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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 06-07-08/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Circuit Board
Production
10. Frank Ma is arguably the most important man
in production; he’s in charge of the section with
the SMT machines. “Roughly four million USD was
invested here”, namely in a total of eight of the
newest SMT systems. “Each SMT line is operated
around the clock in two shifts from 8AM to 8PM. We
can manufacture 1500 HD receiver circuit boards or
3000 SD receiver circuit boards on each machine.
On top of that we produce lead-free!” At the moment
production puts out about 300,000 pieces every
month; in 2012 it will increase to 500,000 pieces.
The machines are located in a clean room and can
only be accessed through a special air lock. This
guarantees extremely high production quality.
11. An employee is examining a circuit board for
obvious defects before she sends it to an oven.
12. This AOI (Automatic Optical Inspector) checks
the circuit boards for the smallest of defects fully
automatically. Each GOOSAT SMT machine leads to
the AOI at the end of the oven in which the surface
mounted components are soldered onto the circuit
board. Here we see two AOIs at the end of the oven
and then…
13. ...here we see one of GOOSAT’s all new double
ovens: it is fed by two SMT machines. At a T junction
(center) the two conveyor belts from the two SMT
machines meet; the two circuit board belts run
parallel into the oven. The best part: “If one of the
SMT machines is loading an HD circuit board and
the other is loading an SD circuit board, then the two
conveyor belts run at different speeds through the
oven”, explains SMT Manager Frank Ma. “One HD
circuit board carries from 400 to 600 components
while an SD circuit board only carries from 200 to 500
components.” The soldering process runs at 274°C
so the HD circuit board that has more components
must run at a slower speed through the oven. The
monitor on the oven displays the two conveyor belts
(middle of the monitor) and the circuit boards on the
belts (black dots).