PCB News - PCB is moving towards smart manufacturing

If the printed circuit board (PCB) wants to upgrade its industry and develop towards higher value, intelligent manufacturing can be said to be imperative. In this regard, the Taiwan Circuit Board Association (TPCA) pointed out that although PCB manufacturers are willing to build intelligent automated production models, how to "connect their equipment" is the main challenge for the PCB industry to become intelligent.

Hong Yayun, Deputy Director General of the Market Information Department of the Taiwan Circuit Board Association, said that the main obstacle to the realization of smart manufacturing in the PCB industry today is that manufacturers’ production equipment is not yet "connected", and therefore lacks data collection, analysis, and application capabilities, making the industry still Industrial 2.5~3.0 stage. Therefore, in order to realize intelligent manufacturing, how to make production equipment capable of connecting to the Internet is the first priority.

According to TPCA and IEK surveys of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, as of August 2017, about 60% of PCB manufacturers have achieved single-station automation on their production lines, and the remaining 40% have not achieved single-station automation. The reasons include old equipment. Difficulties, limited space, unable to add a robot arm, or feel that there is no need to add a robot, etc.

However, as of August 2017, only 20% of the operators have achieved station-to-station automatic connection. In other words, there are still as many as 80% of the operators today, and their machines and equipment are not connected to the Internet. Hong Yayun said that if the production equipment is not connected to the Internet, it will not be possible to collect production and operation data and conduct information integration, and there is a lack of analysis of production data.

Hong Yayun further explained that the current circuit board industry does not have a common production information communication protocol format, so each equipment manufacturer does not have a standard that can be based on; and the circuit board manufacturer’s station equipment comes from a variety of different equipment factories, making the station and station The connection between the two is difficult, and only a small number of manufacturers can do it. Therefore, PCB production equipment urgently needs a standardized communication interface.

For this reason, the Taiwan Circuit Board Association and the Industrial Technology Research Institute have started to study the "Taiwan PCB Equipment Communication Protocol (PCBEI)" since 2015. This communication protocol follows the SECS/GEM specification of the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI). Hong Yayun revealed that the communication protocol has been formally submitted to the International Semiconductor Association (SEMI) for filing, but unfortunately, the implementation threshold has not been reached after voting. TPCA will continue to promote it and hope to help establish a circuit board production line through this agreement. Data storage and analysis platform, and construction of PCB factory production information system.