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Minutes of the Automatic Component Handling Committee (ACH)
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Marriott City Center, Charlotte, NC

1.0 CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by the Chairman, Jan Vandenham, at 8:00am. All parties introduced themselves, and an attendance sheet was circulated. In addition, a committee roster was circulated to which it was requested that corrections be made regarding company representation and contact information.

2.0 APPROVAL of AGENDA
Scott Carter requested that the report on the component orientation Errata by the editing task force precede the report on the orientation survey.

Jan Vandenham commented that there would be no task group report on the EIA-783-A (PN-4954) & Bulk Case (PN-4420) projects, but that it should remain an agenda item.

Jan Vandenham reported that no JEDEC representatives were present for their scheduled presentation, but that the topic should remain on the agenda.

The agenda was approved with the above conditions.

3.0 APPROVAL of MINUTES
Meeting minutes from the ACH meeting held in Albuquerque, NM on April 18, 2002 were approved with no corrections.

4.0 Presentation by JEDEC Officer on Alternate Sponsoring Organization for the ACH Committee
No JEDEC officer was in attendance at the meeting to make a presentation to the ACH meeting as had been promised by JEDEC. In lieu of a presentation by a JEDEC representative, a discussion concerning a potential move by the ACH committee to JEDEC sponsorship commenced.

Chairman Vandenham, who reviewed the main reasons for the ACH committee to make JEDEC its sponsoring organization instead of ECA, initiated the discussion. The first reason is that there has been some dissatisfaction during the past 5 or 6 years by the Chairman and membership with the quality of services provided by EIA/ECA for the ACH committee. It was pointed out that the lack of JEDEC representation at the meeting, as promised, was perhaps an indication of the level of service that would be provided by JEDEC in the future.

The second reason for considering a move to JEDEC as the ACH committee's sponsoring organization is JEDEC's policy of publishing free standards on their website. Several attendees indicated that it was very important that the standards written by the ACH committee be available for immediate download on the Internet, and that this was currently not the case. Ed Mikoski of EIA/ECA pointed out, however, that the ACH standards are indeed currently available for purchase on-line for immediate download through the IHS website. Since on-line availability to ACH committee standards was unknown to many of the committee members, it was suggested that most in industry would be unaware of this current service also. A task group, consisting of Charles Gutentag-Tempo Electronics and Chairman Vandenham was formed to draft a notice that advertises to the automatic component handling industry about the availability of standards from ACH, JEDEC, ECA, etc.

Following the discussion a motion was made and seconded to reject JEDEC's proposal for sponsorship of the ACH committee. The motion was passed unanimously with no abstentions.

5.0 EIA-481-B - Editing Committee Report on Orientation Errata by Carter
Scott Carter-Tek Pak reported on the component orientation Errata that was formulated by the editing committee (Bruce Zarek-Alltemated, Doug Laven-V Tek, Calvin Quan-Celestica, and Carter) since the last ACH committee meeting on April 18, 2002. It was explained by Carter that the Errata was created as an editorial clarification for the component orientation rules in section 4.14 of the EIA-481-B standard per the directions of the ACH committee at the April 18, 2002 meeting. It was further explained that the Errata was intended only to clarify the existing rules and that no technical changes to the standard were made whatsoever. Ed Mikoski pointed out that the Errata is now available from Global Engineering Documents for customers who purchase a new copy of the EIA-481-B standard. The Errata is also available from the ACH section of the ECA website and is also an attachment to these meeting minutes.

6.0 Industry Component Orientation Survey Report by Celestica
Scott Carter presented the report for Calvin Quan-Celestica, who was unable to attend the meeting. It was reported that the task force of Calvin Quan, Bruce Zarek, Doug Laven, and Carter formulated a survey that addressed the component orientation issues that have been faced by end users in the industry. The survey (attached to these minutes) summarized the problems faced by end users when applying the current EIA-481-B orientation rules for various types of components. The survey proposes a methodical approach to orientation that includes no exceptions and that eliminates the need to identify the location of Termination #1 on the component.

The survey was distributed to the ACH committee by e-mail on August 13, 2002 with instructions for the committee members to solicit associates from all sectors of industry to participate in the survey. It was requested that surveys be completed and returned by e-mail to engineering@ec-central.org by September 18, 2002. A total of 8 surveys were returned. Five survey respondents voted positively for the proposed orientation rules in the survey and 3 voted negatively (compiled survey results are attached to these minutes).

Because of the importance of this issue for the industry and the low number of respondents to the survey, the committee voted to distribute the survey again in order to increase the response. The survey along with the new Errata to EIA-481-B and a new cover letter written by Jan Vandenham will be distributed to the ACH committee with instructions to again solicit participation by associates in industry. The meeting attendees were urged to make calls to their associates in order to encourage more participation by industry. The survey period is scheduled to end on January 31, 2003. The results of the survey are again to be compiled and a proposal formulated for the next ACH committee meeting by the editing committee consisting of Carter, Laven, Zarek, and Quan.

