Patent Analysis  for PCB SMT Assembly

 
Abstract: SMT is a new generation of electronic assembly technology and one of the key technologies in modern electronic product manufacturing. With the formulation of made in China 2025, intelligent electronics manufacturing, as the main direction, is the core technology of the new round of industrial revolution, and has become a national strategy. The integration of SMT and intelligent electronics manufacturing concept, the establishment of efficient, agile, flexible and resource-sharing SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing model is the future development direction of the electronic product manufacturing industry, and it is an important way to improve the manufacturing capability and level of SMT products. Taking SooPAT patent database as the data source, this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the patent situation of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing related technology in China from the aspects of annual patent application trend, patent type distribution, patentee, IPC technology field, patent area distribution and so on.The article is extracted from the author of "Smart Electronics Manufacturing": Dr.Mao Lifei of Topscom, published on China electronics Network in 2020.

 

Key words: PCB SMT Assembly intelligent Electronics manufacturing; patent database; patent analysis.
 
0 introduction.
 
In recent years, a new generation of information technology, such as the Internet of things, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, is leading a new round of global scientific and technological revolution and industrial change, with the deep integration, development and innovation of informatization and industrialization. promote the manufacturing industry to digital, networked, intelligent, service-oriented transformation and upgrading. The proposal and implementation of the American Industrial Internet, German Industrial 4.0 and Japan's "Robot New Strategy" will revitalize their domestic manufacturing industry through the development of intelligent electronics manufacturing, and strengthen the layout of related technology. it is intended to seize the advanced and commanding heights in the industrial revolution. After actively drawing lessons from the experience of foreign industrial developed countries, China promulgated made in China 2025, which indicates that China will comprehensively promote the implementation of the manufacturing power strategy, take the integration of the two as the main line, and set intelligent electronics manufacturing as the main attack direction. to promote the transformation from made in China to smart manufacturing in China.


Surface mount technology ((surface Mount Technology,SMT) is the main technical means of assembly and manufacturing of printed circuit modules in modern electronic products. Advanced electronic products manufacturing industry, represented by SMT product assembly and manufacturing system, has become an important branch of modern manufacturing industry. Based on intelligent electronics manufacturing technology, the establishment of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing system with high efficiency, agility, flexibility and resource sharing is the future development direction of electronic product manufacturing industry, and it is an important way to improve product manufacturing capability and level.

From the point of view of patent intelligence analysis, this paper attempts to analyze the annual patent application trend, patent type distribution, IPC technology field and research institutions of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing related technologies in China from the perspective of patent intelligence analysis, using SMT as a breakthrough point to reveal the research status and development trend of intelligent electronics manufacturing technology of electronic products in China, so as to provide reference for patent layout and strategy in this field.




1 data source and retrieval.
According to the requirements of the research purpose, the samples analyzed in this paper come from the SooPAT patent database, which contains 99 countries and regions and more than 95 million patent documents, with a time span of 350 years, but so far, only Chinese patent data search is completely free. On the basis of comprehensively considering the novelty and representativeness of patent information, the patent application time is set from January 2007 to November 2016. SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing takes SMT PCBA assembly manufacturing system (SMT production line) as the carrier, integrates intelligent management system, process system, networking, big data, sensor, industrial control and other technologies. Therefore, in the SooPAT patent database, Search expression: (ZY: (SMT) ORZY: (surface mount) ORZY: (surface assembly)) AND (ZY: (solder paste printing) ORZY: (solder paste screen printing) ORZY: (solder paste) ORZY: (soldering) ORZY: (reflow) ORZY: (detection) ORZY: (feeding) ORZY: (blanking) ORZY: (flipping) ORZY: (maintenance) ORZY: (sensing) ORZY: (control. ) OR ZY: (flexible Manufacturing) OR ZY: (Intelligent electronics manufacturing) OR ZY: (big data) OR ZY: (Internet of things) OR ZY: (RFID) OR ZY: (Management)), 2167 items of data were obtained by retrieval.


2 Analysis of patent application situation of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing technology in China.

2.1 Analysis of the total amount of patents and annual applications.

Through the analysis of the total amount of patents and annual applications, we can reveal the patent applications and technology research and development in the field of SMT electronic products manufacturing technology over the years, so as to grasp its technological development trend and overall trends. Of the 2167 domestic SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing technology patents, 1138 are utility model patents, accounting for 52 percent of the total, 988 invention patents, accounting for 46 percent, and 41 appearance patents.
 
The number of patents for intelligent electronics manufacturing technology for SMT changes from year to year. In view of the periodicity of patents from application to disclosure, and there is a certain time lag in the collection and entry of patent databases, some of the statistical indicators in 2016 are for reference only. From the changing trend of the number of patent applications, we can see that the number of annual patent applications has increased rapidly since 2011, from 185 in 2011 to 375 in 2015. this shows that a series of plans and special policies issued by relevant ministries and commissions in China around 2025 have clearly defined the development route and outline of China's intelligent electronics manufacturing equipment industry, especially after the release of made in China 2015. Intelligent electronics manufacturing has entered the stage of in-depth research and demonstration pilot. Before 2012, intelligent electronics manufacturing is mainly a comprehensive technology that permeates and interweaves manufacturing technology, automation technology, computer technology, system engineering and artificial intelligence. The new generation of information technology (Internet of things, big data, cloud computing, etc.) has not yet been integrated into all aspects of manufacturing activities.

