Surface Mount Technology (SMT)

At the start of the SMT line we have a screen printer that places cold solder paste along all of the pads on the board. After going through the screen printer, the boards are quickly visually inspected for full coverage then they are moved over to the next machine.

EMI's main SMT line uses an Advantis 30 Spindle pick and place machine that can grab up to 30 parts at a time and accurately place them onto the boards at high speeds. After the parts are placed, another quick visual inspection is done to make sure all parts were placed correctly. The boards are then moved to our oven.

After all the Surface Mount parts have been added to the boards, they are moved through our conveyor oven. The boards move across the conveyor while heat is applied to them to cure the cold solder paste. After the boards come out of the oven they are moved to our AOI Inspection and checked for any errors that may have occured.

After going through the oven, all of our boards are run across the AOI in order to quickly inspect the boards for any parts that are missing, raised, unsoldered, etc. Any errors found by the AOI are marked and fixed by hand before the boards continue through production.