PCB News - What is the role of solder paste thickness gauge in PCB design?

Common problems in PCB design often occur in actual work due to design negligence leading to trial production failures. This oversight should be quoted because it is not caused by real carelessness, but caused by unfamiliarity with the production process; there are also prototype problems: such as the thickness of the solder paste, the lack of solder paste will cause the components to open Soldering, solder paste bridging will lead to soldering short circuit, solder paste collapse will lead to false soldering of components, temperature is not detected inconsistent, and so on. In order to avoid the same mistakes, or to better complete the trial production. I make some summaries and suggestions on some common problems, hoping to be helpful to everyone.

1. The component pads, apertures, and spacing do not match the dimensions on the PCB board. For various reasons, for example, the samples provided by the component suppliers are different from the actual ones (different batches, the samples may be older, or the manufacturers may be different), or the component library loaded during the design has been modified by others, etc. The component pads, aperture, and spacing do not match the size on the PCB. Therefore, it needs to be checked carefully before each final production.
   2. The quality of smt (Surface Mounting Technology) mounting largely depends on the printing quality of solder paste. The printing quality of solder paste will directly affect the soldering quality of components. In the actual production process, when printing through a printing machine, The surface of the solder paste is not flat, and there are many uncontrollable factors in the printing process.
   3. Did not consider jigsaw puzzle. The main reason is that the prototype is often not assembled, or the process edge size is not considered when the board is assembled, which causes the plug-in or the crest to be unable to be carried out. Therefore, the stamp hole or V-cut method must be considered when designing, and the process edge size must be determined according to the distribution of components.
   So what is the use of a solder paste thickness gauge? The above-mentioned smt (Surface Mounting Technology) placement quality largely depends on the solder paste printing quality, and the solder paste printing quality will directly affect the soldering quality of the components. For example, missing solder paste will cause components to open solder, solder paste bridging will cause soldering short-circuits, and solder paste collapse will lead to failures such as false soldering of components. The thickness of the solder paste is also an important index to judge the quality and reliability of the solder joints. In the actual production process, the surface of the solder paste is not smooth when printed by a printing machine, and there are many uncontrollable factors in the printing process. Therefore, 3D solder paste testing technology is produced and used for solder paste quality testing. The measurement results have good representativeness and stability, because the technology takes the average value of multiple sets of data in a unit scan area to represent the thickness of the solder paste. WaltronTech's solder paste 3D laser scanning measurement system is based on the principle of laser vision measurement. The solder paste is measured by scanning to obtain its 3D data. By processing these data, you can get its precise thickness information, as well as three-dimensional shape such as length and width. . The application of this technology can better save semiconductor production costs and improve the reliability of chip placement.
   So its function is to be able to detect and analyze the quality of solder paste printing and find smt process defects early.

The above is an introduction to the role of solder paste thickness gauge in PCB design. Ipcb is also provided to PCB manufacturers and PCB manufacturing technology