SMT Assembly Capabilities
1. What Is SMT Assembly?
SMT, short for surface mount technology, refers to an assembly technology used to paste components (SMC, surface mount components, or SMD, surface mount devices) through applying a series of SMT assembly equipment to expose PCBs (printed circuit boards).
2. Venture SMT Assembly Capability Overview:
Venture Electronics is AS9100D certified, and we equip our facility with highly automated placement machines and inspection equipment to provide the highest quality PCBAs.
We built our SMT assembly lines based on fast component placement, handling components as small as 01005 and fine pitches as small as 0.3mm for Ball Grid Array (BGA), Quad Flat Pinless Package (QFN), and Quad Flat Package (QFP).
We also have a wide range of reflow ovens and automated 3D optical inspection systems to achieve fast and accurate detection and eliminate human error.
SMT is used for the project’s designs with limited space and weight requirements and requires highly customized boards.
Venture Electronics has the equipment and professional team to handle SMT PCB assembly that meet and exceed industry standards. Our automated assembly lines put us ahead of the competition, allowing us to streamline the assembly process while outputting reliable PCB assemblies with reduced quality, correctness, and cost. Choosing Venture as your SMT assembly manufacturer means that no matter how many components are needed, your project will ensure the highest level of accuracy.
3. Our Main SMT Equipment: (for more details, you can check our equipment page)
- Solder paste printing machine.
- Mounting machine.
- Reflow welder.
- Wave soldering machine.
- Inspection equipment.
- Rework equipment.
- Cleaning equipment.
4. Our SMT Assembly Capabilities:
There are 4 SMT production lines, equipped with an automatic solder paste printing machine, ten temperatures reflow oven, AOI/SPI, and other high-end equipment, with 5 million solder joints/day. We are especially good at high precision and complex single board.
| SMT ITEMS | Low and small batch | Sample within 20ps | |
| SMT capability | 5 million solder joints/day | ||
| SMT line | 4 | ||
| DIP Insert processing | One wave soldering line, 100,000 points | ||
| Throw rate | Resistivity 0.3% | ||
| IC no throw rate | |||
| PCB dimension | Pcb size | L50mm*W50mm, L774mm*W710mm | No limit |
| SMT Quality Control: We equip the production line with high-end equipment, high-precision, and high-yield processing. Carry out quality inspection and control in each processing link to prevent defective products from flowing into the following link. Set up multiple quality personnel to conduct random inspections throughout the process. |
| Glue cardboard | Testing whether the SMT placement position is correct significantly reduces the SMT trial production time and the waste of components and effectively ensures the quality of the SMT. |
| Intelligent first article detector | Detection of unsuitable material, missing parts, polarity, direction, silkscreen, etc., mainly applied to the detection of first parts. Compared with manual inspection, the accuracy is higher, and the speed is increased by at least 50%. |
| SPI-Automatic 3D solder paste thickness measuring instrument | It detects various solder paste printing and quality problems such as missing print, miniature tin, more tin, continuous tin, offset, poor shape, board surface contamination, etc. |
| AOI | Detect various problems after placement: short circuit, material leakage, polarity, displacement, wrong parts |
| X-RAY | Perform open circuit and short circuit detection for BGA, QFN, and other components |
5. Processes Involved In SMT Assembly
- Material Review and Preparation
The first step involves inspecting PCBs and electronic components. We look for defects and then prepare the PCB and elements accordingly. Typically, the PCB is very flat. Most importantly, it includes lead-plated, gold-plated, silver-plated, or copper-plated pads. These pads do not have any holes, and we call them pads. 2.
- Stencil Preparation
We use stencils in PCB SMT assembly to print solder paste in a fixed position. Therefore, we prepare the stencil according to the location of the pads.
- Solder Paste Printing
Fundamentally speaking, solder paste is a mixture of tin and flux. We use it to connect the pads to the electronic components on the PCB. We use the stencil to apply the solder paste to the PCB. Therefore, the positioning can vary between 45° and 60° angles.
- SMT Placement
We then use automated machines to pick up and place the PCBs. So these machines then transport the PCB boards to the conveyor. We can put the electronic components on after that.
