Masters Abstracts (1992)

HWANG, SUICHEN
(May 1992), Senior Engineer, Enigneering Information Section, R & D Department, Sampo Corp, Taiwan

Email: suichen@sampo.com.tw

Update Mechanisms for a Solder Paste Advisor

Solder paste is physically a very small component of the materials used in the electronic manufacturing domain. However, it plays an vital role in electronics packaging. The performance and quality of solder paste are crucial to the integrity of a solder joint, which in turn is important to the overall function of the assembly. The solder paste used affects almost every facet of the PCB assembly process. The solder paste selection advisor for surface mount PCBs is based upon knowledge based programming techniques. The research described in this thesis enhanced the existing version of the solder paste selection expert system. The enhancements include changes to the reasoning mechanism, software structure, and the user interface.

Mechanisms to help the domain expert update the expert system and change the inference procedure have been researched and implemented. The user can request and view the reasoning process used in solder paste selection through a tree structure. This research also addressed the possibility of the domain expert changing the inference procedures used. The solder paste selection environment has been implemented on a personal computer under DOS using PROLOG.