Xaar’s industrial inkjet printhead expertise has been combined with Shifang Technology’s electronics manufacturing and system integration know-how to deliver a more precise, data-driven coating process. PCBA conformal coating plays a critical role in protecting electronic assemblies from environmental hazards such as moisture, salt spray, mould, dust, chemical corrosion and temperature fluctuation. As electronics become more compact and more complex, manufacturers need greater control over where coatings are applied and how consistently they perform across sectors including telecommunications, semiconductors, consumer and automotive electronics.
The solution developed by Shifang integrates Xaar’s UV digital inkjet technology into the conformal coating process, enabling selective coating directly from digital design data without the need for masking. Using Xaar eX printheads, Shifang has developed a high-precision functional coating print engine that can accurately control coating placement and thickness across complex PCB layouts. By completing coating in a single print pass, the system reduces process steps, manual intervention and material waste, while production speeds are reported to be up to ten times higher than traditional methods. Coating thicknesses from approximately 1 to 50μm are supported by the technology and can be varied across different areas of the board as required. (Photo: Electronics Weekly)