Adeon Technologies

KLG is a leading global provider of drilling, X-ray drilling and routing machines for the PCB industry worldwide. The range of products includes manual and automatic drilling and routing machine's as well as  X-ray drilling machines.

All Products are highly productive and extremely accurate and efficient . Our vision is to provide our customers with the most complete and technologically advanced equipment for drilling and routing as well as X-ray drilling of bare PCBs
Increases in component packaging density and a constant demand for increased functionality have continued to drive design rules towards achieving higher and higher interconnection density. And in parallel, the requirement is for a new level of mechanical accuracy. Effectively, one technology has been a driver for the other, and whilst the laser has enjoyed the publicity, mechanical machining has undergone significant development in the background, and re-emerged from the shadow to support newly-defined specifications for precision and tolerance.

Moreover, consequent upon the improvements which have been achieved in drilling machine capability, there is renewed interest in the mechanical drilling of micro-vias, with the benefits of precise definition of hole geometry, perfect hole-wall condition and accurate depth control.
And not just in drilling. Flex and flex-rigid, and certain microwave designs present increasingly difficult challenges in routing and controlled-depth milling, especially where relatively large surface areas have to be traversed.

So there is a new generation of demand for precision machining capability, and a distinct trend towards the flexibility and versatility offered by single-spindle equipment.
Germany has long been recognised as a centre of excellence in machine-tool engineering, and a leading manufacturer of equipment which meets these requirements is KLG-Maschinen, based in Germaringen, close to the Bavarian Alps.
KLG has been a well-known name in the printed circuit industry for many years, originally as a test centre, but from the early 1980s as the manufacturer of the Alpha 01 single-spindle drilling machine, of which over 300 examples are installed world-wide.
In response to a rapidly growing market opportunity for highly accurate drilling machines, we were encouraged to design and manufacture a new machine 'Speedstar', initially in single-spindle format, and subsequently as a two-spindle version, which we successfully launched at Productronica last year.

The drilling process was traditionally considered a bottleneck in circuit board production. More recently, with developments in automation and improvements in linear drives, drilling machines have become so fast that speed is no longer an issue. Process accuracy becomes the priority. Today’s circuit board designs are subject to increasingly finer tolerances; many manufacturers are working at the limit of their capability. Although it was considered by some that laser techniques would replace traditional methods, we see plenty of scope for the future of mechanical drilling. And we believe that single- and double-spindle drill machines offer the most successful solution for fine-tolerance work.
A particularly special challenge is depth controlled drilling and milling. The only system which naturally stops cutting when the inner layer copper is reached is the CO2 laser. Achieving exact depth control with a mechanical system requires very precise measurement and feedback.
So-called 'contact drills' give good results with mechanical micro-via drilling; each hole is individually measured. The electrically-connected drilling tool makes contact with the copper foil surface and the hole depth is determined with reference to a known zero. This compensates for any undulation of the base material and guarantees consistent depth of holes.
But milling is significantly difficult. With a single contact measurement, the only reference is the entry point; subsequent depth control depends directly on the uniformity of material thickness. For relatively coarse milling, traditional depth measurement is enough, but the thinner the laminate layers, the more important it is to take into account the undulation of the surface of the substrate, and a system of continuous monitoring becomes necessary.
We developed a system which gives us a depth-control accuracy of +/-7.5 microns throughout the milling operation, compared with the +/-15-20 microns typical of conventional drill-depth controls. There are two measuring systems per spindle: the first determines the exact height of the tool at the point of entry, whilst the second controls the z-axis cutting depth and continuously compensates for surface topography.

Additionally, the single-spindle machine features optical registration.
Clearly smaller machines can be used either stand-alone or integrated into a line and driven by a single controller. They have 388-station ringless tool magazines and can be fitted with fully automatic loader-unloaders capable of handling 20 different jobs each. They are equally suitable for prototype or small series production.

A significant advantage is speed. These machines are up to 30% faster than multi-spindle equipment. Although they have massive granite bases which give excellent stability, they benefit from lower mass in the X - Y motion system, and their linear drive motors are capable of speeds of 75 metres per minute with acceleration greater than 2G. But the speed is not at the expense of repeatability - an independently audited benchmark has observed that positional accuracy of +/-2 microns can be achieved.