atg Luther & Maelzer Launches New Solution for Large, High Density PCBs:

LM2010 Grid Tester with Optical Alignment

atg Luther & Maelzer’s unique solution for testing large PCB panels with pads down to 150 microns ensures best yield in high volume production. The atg Luther & Maelzer LM2010 with optical alignment combines a well-established grid test system with the state-of-the-art Sniper optical alignment option.

Testing of products with 100-150 micron pads without optical alignment is negatively impacting yields. Pass rates can fall to 50-60% depending on the panel quality. Additionally, the risk of damaging the pads during test increases with smaller pad sizes. While grid test systems designed for testing HDI smartphone PCBs are capable of testing such dense structures, large panel testers do not have the same capability.

The new atg Luther & Melzer Sniper solution with optical alignment is specifically designed for large PCB – like MB motherboards – with dense structures. atg Luther & Maelzer adds the field proven Pico Sniper technology to the LM2010 providing the ability to test panels of up to – 19.2”.

Swen Fleischer, Vice President Greater China at atg-Luther & Maelzer explains: “We developed this solution in close cooperation with our main customers in Asia. It was driven by the trend of motherboard PCB manufacturers to produce two MB motherboards in one production panel. These productions panels with such a dense structure are similar to smartphones or tablet PCBs but with significantly larger dimensions making them more difficult to test. The low first pass rate of standard Grid testers for these types of applications adds cost due to multiple re-testing or the rejection of good PCBs. The LM2010 with Sniper solution can increase the first pass rate of these critical MB panels up to 85% to 95%!”.