NEPCON 2006, NEC, Birmingham, 9-11 May 2006

Citation

Ling, J. (2006), "NEPCON 2006, NEC, Birmingham, 9-11 May 2006", Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Vol. 18 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ssmt.2006.21918cac.002

NEPCON 2006, NEC, Birmingham, 9-11 May 2006

NEPCON 2006, NEC, Birmingham, 9-11 May 2006

Keywords: Electronics industry, Manufacturing, Printed-circuit boards, Conferences

Now located at the NEC in Birmingham, the Nepcon show sat cheerfully, colourfully and comfortably in Hall 12 and although now far from the sea front, fronted all the essential and convenient transportation links that the National Exhibition Centre is known for. If three days was the criteria by which the machine manufacturers justified their presence, Day 1 did not show reciprocal appreciation by the industry, but the tide turned for Days 2 and 3, with a 52 per cent increase in visitor numbers, with stands still busy at 2 o'clock and some happy exhibitors packing up at 4 o'clock on the last day. Hall 1 at the NEC next year, it seems, thank goodness; much kinder on the feet for those of us who come by train.

Nepcon is diversifying. It now brings in a strong presence from the PCB industry, who are there as they know that what they are doing is providing the basic platforms upon which the rest of it all hangs together. Kestrel International Circuits joined with parent company Merlin Circuit Technology; Graphic PLC, GSPK Circuits, CC Electronics and Artetch Circuits were in evidence along with Invotec from Tamworth and from Blackburn. Exception Circuits had a large stand and were busy, and Euro Circuits, albeit a Hungarian-based company, had a stand, too (Plate 3).

Plate 3 Exhibitors at NEPCON 2006

On the supply side CEMCO-FSL were there, Pat Sinnot retiring at the end of August after 32 years of service to the PCB industry. Another founder figure departs. He shared the stand with Katie Hodell, who runs the Cemco Services division; she said that they had now settled down with the Nihon Superior lead-free solder for their lead- free work, it gives them a very good finish. Their new sales manager Kevin Aylott added that sales of the manual Quicksilver HASL machines was buoyant thanks to the change over to lead-free.

Another PCB industry stalwart is TEKNEK, whose David Westwood was joined by their new UK sales manager Douglas Gray. TEKNEK lead the field in cleaning systems, and with much of their equipment manufactured “in-house” are well- placed to adapt their technology for more recent application demands.

Sun Chemical Circuits (formerly known as Coates Circuit Products) had joined the “PCB village” (more of a hamlet in reality) and had about one member of staff per square metre of stand. Steve Woods emphasised that the pound/dollar rate was favouring their US business hugely, with many new accounts being opened on an almost weekly basis. Coates (sorry, Sun) have leveraged their links with Dainippon for resin technology and now have a very robust LPISM system for all manner of applications. Work on inks for printed electronics continues.

Patrick Martin of Eurocircuits was advocating the ability of a European company to compete. If the word compete was perhaps inaccurate, he said that they are filling a gap in the market for supply of PCBs with orders of up to 1,000 pieces using standard panel sizes. With 80 CAM engineers employed in their Indian company, and with manufacture at a new purpose-built plant in Hungary, they are meeting a strong demand, a demand that falls below the interest levels of the Chinese, it would seem, but well inside lead times from the orient.

Many of the UK PCB companies had responded admirably to the challenge of a changing market. GSPK Circuits Limited wanted to raise the IP in what they do, and create their own, and thus have had a very busy year in several respects. Steve Lloyd, MD at GSPK, talked of their being the first PCB company in the UK to be awarded the BSI RoHS kite-mark, and the launch of their reflective laminate had been most successful. Following on from that, they launched, at the show, a new process entirely of their own development – an ability to plate copper onto almost anything. The surface would of necessity be an insulating surface, but it does not have to be rigid, and it could be glass, Perspex, polycarbonate, MDF, wood – or rigid, flexible and non-planer as Steve summarised. The process, yet to be given a trade name (“Culture” might do it, we thought) is where the surface is screen printed with the required circuitry (50 μ resolution) with a special catalyst that will accept 3-5 μm of copper. It is an additive process, there is no etching, call it printed electronics and then join the club. You can apply components directly to the surface, and end use includes antennae, rigid and moving displays, in fact any area where a little imagination and the use of LEDS can be applied. One can see the world of advertising be rather captured by the possibilities (Plate 4).

Plate 4 GSPK additive copper circuitry on Perspex with LEDS

Another company that is now a member of the Printed Electronics Club (PEC) is DEK, a company diversifying away from pure SMT. 45 per cent of their business is now non-SMT based, and it is growing. They have come into their own with the production of fuel cells, where accuracy and tolerances are most demanding. The use of ceramic and PTFE materials means that DEK have had to develop new transport systems for high volume production. Richard Castle explained that you need 48,000 fuel cells to generate 1megawatt of electricity, so here the DEK imaging and dispense systems come into their own. Interestingly the biggest use of their screen printing screens is the medical field, and with fuel cells being of military application you can see that with RFID tags DEK have truly joined up.

