Sartorius Electronics counts on ASM equipment

Sartorius Electronics, which functions as the internal supplier of electronic modules for the Sartorius Group, has also been operating for 25 years as a provider of electronics manufacturing services (EMS) for the general market with great success. As a center of competence for module production, Sartorius Electronics employs all components of the DfX (Design for Excellence) approach. In 2020, 129 initial sample jobs and 842 active jobs resulted in roughly 710,000 modules leaving the production lines.

The rapidly rising in-house demand for electronic modules, component miniaturization and new applications made it necessary to modernize one of the two production lines. Sartorius selected equipment from SMT technology leader ASM: “The core requirements of our internal and external customers are primarily speed for the initial sample process as well as great flexibility and high quality in the production of predominantly small and medium lot sizes. ASM was able to offer an overall solution that was optimized for the needs of Sartorius Electronics,” explains Christoph Oeckl, who heads the ASM SMT Center of Competence in Munich.

Speed, precision, and maximum flexibility

The DEK NeoHorizon 03iX stencil printer achieves a precision of up to ±25 µm @ > 2.0 Cpk with a standard cycle time of eight seconds. ASM ProcessExpert, the world’s first self-learning expert system for printing process control, continuously monitors and optimizes the printing process proactively and autonomously. The DFM HealthCheck function additionally checks the stencil designs for their process stability and uses virtual prints to automatically set the right printing and process parameters for new product introductions. Two SIPLACE SX placement machines with SIPLACE MultiStar and SIPLACE TwinStar heads feature high precision and speed for placing components ranging from the 0201 metric size to large and heavy odd-shaped components.

SMT production on a new level

In the first six months after commissioning the new ASM line, Sartorius could improve its first pass yield to 99.36 percent and reduce the reject rate to as little as 0.53 percent.

“We consider the introduction of the ASM line to a success. We were able to raise our quality, process reproducibility and productivity while enjoying a level of support that is truly impressive in terms of type and scope,” says Thomas Eckart, manager of Sartorius Electronics. “The ASM ProcessExpert has been a significant advance not only in our initial sample development. The certifications as per the IPC-J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610 standards would have been impossible without the support from ASM’s experts,” adds Stefan Brandt, team lead and head of quality management at Sartorius Electronics.

Smart expansions are already planned

Since Sartorius will soon need more feeder slots on the new line due to further increases in component diversity and placement volume, it plans to install a solution that has no equal in the industry: the SIPLACE SX+, a placement solution with no gantry and no head, but to which a gantry and head can be transferred from an existing machine in less than 30 minutes. It allows the user to instantly increase the number of feeder slots in the line by 33 percent without having to invest in more placement heads and more performance that may not be needed. “Our solution scales with the need for additional feeder slots, is cost-attractive, and provides Sartorius with the freedom to add more performance to the line in the future,” explains Christoph Oeckl.