Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Kenichi Fukuda

Kiyoyuki Nakagawa

Isamu Utsunomiya

Kouichi Nakada

Toshikuni Hisaki

Akira Mouri

An electronic component chip feeder enabling to feed electronic component chips in which electrodes on the outer surfaces thereof can be cleanly maintained and the reliability of electrical connections is excellent even when miniaturizing thereof is promoted, and a method for manufacturing electronic devices by using electronic component chips being excellent in the reliability of electrical connections are provided. The electronic component chip feeder for feeding electronic component chips includes a cleaning device disposed in an intermediate portion of a supplying system for supplying plural electronic component chips in an aligned relationship for cleaning outer surfaces of the electronic component chips.

Electronic component chip feeder and manufacturing method of electronic devices using electronic component chips

A feeder for feeding electronic chip components includes a hopper having a discharge opening at its bottom and having and an aligning path forming member for agitating electronic chip components. The aligning path forming member agitates the electronic chip components by its reciprocating movement within the discharge opening of the hopper. The reciprocating stroke of the aligning path forming member can be varied, and the stroke is controlled to be shorter when the number of electronic chip components remaining in the hopper is reduced. This allows the electronic chip components to be guided more reliably into an aligning path formed by the aligning path forming member, regardless of the number of electronic chip components remaining in the hopper.

Component feeder apparatus and method

Electronic components can be reliably supplied from a storage container for electronic components, which is easy to manufacture and highly economical, to a mounting device. The storage container for electronic components includes a storage region, in which electronic components are stored, a discharge hole, a lead portion for leading the electronic components to the discharge hole, the end of the lead portion becoming the discharge hole, a discharge hole side lead portion, provided with a taper (guide angle) so that its width becomes narrower toward the discharge hole, and a storage region side lead portion, positioned between the storage region and the discharge hole side lead portion, and provided with a taper (guide angle) so that its width becomes narrower toward the discharge hole side lead portion. In addition, the taper (guide angle) of the storage region side lead portion may be larger than the taper (guide angle) of the discharge hole side lead portion.

Storage container for electronic components

An electronic chip component feeder is provided to prevent continued supply of electronic chip components for mounting which have surface discolorization, deteriorated electrode solderability, or cracks or chips produced by chip collisions. The electronic chip component feeder includes plural feeding units arranged in an array. Each feeding unit has a hopper for holding a plurality of components of a particular kind, and a guide path by which components are transferred from the hopper to a dispensing location. At the dispensing location, the components are picked up by a sucking chuck and then transferred to a substrate for mounting thereon. The plurality of feeding units are capable of being reciprocated in unison so that the dispensing location for the feeding units are successively moved to a fixed position. The electronic chip component feeder further includes a counting unit for counting the number of movements of the each feeding unit. This provides a measure of the degree of potential degradation of the electronic chip components in the hoppers caused by movement of their respective feeding unit. An alarm can be generated when the counted number reaches a predefined number, set individually for each feeding unit.

Feeder for electronic chip components

At least one partition wall is disposed in a hopper of a feeder for feeding electronic chip components. The at least one partition wall reduces the potential for damage to the components due to the reciprocating movement of a movable pipe disposed on the bottom of the hopper for agitating the electronic chip components. The reduced potential of degradation allows more electronic chip components to be accommodated in the hopper.

A feeder for electronic chip components is provided having an aligning path forming member agitating electronic chip components which are to be discharged from a discharge opening of a hopper for accommodating a plurality of electronic chip components. The agitation is achieved by reciprocating the aligning path forming member in the axis direction of the discharge opening and forming a tubular aligning path which receives only the electronic chip components aligned in a predetermined direction therein. When the aligning path forming member reciprocates it also rotates around its axis. This results in an increased agitating effect on electronic chip components for guiding them into the aligning path.

A cassette storing electronic components, which is employed for supplying a plurality of electronic components to an apparatus for mounting electronic components, comprises a plurality of electronic components and a case having a storage space provided in its interior for storing the electronic components and a discharge port communicating with the storage space for discharging the electronic components. In this cassette storing electronic components, the case is provided with a plurality of plate type baffle walls for partially blocking the storage space. Consequently, movement of the electronic components in the case can be suppressed by the baffle walls even if the cassette is extremely moved in a state attached to a mounting machine. Thus, the electronic components as well as the case can be inhibited from reduction in quality, while the number of reusable times of the case can be increased.

Growing community of inventors

Sabae, Japan

Kenichi Fukuda