Radeberg - Germany

In January 2022, RHe Microsystems GmbH put a new laser marking system into operation. The device of the CuttingMaster series from the company LPKF is mainly intended for marking printed circuit boards, substrates and housings with unique serial numbers. In contrast to adhesive labels, no additional raw materials are consumed, no additional waste is generated and the markings cannot detach unintentionally during subsequent processing steps. An expansion of the machine with an input/output station for automatic loading from a magazine is planned for spring 2022. This input/output station as well as the labelling software allows operation without permanent staff presence due to automatic bad part recognition. Furthermore, the software enables any design or complex graphics such as DataMatrix codes with different information densities to be applied to almost any material without contact. This ensures reliable traceability throughout the entire production process.

The system is equipped with a 15 W UV laser and a maximum working area of 350 mm x 250 mm. The minimum achievable position accuracy is ± 25 µm. The laser beam diameter is 20 µm at the focal point, which defines the minimum pixel size of codes. In addition, the laser system can cut thin PCBs up to 1 mm thick. In the event of a malfunction, this provides an alternative system to the existing laser cutting system for cutting PCBs, although the main use is focused on laser marking of PCBs and substrates with unique serial numbers and 2D codes.

01/2021 - New thick-film continuous curing oven 

After 26 years of service, one of the two thick-film continuous baking furnaces at RHe had to be taken out of service due to material fatigue. Continuous operation at mostly 850°C in the peak zone with a defined temperature ramp over the entire length of the furnace led to deformation of the steel muffle.

In October 2020, it was replaced by a new furnace of identical design to the second furnace already in place. The advantage is a larger chain width, now 14" instead of the previous 9". This enables a greater throughput of substrates if required. Even with the larger chain width, this oven achieves the required temperature accuracy of +/- 2°C across the width of the strip within the 850°C peak zone. The new oven also brings greater flexibility to work with different temperature profiles specified for each thick film paste. For this purpose, the oven is equipped with 8 separately controllable heating zones.

The installation of the approx. 5.5m long oven (and the removal of the almost 7m long old oven) required a sophisticated procedure in addition to the media installations. Last but not least, neighboring production areas should only have to interrupt their work for a short time.

In the meantime, the qualification work has been completed. Important layer parameters of the thick-film pastes baked onto aluminum oxide ceramics, such as resistance properties, bondability and soldering behavior of the conductive tracks, as well as layer adhesion strength, have been verified.

As a result, the new baking oven for thick-film production was approved in January.

In January 2019, the Cicor site in Radeberg acquired a new pull and shear tester for mechanical testing of the strength of electronic packaging superstructures. The "Condor Sigma" device from XYZTEC offers both manual and automated testing of assembled polymer printed circuit boards and ceramic substrates, as well as on package assemblies. These are mainly tests for daily quality monitoring of thin/thick wire bond connections and joint strengths of soldered and bonded components.

The Radberg site installed an automatic optical inspection unit in Sommer 2018. The device of the series Advanced Line from Göpel Electronic will mainly be used for solder joint inspection of SMD components, the control of coating coating and the inspection of printed circuit board structures. An input station with two magazine handling and an output station with good/bad sorting allow an automatic inspection operation without permanent employee presence. The handling of ceramic substrates or printed circuit boards up to dimensions of 300 mm x 400 mm is easily possible. Thin printed circuit boards up to 300 μm thickness can also be processed. The inspection unit can also be automatically loaded with unusual formats, such as 50 mm x 500 mm.

In November 2017, the Radeberg (DE) site commissioned a new X-ray facility. The device is able to carry out detailed investigations of components and connection setup with an image quality not possible before. The results help both in setting up demanding soldering processes and in securing quality standards.

A new SMD placement machine from Juki was installed in September 2017. The machine significantly increases the throughput of the existing line and thus creates new capacity for the targeted growth. Simultaneously with the installation, the automatic recognition of components and batches was implemented, which allows the allocation of each individual component based on the serial number of the product. This meets the requirements of medical technology for component traceability.

In January 2019, the Cicor site in Radeberg acquired a new pull and shear tester for mechanical testing of the strength of electronic packaging superstructures. The "Condor Sigma" device from XYZTEC offers both manual and automated testing of assembled polymer printed circuit boards and ceramic substrates, as well as on package assemblies. These are mainly tests for daily quality monitoring of thin/thick wire bond connections and joint strengths of soldered and bonded components.

In April 2017, a new fully automatic wire bonder from the renowned manufacturer Hesse was put into operation at the Radeberg (DE) site. The Bondjet with a wedge-wedge bond head processes Al wire with a diameter of 17.5 µm to 50 µm and replaces an older device. Thanks to this investment, the processing speed was significantly increased and the quality of the bonds was further improved. RHe believes that wedge-wedge technology will continue to be an important component of joining technology in the future.

The Cicor site in Radeberg (DE) has been working successfully with customers from the medical technology sector for more than 10 years. In order to achieve further growth in this strategically important area, the company was certified according to DIN EN ISO 13485 in March 2017. All areas of the company were audited. The successful completion of the certification audit focused in particular on recording, documenting and evaluating the process stability of the assembly process.