SIPLACE BulkFeeder X Step-by-step to the smart SMT factory

The feeding of electronic components per tape is meeting its limit with the ever faster production speeds. Therefore it is time for new concepts.

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ROHM Semiconductor GmbH

MEV Elektronik Service GmbH

Syslogic GmbH

For many years, packaging components individually and feeding them to the machine via tapes has proven to be an easy and accurate way to supply standard components. Because of the continuing improvements in machine performance, however, this method is increasingly meeting its limits. The faster the placement speeds, the more frequently fresh tapes have to be spliced to old ones as they run out - a time- and labor-intensive process that ties up people and harbors the risk of errors, down to line stops and loss of productivity.

Another problem: When supplied in tapes, today’s tiny components are packaged in wasteful amounts of plastic relative to their size. Doing away with this kind of individual packaging would not only help the environment but reduce costs and benefit logistics processes. After all, all this tape material must be stored, transported around the factory, and finally discarded.

Although the autoloaders developed by various manufacturers have improved the process somewhat in recent years, all these approaches still use tapes – and the limitations they bring with them.

Component feeding that works like a hand reaching out

With its SIPLACE BulkFeeder X for 0402, 0201 and 01005 components, ASM is introducing a radically new concept. If you think of these tiny components as “chicken feed”, the new feeder is the open hand from which the chicken expertly picks what it needs.

To accomplish this, ASM’s engineers have developed a new tape-free feeding process where components are supplied in bulk while at the same time meeting the needs of today’s high-speed placement processes: Using a vibration mechanism, loose components are dumped from a small container in the SIPLACE BulkFeeder X onto a pickup plate made of glass. After each movement, an integrated camera takes a picture of the components from underneath the glass plate and transmits it to the machine’s vision system for analysis.

The vision system determines which components on the plate are suitable for pickup and which are not, for example because they are upside down or too close to each other. Components in proper alignment have their position transmitted to the machine, a shutter over the pickup plate opens, and the fast SIPLACE collect-and-place head picks them up. With this approach, a high-speed head like the SIPLACE SpeedStar can collect up to 20 components in a single cycle with no loss of performance.

The precise and fast coordination and control of component disbursal, vibration, image analysis and precise head positioning are at the core of this innovation. The underlying motivation: Since the boards for mobile phones, tablets and notebooks require large numbers of chips in 0402, 0201 and 01005 sizes, being able to place them quickly and with as little manual interference as possible represents a significant competitive advantage.

With speeds of up to 78,000 cph, the new SIPLACE TX placement modules set new records in placement performance. The SIPLACE BulkFeeder X is the ideal feeder option for this machine.

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