7.0 ACH-PEPS Collaboration Task Force; EIA 383, 583 & 519 - Report on Ballots by Campbell
No report from the task force was made because no progress was made since the last meeting. Future participation by the current leader, Joey Campbell-Kemet, appears unlikely. Dave Ritchey-Yageo/Phycomp volunteered to take over the leadership of the group for Campbell. A report from the task force about this issue is expected for the next meeting.

8.0 EIA-783-A (PN-4954)
No action has been taken on this item since the ACH committee meeting on April 26, 2001 in San Antonio, Texas. EIA-783-A is to be published as an EIA standard incorporating the editorial and matrix tray rules approved by the committee with the deletion of the following EIA standards from Section 3 Applicable documents: ANSI/EIS-481-1-A, ANSI/EIA-481-2, ANSI/EIA-481-3, and EIA/IS-701-1. Following these modifications, EIA-783-A is to be forwarded to EIA publications for EDEC approval.

9.0 Bulk Case (PN-4420)
No action has been taken on this item since the ACH committee meeting on April 26, 2001 in San Antonio, Texas. Ben Pisoni and Harold Peterson of Murata were the authors of this document. PN-4420 is to be circulated on a 60-day SP ballot for ANSI public review. It is also to be published in the interim as an EIA standard. Due to personnel changes within ECA and Murata, the location of the approved document is in question. Requests to Murata will be made for the document. When the document is located, the appropriate procedures will be implemented for the document to become an EIA standard and eventually an ANSI/EIA standard.

10.0 Document Updates - Status of EIA 726, 747, and 763 by Mikoski
Ed Mikoski reported that all 3 documents have been updated from Interim Standards (IS) to full EIA standards. The Global Engineering website (http://global.ihs.com) indicates that the IS documents still exist, but it also explains that the IS version has been superceded by the full EIA standard.

11.0 New Business

11.1 Universal Instruments Presentation

A presentation was made by Donn Bellmore of Universal Instruments with regard to feeding problems with small components (i.e. 0402 and 0603) at high rates. Mr. Bellmore explained that his responsibility with Universal is for implementing ESD protection measures during the component feeding process. He showed a series of video clips shot with a high-speed camera that documented ESD-related phenomena that caused feeding problems with certain types of components. Actually, Electro Static Charge (ESC) would be a better definition of this problem causing issue, which results quite frequently in the component either being "propelled away from the pick up point" or in "jumping a pocket", both conditions resulting in a "no pick" situation. He explained that the purpose of his presentation was to alert the ACH committee to the fact that ESD phenomena do affect the feeding process and that no standards currently address this issue. Mr. Bellmore proposed to the committee that the quality and consistency of the ESD properties of the cover tape and carrier tape be addressed in updates to the EIA-481-B standard.

Chairman Vandenham requested that a Task Group be formulated to determine if this issue should be addressed by the ACH committee, and, if so, to produce a proposal. Eric Olson-Advantek will head the task force. John Deal-Keaco, Cindy Scott-3M, Charles Gutentag-Tempo, Ted Coler-Vishay, Dave Ritchey-Phycomp, and Donn Bellmore-Universal are the task force members. Recommendation by the task force to be possibly included in the minutes, or posted on the ECA website.

11.2 Strategic Planning Session

With the recent completion of several major projects, it was suggested by Bill Aldeen (Nu-Way) that a strategic planning session would be a beneficial exercise in order to establish long-term goals for the committee. The committee agreed to include such a strategic planning session in the New Business portion of the meeting.

Following is a list of ideas that emerged from the session:

Identify emerging technologies
Make more use of ACH 2000
Identify environmental issues related to automatic component placement
Evaluate re-using carrier tape and re-using reels
Evaluate removable labels
Standardize width, pitch and pieces per reel for popular device sizes
Harmonization with other standards groups
Survey end users for input and opinions on ACH standards
Publish ACH application guide
Publish cross-reference to other standards and standard-setting organizations
Publish technical reports
Publish guide to tape packaging materials and equipment
Produce ACH dictionary or glossary of terms
Standardization for vision system terminology (co-planarity, skew, etc.)
Re-visit the use of Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GDT) in ACH standards
Recommend shelf life for reeled products
Guide for heat-activated vs. pressure-sensitive cover tapes
Develop method for measuring camber in carrier tape
Add names of contributors to published standards
Represent EIA at more trade shows
Protecting taped components during shipping, EIA-383
Find ways to attract more end users to the group

Chairman Vandenham requested that all ACH members begin developing an outline for an ACH application guide for their area(s) of expertise. The above suggestions from the strategic planning session and the ACH application guide, in particular, will be an agenda item at the next ACH committee meeting.

12.0 Future Meetings
The next ACH committee meeting will be held in conjunction with the next ECA summit on April 17, 2003 in Tempe, AZ at the Mission Palms Resort.

Chairman Vandenham stressed that guests are free to attend at least one ACH committee meeting without being a member of ACH or ECA..

Jan Vandenham, Chairman
Signature on file

Scott Carter, Acting Secretary
Signature on file

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