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In today’s production environment, electronics manufacturers are challenged to reduce costs and optimize throughput to meet production demands. New flash and microcontroller technologies are driving additional device programming requirements in manufacturing. Device programming is an essential process that can directly impact cost and production output. How can electronics manufacturers get the most out of their device programming process while ensuring their investment is protected to meet future demands?

There are various device programming methods used in manufacturing. These methods include manual programming, automated programming, programming at test, programming at the end-of-line and outsourcing. It is not uncommon for a seemingly lower cost solution such as a manual process to be more costly than an automated programming solution. The key is to understand how much it costs to program each device to get a total cost of programming metric. Three key factors that impact the total cost of programming include:

• Performance: How many devices can be programmed per hour? What is the performance of the programming technology? Today you may be programming microcontrollers and NAND devices which are limited by the write/read speeds of the device. Tomorrow you may need to program devices with faster write/read/write speeds such as eMMC and Universal Flash Storage (UFS). Will the programming technology your investing in be able to keep up maximizing your throughput?

• Flexibility & Scalability: Device programming requirements are constantly changing with the latest semiconductor technology. These new devices are designed into the latest electronic products utilizing, new Flash memory interfaces, faster write/read speeds and complex security features. In addition, device sizes are shrinking, image file sizes are growing and write/read speeds of the devices are increasing. A programming process that is highly flexible and scalable greatly reduces the total cost of programming.

  As image file sizes grow the time it takes to program each device takes longer reducing production throughput. In this scenario the two ways to improve production throughput is to either purchase an additional programming system or increase the socket capacity in your existing solution. Adding additional programming site(s) to your existing solution greatly reduces your total cost of programming. When evaluating programming methods, it is important to understand what the maximum number of devices the system can support and how you can scale your process to meet your future production demands.

• Quality & Reliability: Quality and reliability have a direct impact on the total cost of programming. Systems that can deliver high programming yield reduce programming costs associated with rework and improve manufacturing efficiencies. This becomes more important when programming small devices, WLCSP or leaded packages. Programming methods with precision handling, placement accuracy and vision inspection reduce costs associated with damaged or incorrectly programmed devices.

The industry standard for device programming

Data I/O provides the lowest total cost of programming with a family of highly scalable and flexible automated device programming systems to choose from including the PSV7000, PSV5000 and PSV2800. All systems include the industry’s fastest programming technology and a suite of software, media I/O, marking and vision inspection options to meet your production, quality and cost requirements.

Data I/O’s Total Cost of Programming Analysis: Learn How to Reduce Costs, Optimize Production and Protect Your Investment

Now is the time to evaluate your programming process and learn from our experts on how you can reduce your costs, optimize your production and protect your investment. Data I/O offers a total cost of programming analysis based on your devices and production requirements. In just a few steps we can determine how much device programming costs today and how your investment will scale enabling you to meet future production and programming requirements.

What you’ll get:

• A detailed throughput calculation

• A breakdown of costs per component

• A customized offer for a configured Data I/O programming solution based on your production requirements

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About Data I/O: We bring electronic products to life

Data I/O is the leading global provider of advanced data and security programming solutions for device programming and secure authentication in manufacturing. Our automated semiconductor device programming solutions are an integral component of the global electronics supply chain market. Customers in automotive, Internet-of-Things, medical, wireless, consumer electronics and industrial use more than 500 active programming systems globally for the programming of more than 1 billion devices yearly.