- Reflow Soldering
After placing the components on the PCB, we put them into the reflow oven. We do the heating in different stages. Each phase refers to a specific heating zone. Therefore, the steps are as follows:
- Preheat zone.
- Soak zone.
- Reflux zone.
- Cooling zone.
6. Venture SMT Line
- Prototype SMT Assembly Lines
Venture Electronics offers absolute flexibility in its PCB assembly services. Surface Mount Technology (SMT) is not the proper process for low volume PCB manufacturing. However, Venture offers dedicated prototype SMT assembly lines and services, which means we can provide complete production representation for one-off projects and anything beyond. Lead times start at one day, typically three days from when the PCB and full parts for the prototype lot are available.
- Production SMT Assembly Lines
As experts in SMT technology, we currently offer six high-speed Juki SMT assembly lines that allow us to adjust our capacity to best meet your needs and requirements. We can facilitate the placement of over 15 million components per month on these 6 PCB assembly lines. That allows us to efficiently provide a quality service that meets your assembly requirements, whether you need to assemble a few boards or thousands. We can accurately place parts from 0201 to 50 square millimeters with laser-guided placement and complete vision systems. These components include ball grid arrays (BGAs), thin quad flat packages (TQFPs), plastic leaded chip carriers (PLCCs), and many shaped assemblies.
All of our SMT assemblies benefit from “state of the art” infrared reflow soldering and are inspected by 100% AOI before being shipped to our customers and before further final assembly.
7. Venture SMT Assembly Future Trend:
- High Efficiency and Responsiveness
The most significant demand for SMT PCB assembly is its flexibility. With time-to-market gradually decreasing to maintain a competitive edge, SMT PCB assembly needs to respond quickly to demand. Both will show significant growth in productivity, efficiency, and control. SMT PCB production lines have moved from single-line to dual-line production, positively impacting productivity.
Looking at the future, the success of PCB assembly will depend on its responsiveness. That will mean producing products that meet customers’ custom requirements, volume, and customization needs.
- Environmentally Friendly SMT PCB assembly
Starting from the design phase, all the way to the production line set-up, equipment determination, material selection, etc., the focus will be on environmental protection. Lead-free soldering technologies will also increasingly focus on reducing the carbon footprint and protecting the user. Producing halogen and lead-free PCBs will be the trend of the future.
- Easy to Use
The PCB assembly trend will also refocus on ease of use. Technicians will pay more attention to automation to ensure that they can minimize errors and labor costs.
- Lower Cost
The development of technology and automation improvement will gradually reduce costs and improve user efficiency. Therefore, the technicians can adjust the circuit board to suit different customer requirements and applications.
Looking to the future, it is clear that high performance, flexibility, ease of use, and environmental friendliness will become the basis of PCB assembly trends.
8. Venture SMT Assembly Advantages:
Highest quality surface mount PCB assembly
Venture Electronics has modern surface mount equipment. It brings accurate paste printing, accurate component placement, and correct oven configuration. These are the basic requirements for the quality and consistency of our surface mount components. Our capabilities include:
- Lead and RoHS compliant.
- We use high-density fine-pitch devices, including BGA, QFN, and components in packages as low as 0201.
- Accurate printing of solder.
One of the essential parts of the SMT process is the application of solder paste (a mixture of solder metal and flux) to all pads where technicians place the components. Our stencil presses have an automatic vision system that checks for accurate alignment of solder paste placement on the circuit board before loading elements. That ensures that the paste is deposited on the pad with maximum accuracy. In addition, we customize each template to fit each PCB to ensure the correct amount of solder paste is used.
- Precise Placement of Components
The small surface-mount devices make it challenging to manually place components on the board. We equip our surface mount SMT machines with an automatic vision system that automatically places even the most minor elements on the circuit board quickly and accurately, optimizing yield and quality.
- Custom oven profile
Control of preheating, backflow, and cooling are critical when building SMT components with consistently high standards. Using our 14 and 20-zone convection ovens and state-of-the-art thermal analyzers, we create a custom oven profile to ensure good solder joints with lead or RoHS compatible plates without damaging components.
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