ADVANCED

PROCESS LAB

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ASSEMBLY

Optimize your existing and emerging technology assembly challenges to bring quality products to market in volume faster.

ANALYTICAL SERVICES

Leverage exclusive expertise and specialized analytical tools to identify and decisively address production and field failures.

AREA CONSORTIUM

Benefit from the APL’s partnership with the industry’s leaders, generating fast-paced research and reports on leading-edge materials and processes.

APL 

In today’s high-tech industries, knowledge makes the difference. Universal Instruments’ Advanced Process Laboratory (APL) leverages extensive process and materials expertise to address current and next-generation technology challenges and maximize competitive advantage. The APL offers comprehensive research, analytical and advanced assembly services which enable manufacturers to realize rapid product introduction, maximize yield and optimize reliability. The APL also plays a leading role in the greater electronics community, organizing research consortia, and building partnerships with academic and industry experts to identify and develop new and emerging technologies – those that will take electronic assembly far into the future.

Advanced Technology Assembly

  • From prototyping to volume production
  • Bring challenging new products from concept to reality
  • Reduce time-to-market and cost of NPI
  • Improve competitive positioning of current products

Analytical Services

  • Minimize costly re-work
  • Maximize yields and field reliability
  • Secure your brand reputation and improve your bottom line
  • Mitigate/eliminate failures, from component-level to box build

    AREA Consortium

    • Maximize your research investment through collaboration with industry leaders
    • Establish a leadership position through research of new and emerging technologies
    • Reduce development/ implementation time, costs, and resources

    ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ASSEMBLY

    Assembly process performance is crucial to profitability and market reputation. Whether you’re looking to refine your current processes or effectively integrate new products, Universal’s APL will implement the best possible design, development and volume production solution for your specific challenges. Let us build it for you!

    Next-generation applications, like Flip Chip, SiP, and PoP? No problem. Our experts will maximize efficiency, throughput, yield, and quality, ensuring you meet your targets and quickly and consistently bring quality products to market.

    • State-of-the-art, in-house production lines to build a full range of complex products
    • Prototyping and development, first article build, NPI, volume production
    • Optimized assembly solutions (design, materials, process, pioneering equipment technology) for new and existing products
    • Design for Manufacture (DfM) and Design for Reliability (DfR)
    • Valuable for OEMs, CEMs, suppliers, end-use consumers
    • Process transfer, on-site integration, training
      On-site process audits and support, including startup
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    ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ASSEMBLY SERVICES

    With wide-ranging process expertise and equipment capability, the APL provides solutions for all assembly challenges.

     

    Prototyping
    • Product & PCB Design Assistance
    • Process Development
    • Applications Review
    • Materials & Components Review & Selection
    • First Article Build & Proof of Concept Runs
    NPI
    • Equipment Definition
    • Process Formalization
    • Design for Manufacturability & Design for Reliability
    • Process Implementation at Manufacturing Site
    • Reliability Testing
    • Process Optimization
    • Product Qualifications
    Low-Rate Mfg
    • Process Scale-Up
    • Incremental Production
    • Failure Analysis
    • Process & Materials Optimization
    • Yield & Reliability Recommendations
    • Capacity Increase
    • Global Scalability

    ANALYTICAL SERVICES

    Your response to production or field failures is critical to your business. Reacting swiftly and decisively secures your reputation and resolves issues that will otherwise destroy profitability. But to achieve it, you must locate and rectify the root cause immediately – a big task when you are working with the most advanced components, materials, and processes. You need specialized tools to examine cost-sensitive assemblies and the expertise to correctly interpret the results.

    Universal’s APL Analytical Services provide all that and more with precision analytical tools and a team of experts whose collective knowledge spans the full range of leading-edge packaging and assembly technologies.

    • Valuable for OEMs, CEMs, suppliers, end-use consumers
    • Root cause failure analysis (component packaging, second-level interconnect, handling, final assembly)
    • Materials evaluation (conformance, composition)
    • Reliability test (mechanical, environmental, vibration, shock)
    • Leveraging knowledge gained from our process, materials, and reliability research
    • Detailed technical reports to support findings
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    ANALYTICAL SERVICES

    APL Analytical Services will enable you to react decisively and resolve your production or field failures.

