Statistical-Based Pick-and-Place Control

Surface Mount Technology (SMT) is the most widely used method of manufacturing electronic assemblies to place electronic components on the surface of the printed circuit board (PCB). The miniaturization trend in electronics requires tighter placement control to satisfy this SMT connection criterion. With the ongoing miniaturization trend and increased usage of lead-free solder, the solder’s misalignment has caused component misalignment, especially on the mini-scale components. This research proposes a statistical-based framework that collects data from inspection machines and identifies the optimal placement position to minimize the small passive component’s side overhang (SO), which is one of the dimensional requirements in SMT assemblies. An experiment that involves four printer settings and 4,800 resistors R0402M (0.40 mm × 0.20 mm) is designed and conducted. In the experiment, our framework shows the effectiveness of reducing SO.