Control of adhesive dispensing parameters during transition from research to production environments

Adhesives are widely used used in electronics manufacturing and packaging environments. However, their effectiveness is sometimes limited by the challenges inherent in moving from a pilot research and development environment onto the assembly line. While the research environment allows the flexibility to vary parameters and study the resulting adhesive deposits with respect to size and consistency in order to accomplish key bonding, sealing or encapsulation requirements, the production environment does not lend itself to this luxury. This makes it imperative to not only select equipment that provides tight control of dispensing parameters, but also to find and eliminate the obvious and not-so-obvious variables that can reduce yields and profits. This paper is written from a dispensing/fluid handling perspective, and does not address other factors that must typically be confronted before the production process, such as adhesive composition, batch quality, substrate surface and preparation, etc.