Meeting the Challenges of High Volume PCB Cross‐section Sample Preparation

The ever‐increasing need for circuit boards places equally heavy demands on the control laboratory to prepare and examine sufficient polished cross‐sections for process analysis. High production facilities require large numbers of polished cross‐sections to meet the demands of industrial or military specifications. Manual sample preparation methods are totally inadequate to provide sufficient numbers of samples fast enough to prevent processing of material that is defective. Additional manual devices, technicians and expanded work areas are not capable of meeting the quantity or time demands imposed by high production. However, a system has been devised that addresses the shortcomings of manual sample preparation and provides an efficient, cost effective means of producing very large quantities of polished cross‐sections in a meaningful turn‐around time.