Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Current Issue

Products

Ashburn, VA – Zestron announced that it is fully prepared to meet the hazardous substances (RoHS) and waste disposal (WEEE) guidelines. For over 15 years, the company has actively avoided the use of any hazardous or dangerous raw materials that might be considered harmful.

Zestron’s cleaning agents are free of all hazardous materials including lead. The cleaning media therefore fulfills all environmental requirements and exceeds most workers’ safety standards.

The company’s cleaning technologies (i.e. MPC Technology) are designed to be used in a closed loop system which enables long bath life and little to no waste water generation. Therefore, the cleaning agents claim to offer more economically and ecologically sound solutions, especially when compared to traditional surfactant based products.

SYDNEY – Altium Ltd has released Service Pack 4 (SP4) for Altium Designer, a single, unified application that is said to incorporate all the technologies and capabilities necessary for electronic product development. Available as a free download to existing licensed customers, it includes over 100 new features and enhancements.

Document file locking improves collaborative design. Documents opened for editing by one designer can be locked to prevent accidental overwriting by other designers.

A new ‘Archive Project’ command automatically consolidates all project documents within a compressed zip file.

At the PCB level, SP4 introduces real-time, 3-D component clearance checking when placing parts. Designers can define the extent of components in terms of multiple areas, heights and standoffs, creating a complex 3-D ‘envelope’ of the component body. Enhancements to component clearance checking rules allow clearances in all directions to be monitored in real-time during placement.

Schematic editing now includes the automation of common rework operations on schematic designs. New commands include ‘Push Part to Sheet’, that makes it easy to replace a component with a sheet symbol, automatically creating an additional subsheet containing the displaced component and maintain overall connectivity. ‘Rename Child Sheet’ command allows the user to change the filename of a subsheet and optionally update all sheet symbols in the project or workspace.

ASYNTIS GmbH, a supplier of plasma etch equipment for semiconductor backend manufacturing, introduces the Silicon Star 12 Plasma Etch system for stress relief and surface conditioning of 12” wafers in high-volume production.

The company claims this is the first production-level plasma etch system to operate at near room temperature, allowing wafers to be processed with polymeric B/G (back grinding) tape attached.

“The new Silicon Star 12 provides wafer stress relief by removing damaged silicon layers—increasing individual die breaking strength by a factor of 10,” said Roland Busch, VP of sales and marketing. “But of note to our customers is the minimal impact the addition of our stress relief system will have to their current wafer process flow.”

It removes the micro cracks and dislocations from thinned wafers, reducing wafer stress and enhancing the fracture strength of single dies. High etch rates provide throughput advantages compared to polishing or etch solutions.

Features include:

Etch rates up to 3 µm/min;

Low process temperatures for taped wafer processing;

Process control provides consistent quality for mirror-like and matte surfaces;

Processing wafer sizes up to 300 mm.

ASYNTIS GmbH, www.ASYNTIS.com