180 billion, is Ningbo Kangqiang Electronics Co., Ltd. stamping lead frame annual capacity.

Since 1992, Kangqiang Electronics has been deeply engaged in the field of semiconductor packaging materials, driven by technological innovation, and has continuously grown through the industry cycle. Its three major business areas lead frame, bonding wire and electrode wire are domestic leaders, of which lead frame production and sales in the domestic peers for several consecutive years ranked first, the global market share ranked top seven, won the “China’s top ten semiconductor materials enterprises” “China’s top 50 electronic materials enterprises” and other honorary titles.
In October 2022, the identification of the fourth batch of state-level specialized new “little giant” enterprises not only strengthened the confidence of Kangqiang Electronics in the development of this segment, but also opened a new window of opportunity for Mitsubishi Electric to plan for the future
“As the semiconductor industry has become a hot spot, a lot of capital has poured into this track, and competition has become more and more fierce. For the field of semiconductor packaging materials, customer requirements are also getting higher and higher, not only to have a higher level of mold design and better processing basic technology, but also to have stable and reliable high-precision processing equipment to ensure product quality.” Cao Guangwei, deputy general manager of Kangqiang Electronics and general manager of Kangdipuri, said that excellence and efficiency enhancement have become the focus of development. Since its inception, the founding team of Kangqiang Electronics has been carrying the feelings and dreams of serving the country and striving for excellence again and again. Looking back on the development of more than 30 years, Kangqiang Electronics owes its achievements to the quality policy of “leading technology and fine management to continuously improve customer satisfaction”.
In recent years, the semiconductor industry has received much attention as a basic supporting industry of the national economy. As an important material of integrated circuit, lead frame has gradually developed to ultra-wide row, high precision and high stability.

“The core of stamping lead frame manufacturing is a high-precision progressive mold, and its processing accuracy needs high precision machine tools to ensure.” Duan Huaping, Technical director of Contipris, pointed out that we must carry out continuous technological innovation to improve the production process, improve the processing accuracy, and maintain the technological leadership at the same time to meet the current and future expectations and needs of customers.
Solution: From technical transformation to process optimization, the continuous promotion of machine tool upgrading
Since 2008, Mitsubishi Electric and Kangqiang Electronics have started a process of two-way cooperation and mutual benefit. For more than ten years, as a business partner of Kangqiang Electronics, Mitsubishi Electric has taken the initiative to meet the needs of the industry, carried out in-depth cooperation from technological transformation to process optimization, helped Kangqiang Electronics continue to innovate, and led the development of the semiconductor industry.
Automatic threading modification
In 2016, Kangqiang Electronics began to promote the optimization and upgrading of high-precision equipment, and proposed key technical requirements including processing accuracy, automatic threading, K processing, surface finish and other indicators.

Based on the actual field production, Mitsubishi Electric recommended the high-end model MX600 oil cutter to Kangqiang Electronics. Because of its industry-leading technology and functions, especially the decision that the high-speed, high-precision core parts of the discharge machining machine are developed and produced by Mitsubishi Electric, gives customers strong confidence.

However, at the beginning of the introduction of the equipment, affected by many factors, the success rate of automatic threading is relatively low, which seriously affects the production capacity of mold production; Under the high-intensity production rhythm, the fatigue hidden danger of manual threading is testing the quality of the product.

“The Japanese headquarters specially sent technical experts to the site before and after two batches of localization transformation.” Mitsubishi Electric project leader Jun Ye said that the entire transformation is a new challenge, especially the way of hanging processing, but also increased the difficulty of automatic threading.

Thanks to the controllability of its own system, Mitsubishi Electric has taken advantage of the technical advantages of its Japanese headquarters and successfully achieved the transformation of automatic threading through tension control, software update, structural adjustment and other ways, with a success rate of nearly 100%, greatly improving the production efficiency and processing quality of the equipment.

 

Jun Ye (first from left), project leader of Mitsubishi Electric, and Yong Zhou (second from left), head of Contipuri Slow Wire, look at the finished product

“Taking the 0.156 hole cavity as an example, the transformation not only realizes the automatic threading of single hole position, but also meets the automatic threading demand of porous position in the moving state, which was unimaginable before the transformation.” According to Zhou Yong, a senior employee of Kondipuri and the person in charge of slow walking wire, after the automatic threading transformation, five equipment only needs one worker to control, which greatly reduces the operating cost, “the whole workshop is also better managed, and your work is also easy.”

For Mitsubishi Electric, the transformation of nearly half a year is full of twists and turns, but also achieved better equipment performance, and won the trust of Kangqiang Electronics; The three additional devices also pave the way for future cooperation between the two sides.

Optimization of production process

As Moore’s Law of chips approaches its limits, advanced packaging is thrust into the spotlight. Due to the interconnection of multiple chips and the need for increasing miniaturization, customers are demanding more and more precision in packaging materials.

In the production workshop of Kangqiang Electronics, several MX600 oil cutting machines with the logo of Mitsubishi Electric are being produced in an orderly way, and a variety of high-precision lead frame molds are placed next to them, and some cavities are too small to be detected by the naked eye.

 

Mitsubishi Electric MX600 oil cutter produces lead frame molds with a stable accuracy of 2μm

However, at the beginning of production, the problem of wire marks on the cutting edge has been troubling Kangqiang Electronics.

“Cutting edge wire marks involve many aspects of production, such as R Angle overcutting, Angle processing broken wire, K processing, 100% automatic threading, cavity step, open crude waste, broken wire residue, nozzle contact alarm, high precision point position and so on.” Duan Huaping pointed out that any one of the problems is not handled well, will have an impact on the processing accuracy and quality.

After going to the site investigation, the Mitsubishi Electric project team gave optimization suggestions combined with the actual production, and adjusted the order of the cutting process to stabilize the accuracy to 2μm. Taking into account the differences in manual operation, the Mitsubishi Electric project team was stationed at the site for 2 months to organize and carry out targeted practical training and technical support to reduce the accuracy loss caused by the adjustment of processing conditions.

“In the beginning, the requirement was 3μm, and now the general requirement is 2μm.” Zheng Bo, the production director of Kondipri, said that it seems to be only 1μm of improvement, but the realization process is difficult. She admitted that the accuracy improvement involves all aspects of factors, including the production environment, equipment performance, operation status, etc., and has reached the limit.

Customer benefit: Annual capacity of 180 billion full “core” starting

“Whether it is close to 100% automatic threading success rate, or 2μm processing accuracy, it is very good for the production site.