Electronics manufacturing
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This article presents a typical manufacturing process of an electronic assembly.
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[edit] Component manufacturing
Components such as resistors, capacitors and integrated circuits are generally made by specialized contractors. Integrated circuits are generally made by the process of photolithography
[edit] Printed circuit board manufacturing
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are usually manufactured by specialized contractors.
[edit] Surface-mount device components mounting
Surface-mount device (SMD) components can be hand-soldered, but usually they are placed using surface-mount technology (SMT). The process usually consists of 3 steps:
- solder paste print
- SMT placement
- reflow oven
The process is repeated twice in order to populate both sides of the PCB.
[edit] Through-hole components mounting
There are 3 methods for mounting through-hole components and connectors:
[edit] Depanel
In order to increase PCB and SMT capacity, several boards are panelized into one large multiblock. They are depaneled at a certain stage in the process, which might be before SMT, after SMT or just before final case-up.
[edit] Case-up
The case-up process consists of one or more of the following:
- conformal coat
- potting
- final case-up of the depaneled PCB in a housing using various methods: screwing etc.
[edit] Testing
Electronic assemblies are tested at various process steps using following methods:
- In-Circuit Testing (ICT) of integrated circuits and other components
- inspection of components and joint quality:
- visual inspection
- X-Ray inspection (usually of invisible joints, e.g. BGA)
- Automated Optical Inspection: See CyberOptics Corporation
- SMT Magazine
- final functional test after case-up
- various other tests for assembly functioning in a range of conditions (temperature, humidity, vibrations, strain, etc.)