The percentage value represents the ratio of the annual invention patent to the total number of annual patent applications. It can be further learned from statistics that the annual number of SMT PCB assembly manufacturing technology invention patent applications is increasing year by year, from 83 in 2011 to 145 in 2015, but invention patents accounted for only 38.7% of annual patent applications in 2015, indicating that China's independent innovation capability in the field of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology needs to be strengthened.



2.2 Analysis of patentees.

Through the analysis of SMT patentees of intelligent electronics manufacturing technology, we can know the patentees with R & D and innovation activity and leading technology level in this field. Table 1 shows the total number of applications of the top 10 patentees from 2007 to 2016.

Among the top 10 patentees are enterprises, universities and individuals. Kunshan Situo Machinery Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in the research and development of opto-mechatronics manufacturing equipment, and its patent applications for SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology are mainly concentrated in G: physics (18) and B: operation and transportation (9), and most of the patents are invention patents, up to 20, accounting for about 74% of the total number of applications. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. patent applications are mainly focused on H: electricity (22), while Anji Tengfei Electronics Co., Ltd. is mainly focused on B: operation and transportation (21). From table l, it can be seen that the total number of patent applications of the top 10 patentees in SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing technology is 180, accounting for about 8% of the total patent applications, indicating that there are many enterprises engaged in this field in our country, and patent applications are still very scattered. SMT advanced electronic products manufacturing industry has not attracted enough attention of major electronic information manufacturing enterprises.
2.3 Technical domain analysis.

Through the statistical analysis of the technical content corresponding to the IPC (International Patent Classification) classification number, we can obtain the distribution of R & D capability in each period in this field, as well as the proportion of all kinds of patent applications in the technology field, understand the maturity of all kinds of technology research, and then clarify the development trend of technology. In the IPC category of all 2167 patents in the field of intelligent electronics manufacturing technology for SMT, the top eight patents total 1713, accounting for 79% of all patents. Therefore, the patented technology in these eight categories (H01 H05PowerG01Magi H04mB23recoverB41mG06jF21) can fully represent the current situation of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology. Among them, SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology patents are mostly concentrated in H01 (547 pieces) and H05 (508 pieces), which represent the manufacturing technology of structural components or electrical components related to printed circuits, as well as processes and methods related to SMT, respectively.

The statistics are based on the top 10 intelligent electronics manufacturing technology patent applications of IPC according to the subcategory of SMT International Patent Classification. The table lists the IPC patent number, the number of patents and the technical fields involved. It can be seen from Table 2 that the key research fields of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology in China are mainly concentrated in H05K3, H05K1, H01R13, H01R12, H05K13 and other groups. Among them, the H05K3 group occupies the most amount, which is mainly used in the research of equipment and methods for manufacturing printed circuit boards. In addition, the PCB mounting technology, electrical interconnecting components (terminals), screen printing machine, photoelectric detection equipment and technology used in SMT production system are the focus of domestic research. Through further research, it is found that the number of patents in the direction of high-speed and high-precision chip machine equipment in our country is at least, and the final products entering the market are very few, which is mainly due to some technical difficulties and insufficient capital investment. Although some related enterprises have carried out SMT production line information management and monitoring, material intelligent transportation system, but its combination with intelligent electronics manufacturing technology is still far from enough.

 

2.4 Regional distribution analysis.

Through the analysis of the regional distribution of patent applications, we can understand the research level of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology in different regions. Figure 3 shows the distribution of regional patents in the field of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology in China. Generally speaking, patent applications are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal provinces and cities, with the Pearl River Delta being the strongest, followed by the Yangtze River Delta. Guangdong Province has always maintained a quantitative advantage in the field of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology, with 658 applications, accounting for 37.9% of the total number of top 10 applications. The research level in this field steadily ranks first, and there are 251 invention patents, accounting for about 38.1% of the number of applications. Jiangsu Province occupies the second place, with 394 applications, accounting for 22.7% of the total number of top 10 applications, and 192 invention patents, accounting for 48.7% of the total number of applications. The patent quality is better than that of Guangdong Province, but all need to be improved; then there are provinces and cities such as Shanghai, Zhejiang and Beijing, which is closely related to the regional layout of China's SMT electronics manufacturing industry. The statistical chart shows the time trend of the top five regional patent applications. The statistical time is 20122016. It can be seen that Guangdong Province, Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province have been very active in the field of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology in recent years, and the number of patent applications is relatively average every year.

3 conclusion.

From the point of view of patent analysis, this paper expounds the annual patent application trend, patent type distribution, patentee, IPC technology field, patent area distribution and other factors in the field of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing technology, and studies the overall development trend of this field. It can be seen that the intelligent level of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology is not high, and the combination of SMT pcba assembly manufacturing technology and intelligent electronics manufacturing technology is far from enough, especially the integration with the new generation information technology needs to be improved. Taking intelligent electronics manufacturing, the main direction of made in China 2025, as an opportunity, we carry out in-depth integration and independent innovation research from the technical directions of intelligent storage, management and deployment of SMT products, intelligent inspection of assembly quality of SMT products, control and intelligent identification, intelligent perception and adaptation of SMT intelligent environment, resource sharing of SMT production and equipment, SMT industrial control and information security, etc. Do a good job of patent planning and layout in the field of SMT intelligent electronics manufacturing technology.