     

    Failure Analysis Services
    From die-level to enclosure-level; Provide evidence to support product liability cases or vendor returns
    • From silicon-level to product-level analysis
    • Level 0 – Silicon-level
    • Level 1 – Package(component)-level
    • Level 2 – Assembly-level (solder/pickand-place/reflow)
    • Level 3 – Product-level
    • Level 4 – Reliability
    • Field failures root cause determination
    • Post-assembly process recommendations based upon our extensive manufacturing experience
    • EOS (electrical overstress)/ESD (electrostatic discharge) die failures
    • Component chemical and mechanical decapsulation
    Supplier Quality Testing
    Validate your supply chain to meet your requirements
    • Package quality: solderability, plating, design
    • Mechanical testing: drop, shock, vibration
    • Environmental testing
    • Circuit board quality: design, fabrication, hole wall
    • IPC-A-610 inspection
    • IPC-A-600/IPC-6012/IPC-6013 inspection (PCB fab)
    • Solder paste/flux testing & qualification
    • Ion chromatography, ion contamination
    • Contamination/residue analysis
    • Thermal analysis: DSC, TGA, DMA, TMA
    • Acoustic microscopy and infrared spectroscopy
    Reliability/Endurance Testing
    Measure performance versus governing standards (IPC, JEDEC, JIS); Achieve desired performance to reach critical metrics
    • ESS testing recommendations
    • Liquid to liquid
    • Air to air
    • Temperature/humidity/bias testing
    • Drop shock testing
    • CAF testing
    • SiR testing
    • Resistance monitoring
    • Electrochemical migration
    • Drop shock testing
    • Vibration testing
    • Dye penetration testing
    • Thermal cycling/shock testing (“time zero” prediction)
    • Mechanical pull/shear testing

    area consortium

    For more than two decades, Universal’s Advanced Research in Electronics Assembly (AREA) Consortium has been focused on developing a fundamental, mechanistic understanding of the materials and processes utilized in electronics assembly, with a particular emphasis on maximizing assembly yields and long-term reliability. In the AREA Consortium, the experienced team of scientists from Universal’s APL conducts fast-paced research and shares the results with more than 30 industry-leading member companies.

    Each year, the APL chooses a set of relevant projects on new and emerging technologies based on consultation with consortium members, as well as other industry and academic researchers. The APL then conducts analytical and experimental research on these topics in order to generate applicable knowledge for specific product development and manufacturing processes.

    • Partnering with over 30 leading electronics industry companies to identify and develop new and emerging technologies
    • Focused on materials, reliability, and process research
    • Research is member-driven and executed by the APL staff
    • PhD/Masters-educated staff with diverse backgrounds across Mechanical, Chemical, Materials Engineering disciplines
    • Vertical research program (design, manufacturing, characterization, reliability test, analysis, reporting)
    • Project findings delivered to consortium members at scheduled meetings and via website
    • Members have extended access to APL expertise and equipment
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    AREA CONSORTIUM – RECENT RESEARCH TOPICS

    AREA research topics are continually refreshed through input from industrial member companies combined with insights from our staff scientists. Subjects encompass a broad range of materials, reliability and process topics.

     

    Materials
    • Alternative lead-free solder alloys
    • PCB laminate material behavior; pad cratering
    • Component underfills
    • Thermal interface materials
    • Conformal coatings
    Reliability
    • Accelerated thermal cycling
    • Drop shock loading
    • Vibration (harmonic, random)
    • Constant current power cycling
    • Sulfur induced corrosion
    Process
    • Solder paste printing
    • Component rework
    • Sintered silver die attach
    • Selected area laser reflow
    • Flexible substrate joining
    Design
    • System-in-Package configurations
    • Thermal interface loading
    • Mixed VIPPO array soldering impact
    • 2.5D & 3D packaging interposers

    CONTACT THE APL

    DIRECT CONTACT

    APL

    David Vicari
    Director, Advanced Process Lab
    Universal Instruments
    33 Broome Corporate Parkway
    Conklin, NY 13748
    Phone: +1 607.779.5151
    vicari@uic.com

    AREA CONSORTIUM

    Jim Wilcox
    Manager, AREA Consortium
    Universal Instruments
    33 Broome Corporate Parkway
    Conklin, NY 13748
    Phone: +1 607.779.5077
    jim.wilcox@uic.com

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