MORRISVILLE, NC - Juki Corporation, a world-leading provider of automated assembly products and systems, walked away from the APEX show in Las Vegas and the NEPCON/EMT Show in Shanghai winners of no less than five prestigious industry awards.

Each award is designed to recognize and celebrate excellence in electronics surface mount assembly and to premier products based on the finest examples of creative advancement in technology. Each award category is chosen by a distinguished panel of industry experts, designed to inspire companies to achieve the highest possible standards and to push the industry forward.

The gambling capital of the USA proved lucky for Juki as they scooped two of the coveted NPI

Awards presented in the category of “Software” for the OPASS software solution and in the category of “Selective Solder” the Juki 350 system.

Also in Las Vegas, Juki received an SMT VISION Award in the category of “Design & Manufacturing Software”, again for the OPASS Software solution.

NEPCON China/EMT, held in Shanghai, was back-to-back with the 2008 APEX show and continued Juki’s winning streak as they picked up two SMTC Awards, part of the SMT China VISION Awards program. The first award, in the category of “Pick & Place – Mid Speed” was awarded for the Juki FX3 system, confirming its position in the mid range marketplace. The final award of the fortnight was once again for their OPASS Software in the category: “Software-Production,” highlighting this software solution as a global industry leader.

With Juki’s OPASS software technology, the placement machine can automatically detect and compensate for misalignment of the solder paste to produce high-quality boards regardless of the process errors beforehand. It was developed by Juki to ensure customers can achieve high first-pass yields regardless of circuit pattern variations between board lots.

While board makers strive to keep variations between lots to an absolute minimum, it is not possible for them to eliminate forward expansion and scaling completely. This means that the pads are not exactly in the same positions as they were on the previous lot. When the boards are fed into the stencil printer for solder paste there can be slight offsets from the solder paste print to the pad location. In larger parts that can be a very small percentage of the pad size, but in smaller parts like 01005, 0201 or even 0402, the solder could be halfway off of the pad.

Likewise with ceramic or flexible boards, print repeatability can be difficult to achieve, causing further solder paste alignment problems. There also is cause for concern on double-sided boards because boards tend to contract after the first side reflow process. With the increased use of lead-free solder, the properties of the self-alignment effects have changed.