;
• Creative engineered solutions to support the cost reduction targets with the transition to Pb-free;
• Inspection/test technologies to keep up with the increasing board density and component complexity;
• and innovation in every step of the board assembly process for 3D assembly.

The 2007 iNEMI Roadmap represents a valuable snapshot of the global electronics industry and the research community for the next decade. It is hoped that the Roadmap will be leveraged by the industry for the growth of the entire electronics manufacturing supply chain. More details on how to obtain the Roadmap can be found at www.inemi.org.

This column appeared in Global SMT & Packaging magazine issue 7.2 - February 2007.

Dr. Dongkai Shangguan
Vice President for Assembly Technology & Platform Realization
Corporate Technology Group
Flextronics International
Dongkai.Shangguan@Flextronics.com

Keywords : iNEMI, Shangguan, board assembly roadmap

Average user rating

   (0 vote)