KIC, a specialist in thermal process management for electronics manufacturing, has announced its participation in the SMTA Long Island Expo & Tech Forum. The company will both exhibit automatic profiling technology and deliver a technical presentation at the event, which serves as a regional platform for SMT process engineers and production managers in the northeastern United States.
Automatic thermal profiling addresses a persistent challenge in reflow soldering: generating accurate, repeatable temperature profiles across varying board assemblies without the manual effort traditionally required. Conventional profiling involves attaching thermocouples to a PCB, running it through the oven, and iteratively adjusting zone settings — a time-consuming process that is particularly burdensome in high-mix, low-volume production environments common across European and North American contract manufacturers.
KIC's approach uses predictive software algorithms and integrated sensor technology to automate this workflow. The system calculates optimal oven settings based on component thermal mass and board layout data, reducing the time to achieve a validated process window compliant with standards such as IPC-7530 for reflow and wave soldering profiles. This is directly relevant for manufacturers working with lead-free solder alloys, which demand tighter process windows compared to tin-lead predecessors.
The SMTA Long Island forum format, combining exhibition with technical presentations, allows suppliers such as KIC to engage directly with process engineers on application-level questions — a format increasingly valued as manufacturing complexity grows with miniaturisation and the adoption of advanced components including bottom-terminated devices and area-array packages.
For the European electronics manufacturing market, KIC's automatic profiling technology is distributed through regional partners and is used in reflow ovens across a range of platforms. Automated profiling tools are gaining relevance as manufacturers face pressure to reduce changeover times while maintaining process quality and traceability documentation required by quality management frameworks such as IATF 16949 in automotive electronics supply chains.
KIC's participation at the SMTA Long Island Expo & Tech Forum underlines the company's continued focus on process engineering education alongside product demonstration — an approach consistent with the technically oriented audience of regional SMTA events.
Quelle: KIC – https://kicthermal.com/kic-to-showcase-automatic-profiling-and-present-at-smta-long-island-expo-tech-forum/
