Effectiveness study of an automated 3D laminography x-ray inspection system in a high-volume-low-mix SMT line

The advent of miniature surface-mount components coupled with increasing lead counts poses tremendous challenges during the assembly of printed circuit boards (PCBs). This is especially true in an electronics manufacturing service (EMS) industry, where the focus has been to increase throughput and first-pass yields at minimum expenditure. Hence, robust inspection systems are required to achieve the objectives of inspecting all the solder joints on a PCB assembly without affecting throughput and of accurately and repeatedly detecting solder-joint-related defects. Conventional inspection technologies are limited in their capability to inspect and detect solder-joint-related defects. However, these limitations have been addressed to a considerable extent by automated 3D laminography x-ray inspection systems. This research effort ascertained the effectiveness of an automated 3D laminography x-ray inspection system from a statistical and assembly perspective. The results of this investigation were analyzed and continuous improvement measures were initiated and employed to improve the performance of the automated 3D laminography x-ray inspection system and, subsequently, of the surface-mount technology (SMT) line.