While not all represent spectacular breakthroughs, they help to keep costs at bay, speed cycle times or enable engineers to realize designs that hitherto were not possible. EE Times lists some of them.

• Cold plasma coating

A cleaning and activating process for silicon wafers as well as a wide range of other materials, cold plasma coating helps driving costs down while at the same time it avoids thermal stress to the material. Cleaning and activating are preparing steps for many succeeding processes such as bonding, casting, printing or foaming. Another application for plasma coating is the deposition of semiconducting, metal and polymer layers on a very broad range of substrates — even on temperature sensitive ones such as paper.

The "cold-active" process developed by Reinhausen Plasma GmbH (Regensburg, Germany) takes place at normal ambient pressure, doing away with reactors, pumps and lock systems and thus speeding up the cycle times. Implemented in production machines such as its Plasmabrush or Plasmadust, the process can be used for deposition of conductive paths directly onto the board, deposition of metal layers and contacts on solar wafers, or deposition of thin shielding layers on cables for electromagnetic shielding.

With its cold-active plasma method, Reinhausen Plasma already has found a customer in the semiconductor industry. According to the Reinhausen Plasma CEO Michael Bisges, the unnamed chip manufacturer was able to reduce the costs for the respective process step by a factor of 40 to 1.

• Thermoelectric generator

Startup company O-Flexx Technologies GmbH (Duisburg, Germany) has announced a concept to use Reinhausen Plasma's cold-active coating process to produce thin-film thermo-electric generators (TEGs).

TEGs are p-n junctions generating electric energy through temperature differences, making use of the so called Seebeck effect. Hitherto, these devices have been expensive since they require rare and cost-intensive materials and they are difficult to manufacture. Another weak point is their low effectiveness of only 1 to 2 percent. In an industrial scale, TEGs are used to regain electric energy from the hot exhaust pipes in cars. "Currently more or less every major OEM is evaluating this technology," revealed O-Flexx Chief Technology Officer Gerhard Span.

At Productronica, O-Flexx described TEG prototypes made of BiTe as active material. These TEGs could be used in solar heat applications where the electricity generated could help to bridge sunless days by exploiting residual heat. The company currently is developing an integrated manufacturing process in which the Plasmadust technology would help to drive production costs down. Software-defined RF testing equipment

• User-friendly pick-and-place software

Why not give pick-and-place machine users a similar experience as they know already from their PCs? Essemtec AG (Aesch, Switzerland) has created a user interface for its machine control software that helps the user to intuitively understand the processes in the machine and the things to do next. Representing a GUI and a programming environment at the same time, the ePlace software promises to provide a higher level of comfort for users, thus improving their productivity.

The software which comes along with Essemtec's Paraquada SMD pick-and-place system offers tool-tips and context-sensitive help, completes entries automatically and provides an intelligent search function. Since not every operator speaks English, the software directs the user in many cases by means of a graphical representation of the task at hand; for cases where text is unavoidable it offers multiple languages support.

An integrated quality and job management function aid at avoiding human operating errors, based on an archiving system which forms the foundation for a job planning module, a setup optimization routine, a setup list generator and other functions. Even against mislabeling or component mix-up from the provider's side the software offers protection in that it checks the electrical values of the components before mounting them to the machine.

• Software-defined mobile devices test

For mobile RF devices production test and validation environments, ATE Care Service GmbH (Bergkirchen, Germany) has developed a range of software-defined test generators. The devices can be used for analog and digital broadcasting, WiMAX (IEEE801.16e) PHY and MAC layers, and GPS receivers. Since the generators are software-defined users can afford relatively easily a complete set of generators. Features include generation of DAB+/DMB signals, multiple satellite streams for GPS receivers, and selectable radio representation of audio signals. Fast laser-based 3D circuit-carrier processing

• Quick flash programming

With its JET technology, Ertec GmbH (Erlangen, Germany) takes into account the ever-increasing data volumes to be stored on flash memories which in turn are placed on computer boards. The company's PGS80 machine makes use of the integrated circuit test process in use at the end of the board production process: After the ICT is completed, the PGS80 jumps in using the same needle bed adaptor to download programs or pre-stored data onto the board. Since the process can be done in parallel for several boards, the cycle times are low, the company promises.

An alternative to on-board programming is offline programming. For this approach, Ertec showed its O67805 which downloads its data to flash memory devices which later are soldered onto the board. This process is used for instance in the production of navigation systems, a company spokesperson said. Since both machine types are able to work in parallel and being cascaded, high throughout can be achieved.

• Faster structuring of 3D circuit carriers

With its Fusion 3D, laser machine tool vendor LPKF Laser & Electronics AG (Garbsen, Germany) promises to cut the cycle times for the creation of three-dimensional circuit carriers by up to 75 percent.

3D circuit carriers combine mechanical and electric functions in a single component. After the blank is made in one-shot injection molding from LDS-doped thermoplastic material, the laser process follows. A laser beam writes the circuitry onto the component. The metallization of these structures takes place inn electroless plating process. The next step is the assembly of the circuit carriers.

LPKF's machine disposes of up to four laser heads which can take seven different positions. During the processing, the heads do not move; instead the laser beam is led across the surface through a high-precision optical system. With its four heads, the machine reduces processing time by up to 75 percent, the company promises. Virtual exhibition and remote measurement setup

• High-performance X-ray inspection

Solder joints continue to be one of the problem zones for PCBs since they can contain voids which lead to system malfunction. In order to detect these voids, X-ray based inspection machines are used widely in the industry. One of the shortfalls of these machines is that they typically are rather inflexible since the position of their X-ray detector array is in a fixed position.

YES Tech (Alton, England) has brought an X-ray tomosynthesis machine to Productronica that does away with this shortfalls. The company's moveable detector allows the user to take as many images from different angles as the inspection requires and from any angle needed. With this approach, the design avoids shadowing effects by larger parts on the board. Using a single, moveable detector also offers the possibility of looking obliquely through a solder joint and inspecting it as a single board image where the whole joint is taken into account rather than a slice. All together the Yes Tech's concept promises to broaden the inspection possibilities of tomosynthesis systems and ultimately a greater confidence in finding solder defects in complex double-sided boards.

• Virtual exhibition

Measurement systems vendor Agilent Technologies came to the trade fair with quite an unusual concept: At its entire stand there was not a single measurement instrument physically at display. Nevertheless, visitors still had the opportunity to see and even to test every instrument the vendor has in its catalog — provided the instrument is equipped with a PXI interface. Residing physically in a remote Agilent lab, the company made use of the instrument's ability to represent its entire user interface remotely, which includes remote display and operation. Through the virtual user interface the visitors were enabled to test real-world measurement applications.

"This way we have much less effort to bring all the equipment to the fair," explained Larry DesJardin Agilent General Manager, Modular Product Operation.

The "virtual" exhibition is only one aspect of remote user functions for test and measurement equipment. At the fair, Agilent had several partner companies at its stand that focus on implementing remote production control. Measurement and test procedures in outsourced production activities thus can be set up, modified and controlled by technicians in the home base of the company that outsources its production. "This way, our customers' service technicians save many trips to Eastern Europe or Asia," said Klaus Diederich, Sales Manager for BSW TestSystems AG (Boeblingen, Germany).

Is the virtual representation of exhibits perhaps a step towards an entirely virtual trade fair? "I don't know yet", DesJardin said. "We observe the customers' response on our approach. So far it has been very positive."