High-tech manufacturing

2020-08-06 | Corporate

Not even one Anton Paar instrument would work without them: circuit boards. Those are produced by up-to-date technology in the electronic production in Graz.

Walking through the electronic production for the first time feels like being in a cinema in the 1920s – large "film rolls" as far as the eye can see. But of course it's not thrilling westerns or romantic comedy saved on these 17,000 rolls. There are rather millions of different components, which are going to be put onto the circuit boards. This process is called "mounting" and done by two high-tech mounting lines.

Everything in its place
The assembly machine selects the right electronic components from up to 482 rolls and places it to the right positions (where soldering paste is applied) within µm accuracy. The paste's quality is automatically inspected. When everything is fine, the components are fixed in a soldering oven at 240 degrees Celsius. The high performance machine accomplishes the mounting of a DMA 35 main board in about 15 seconds. Ten to 20 different projects can be worked on by the two mounting lines in one day, the production of prototypes is slid in when necessary. Therefore precise and foresighted planning is needed.

Concentration and flair
Bigger components that can't be mounted automatically by the machine are mounted and soldered manually by employees. At the end of the production process every circuit board is examined, both optically and functionally. Depending on the area of application, the board may be coated with a special paint against humidity. So at the end the electronic production is really great cinema.

Impressive figures
350,000 circuit boards with 60 billion components are produced every year.
60,000 components can be maximally mounted per hour.
The mounting of a DMA 35 main board (portable density meter) takes 15 seconds.