UV LED Curing Systems: An ideal solution for curing of adhesives

Adhesive curing with UV LED curing systems offers a wide range of advantages across applications in electronics assembly, medical, manufacturing, and more.

LED-based UV curing systems offer a more sustainable and flexible solution than traditional technologies with lower energy consumption, no ozone emissions, no mercury content, and a “cold cure” enabling the use of heat-sensitive components. LED-based systems also offer vastly improved lifetimes resulting in a stable, reliable full cure over tens of thousands of hours and greatly reduced maintenance costs and downtime.

Electronics

UV LED technology provides an ideal solution for UV curing of adhesives in electronics assembly. Easily integrated into the assembly process, UV LED Curing systems, provide an even, reliable cure and the “cold cure” delivered is ideal for heat-sensitive components.

Die Attach (often referred to as die bonding) is the process of attaching a die/chip to a substrate or package. Die attach can be accomplished by UV curable adhesive. It has the main advantage of being curable in situ, thereby significantly speeding up the entire assembly process and opening up the range of applications to some specific cases. The use of UV LED curing lamps in these applications can provide a fast, reliable cure.

Surface Mount Adhesives (SMD Adhesives) Before soldering, components with pin contacts or SMDs are often bonded to the PCB with adhesive. This allows components to be positioned on a circuit board and cured within just a few seconds to prevent their falling over or sliding out of position on the PCB. The secured components can then be reflow-soldered in a single work step, which saves time and speeds up production. With their compact nature and long lifetimes, UV LED curing lamps are easily integrated into these applications providing a uniform cure for tens of thousands of hours.

Underfill resins are used to reduce the thermal expansion mismatch between silicon chips, solder balls, and the substrate. To compensate for this mismatch, a liquid underfill resin with a Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) close to that of the solder bump is deposited and UV cured in the gap between the chip and substrate. The use of underfill enables structural coupling of the chip and substrate, effectively decreasing the shear stress and thus lowering the applied strain on the solder joints. UV LED curing lamps offer an ideal solution for these applications.

 

 

Dam & Fill is a two-step process of first dispensing a high viscosity fluid around the perimeter of a device or electronic circuitry, and then dispensing a low viscosity fluid within the perimeter to fully encase the components. Both materials can be cured simultaneously using UV LED lamps.

Glob-tops are epoxies that are dispensed to cover a single chip in chip-on-board (COB) applications. They are most frequently used to encapsulate wire-bonded dies, since the wire bonds often need physical strengthening provided by epoxy, and other methods like conformal coatings or underfilling don’t provide the same protection. In addition to physical protection, they provide environmental, thermal shock, and reverse engineering protection. Glob-top epoxies are often loaded with a thermally conductive filler which allows them to aid in heat dissipation. Glob-top epoxies can be either one-part or two-part or UV curing-based solutions.

Conformal coatings Conformal coating is a special polymeric film forming product that protects circuit boards, components, and other electronic devices from adverse environmental conditions. These coatings ‘conform’ to inherent irregularities in both the structure and environment of the PCB. They provide increased dielectric resistance, operational integrity, and protection from corrosive atmospheres, humidity, heat, fungus, and airborne contamination such as dirt and dust. Coatings that are cured using ultraviolet light offer very fast throughputs and UV LED-based solutions offer additional advantages such as longer lifetimes and a “cold cure” ideal for heat-sensitive components.

Medical

UV LED curing systems offer excellent reliability which is critical in the medical device industry. LED curing systems with their long lifetimes and instant on/off control provide an ideal solution. In addition, the “cold cure” technology enables the use of heat-sensitive components.

UV LED lamps are used in a wide range of medical applications including adhesives, coatings, and marking. Adhesives and coatings applications can include components, such as syringes and tubing, to medical devices such as heart rate monitors.

UV curing is also used for marking in medical markets including applications such as applying barcodes and serial numbers.

Manufacturing

With their compact form factor, UV LED curing systems can be easily integrated into production lines. The range of applications for UV LED curing in manufacturing is increasing rapidly due to the environmental advantages of LED technology as well as increases in the intensity that can be achieved with UV LED systems.

COBRA Cure FX Series

The COBRA Cure FX Series offers all the advantages of a UV LED curing system with high intensities and energy densities from compact form factors. The products are built from the LED chip up for maximum output power and uniformity ensuring a reliable, even cure.

 

 

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New Whitepaper:

Advantages of UV LED Curing Systems for Adhesives Curing Applications

This whitepaper examines the many advantages of UV LED-based curing systems over traditional technologies in adhesive applications.

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COBRA Cure FX Range:

  • New COBRA Cure Mini

    6W/cm² Compact, Light form factor UV LED curing system offers a cost-effective solution for high-speed single and multi-pass printers.

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  • COBRA Cure FX1

    Compact UV LED Curing System built with Chip-on-Board LED technology for high intensity and uniformity.

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  • COBRA Cure FX1 Max

    6.4W/cm² UV LED curing system has 20% higher intensity than the COBRA Cure FX1, well suited for limited space applications requiring higher intensity and dose.

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  • COBRA CURE FX2

    8.4W/cm² UV LED curing system is a compact, fan-cooled system offering excellent intensity control across varying conditions to ensure an even cure.

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  • COBRA CURE FX3

    20W/cm² UV LED curing system offers industry-leading intensity and dose values and edge to edge illumination, ideal for UV curing of inks, coatings and adhesives.

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  • COBRA CURE FX4

    14W/cm², 58J/cm² UV LED curing system with high-density Chip-on-Board LED arrays and a wide 40mm window, ideal for large format, high speed printing.

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