EMAC Embedded System Manufacturing is different from your typical Electronic Assembly Contract Manufacturer. First of all, EMAC is in the United States (Carbondale, IL USA to be exact) and all of our Engineering, Manufacturing, Testing and Integration departments are based in the United States; thus any products, design files, or information is not sent overseas by EMAC. Second, EMAC is primarily an Engineering Design Firm that does Manufacturing. In our Manufacturing Assembly process, we create a closed loop where manufacturing feeds back any issues to Engineering. Engineering then looks for root causes for the issues and creates Engineering Change Requests (ECRs) for each issue. For EMAC designs, we provide the ECRs to the customer before EMAC makes the changes. Making these changes will increase the manufacturing yield of the board thus saving the customer money. EMAC has written Custom Productivity Software (mentioned in my last blog) that allows us to track our First Pass Yield to show how improvements affect the board yield.

Additionally, EMAC is able manufacture boards that are fairly complex. Our closed-loop process, allows us to successfully manufacture these complex boards. Other Embedded Systems Manaufacturers use an open-loop process and tend to Assemble what they are given with little or no feedback. If an issue exists, they will just deal with it the best they can and increase the cost of the board to compensate for the additional time and fallout from the issue.

Types of testing EMAC Manufacturing utilizes to improve board manufacturing provide-

• Automated Optical Inspection (AOI)
• In Circuit Testing (ICT)
• Automated X-Ray Testing (AXT)
• Boundary Scan Testing (BCT)
• Functional Circuit Testing (FCT)

Since EMAC is primarily an Engineering company, we can work with you to design and produce custom Test-Sets for each project. Using some or portions of the above automated tests EMAC can offer the best testing for each Product. Additionally, we have written custom test software known as Test/Programming Application(TPA) that can be adapted to program and test virtually any Product. The TPA automates programming, testing, and logging of test output logs to our Board Tracker Database. The Board Tracker Database stores the First Pass Yield, any failures, and the history of each board by serial number on the server or locally on the Test-Set database logs stored within the Test-Set. These testing logs can be utilized during board reviews or design changes, to identify problem areas that need attention or updates to reduce these failures. The use of TPA Test Software reduces the Test-Set development cost and provides a better user experience. Doing customer reviews and designing custom Test-Sets allows us to be intimately familiar with a customer’s board assuring that we can exceed customer expectations with the production of their boards.

For more information on EMAC’s testing and how to incorporate these into your designs see our whitepaper:  PCB Assembly Testing and Best Practices (Download PDF)

EMAC Manufacturing can build to the specifications needed by the project, defining any required standards during the design process of the project, goes beyond just quality soldering standard levels:

IPC-A-610, Class 2 is our default build standard and inspection for all Screening Circuits assemblies. Class II inspection ensures a consistent level of quality in manufacturing, Repeatability in testing, and long life for any embedded or industrial-grade products.

IPC-A-610, Class 3 is the highest standard for electronic assemblies with very low tolerances and utmost consistency–used for extremely demanding applications and harsh climates. When specifications are tight, failures in the field need to be reduced, and higher resistance to outside forces(shock, vibration, moisture, or other chemicals). While generally specified in medical, military or anywhere highly reliability or harsh environment where electronics require zero downtime.

Not only does EMAC design and build your devices, we specialize in protecting them to ensure a long service life when client requirements demand this service. This includes ruggedizing and testing for the most extreme applications and environments. The EMAC engineering team provides recommendations on testing and additional steps necessary to protect the final product.

Increasingly, EMAC simplifies manufacturing and the supply chain for our customers. EMAC’s facility is dedicated to engineering, manufacturing, system testing, assembly and box build services all at our single location. EMAC can even provide order fulfillment services including direct order processing, pick and pack and final product configuration on a variety of products.  We support fully tested and assembled box build services with an experienced team who ensures that every product shipped from EMAC’s facility meets our customer’s stringent order fulfillment and logistics demands.

• End-to-end process management
• Quality processes documentation
• System tracking, including asset tagging and serial number traceability
• Systems Ruggedization

All products produced, from the simplest adapter board from the most complex Industrial ARM Single Board Computer to the NVIDIA AGX Orin Artificial intelligence carrier boards, manufactured by EMAC’s manufacturing, go through the testing process at EMAC before they are ready to be delivered. From automated inspection and adjustment of the production line; this monitoring and feedback provides adjustments to the automated manufacturing section, as well as EMAC’s Engineering. Allowing EMAC’s manufacturing to make boards with fewer failures and higher reliability on their first pass. Products then pass through Automated and full hands-on visual inspections during through-hole component installation and board assembly finalization. To a final processing in our manufacturing testing section, where functional testing is performed, along with any software programming and a final quality check. This is all done prior to any product being packaged for shipment or sent to the Integration department for any further testing and assembly into more complete systems.

The quality management system of EMAC for our Manufacturing Department’s processes meets the requirements of the international standard ISO 9001 and we maintain a ISO 9001:2015 certification.