Design of nozzles for surface mount technologies produced by additive manufacturing

Abstract

The increasing use and production of electronic systems, equipped with multiple PCBs, leads to constant development in manufacturing technologies. A predominant choice in PCB production is Surface Mount Technology (SMT). The most important phase of the SMT process is the pickup and placement step, where nozzles, specific to the electronic component, are responsible to pick components and place them on the PCB. The interaction between the nozzles and the components imposes issues that lead to losses of process productivity. Currently, the development of a nozzle for an electrical component is time-consuming and, sometimes, the final solution is not tailored enough to take full advantage of the SMT machine efficiency. This research aims to fill this gap, through a new nozzle production method using additive manufacturing (AM), which makes it possible to respond to requirements such as, real-time, customized, and high dimensional accuracy nozzle design and production. Despite these advantages, the materials and manufacturing technologies available need improvements to meet the SMT requirements for nozzles production. Therefore, the research focused on the development of an electrostatic discharge (ESD) solution for AM, and the study of geometries that allow vacuum picking of electronic components with zero or low leakage. To show the viability of this method, electrical characterization tests were performed on the materials used, showing that ESD properties could be achieved. Moreover, a set of experimental tests were also performed to prove that the vacuum values were in the same range as the traditional nozzles. In sum, this research presents an alternative solution that allows for quick and flexible nozzle production.