Pursuing the same theme, you could also add MYDATA from Sweden, who were showing their MY500™ stencil printer. In truth this is one high-speed ink-jet printer that is being used to apply solder paste directly from data using a 100 g cartridge linked to an ink- jet head of their own design. To say it is fast is to understate the case - take 1.8 million dots per hour as a starter, but then take the potential a stage further. What are the requirements for ink-jet for printed electronics? Not far short of what MYDATA deliver. 12.5 tonne machine with a granite bed, linear X and Y drives, stability, great accuracy, all at great speed. Have it apply a conductive medium as part of an in-line production process, double them up for a two-hit system and, hey presto, you have the potential for an application, like DEK, well outside the SMT arena.

Neil Chamberlain beamed a welcome from the Polar Instruments stand; Polar is one of the successful niche companies who provide essentials to the industry, and without whom the structure would be incomplete, and certainly more cosmopolitan. Their SB9000 is a system for PCB layer stack-up and transmission line design, and it determines which materials can be used to greatest cost benefit. The system allows modelling of the effect of material choice and line width before committing to production, which means that you do in truth get it right first time. Not always possible, otherwise (Plate 5).

Plate 5 Exhibitors at NEPCON 2006

Down the many aisles the myriad exhibitors continued, with a diversity of product that would have filled several volumes. You don't need a large stand when what you do fills a huge demand; such a company is Industrial Electronic Wiring from Swindon, who specialise is hand-assembled wiring looms, panel and chassis wiring and PCB assembly. Duncan Game, the MD, operates a company whose success is based upon being versatile, experienced and available. It does not compete with companies who are 4,000 miles away.

Diversity is the key to the success of another company, START, run by Graham Hardwick and Bob Doughton, and it takes a feat of imagination to cram that combination of personality into a 3 × 3 stand. For those who have ever wrestled with tape and labels START is the end of your problems. Almost everything that is made has to be packed and labelled before shipment, and here the range of products, from a dinky machine that dispenses adhesive tape in pre-determined lengths for swift application by hand to parcels, to a large automated label dispenser, is most comprehensive. They cover a multitude of industries throughout Europe, and prove that within these cottages still have their place.

One stand that never fails to interest at Nepcon is the one run by CONTAX. Mike Rapson, MD, showed the excellent new Essemtec SMT pick and place machines, designed for the small to medium manufacturer where high performance and versatility are the demands. What is intriguing is there here is superb precision Swiss engineering, available at a most competitive price, when logic would indicate otherwise. The FLX2020 offers 200 feeder capacity placing components ranging from 0201 and 50 × 50 mm fine pitch down to 0.3 mm BGA, microBGA and flip chips. It combines laser and vision centering systems, and is complimented with the Essemtec SP200 & SP500 semi- automatic fine-pitch printers. Cracking value for money (Plate 6).

Plate 6 NEPCON 2006

For those who have ever calculated the miles travelled through a factory by a component during assembly, the time taken, and the costs involved, then the Sigma workstations from Contax will satisfy both the cost accountant and the small boy in you. Here are two conveyorised systems, the Transfer and the Peripheric. The systems move what is wanted to where it is wanted, improving manual assembly efficiency and production throughput. Incorporating RFID tagging, the systems provide routing and data management, can be easily extended or amended at any time, and are put in place by a company who knows and understand the complexities of effective assembly systems.

The SMART Group, without whom lead would still rule the wave-soldering world (not forgetting hand, vapour phase and selective, of course) were running their HandsOn LeadOut Workshop; here was Speedline with their Accela Printing and Xyflex Pro Dispensing systems; Nousstar with wave soldering using Nihon Superior SN100C from DKL Metals; the BTU Pyramax 98 reflow oven accompanied the LFR400 Tornado from SMT; Siemens has their Siplace X3 pick & place machine; Dage did the X-ray stuff; Pace did the hand soldering; Altus showed aqueous stencil cleaning, Marantz the AOI – in fact it was all there; but where were the people? One suspects that either:

• they have all the answers prior to July 1 or;

• they don't and will be on the “phone on July 2”.

We have said it before and we have no hesitation in saying it again: without the SMART Group, many companies would not be lead-free by 1 July 2006. Without the SMART Group it is doubtful if many US companies would have been aware of the implications. To judge by the attendance at the continuous programme of seminars being run at an adjacent section, there were many who wanted to be informed on the complexities of lead-free, and there were many there to provide the answers.

On the floor of Hall 12, the show hummed along with the customary buzz of activity, and the usual stalwarts were there – Siemens, BTU, JTAG, Universal Instruments, V-Tech SMT, Speedprint, Nutek, Juki, Blundell – with the requisite portfolio of products. Two shapely young ladies on the XJTAG stand seemed to have lost most of their clothes, poor things (that's airports for you) so boundary scanning took on a whole new meaning, and the food outlets showed that British catering and service can still sink to the occasion when asked to. Somehow Hall 12 at the NEC does not magnify the numbers of visitors that the Metropole Hotel did in Brighton, so whilst it seemed quiet, we are told it was busy. That's perception for you, but anyway the organisers were much engaged taking bookings for 2007 so they are to be soundly congratulated on a show that obviously had almost everything for almost everyone.

John LingAssociate Editor, Soldering & Surface Mount Technology