“Home of Hubble” Picks Bowman XRF

November, 2018 – Goddard Space Flight Center, home to Hubble operations, the upcoming James Webb Telescope – and the nation’s largest organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to spacecraft and the study of the solar system, has chosen Bowman as its supplier of choice for XRF thin film measurement technology.

The Bowman XRF measurement system selected is a Model P, a system with the capability to measure an exceptionally wide range of sample sizes and shapes. At Goddard, the Model P will precisely analyze ENIG, ENEPIG and alloys on printed circuit boards.

Goddard engineers have extensive capability for designing and building sensitive instruments; one of the main factors that led to the purchase was Bowman’s IPC 4552A capability and the instrument’s ability to precisely determine phosphorus composition in electroless nickel through the gold layer for incoming PCBs. The Model P measures up to 5 coating layers simultaneously; In addition to plating thickness measurement, it also performs elemental and solution analysis.

The Bowman Model P XRF plating measurement system chosen by Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD) to analyze ENIG, ENEPIG and alloys on printed circuit boards.

Bowman Strengthens Baltic Sales Team

November, 2018 – Bowman announces the expansion of its international distribution team with the appointment of ANITEPO, a distributor and service provider of laboratory instruments with a specialty in x-ray imaging technology.

Headquartered in Warsaw and serving all of Poland, ANITEPO works throughout the metal producing sector, from foundries, to steel plants to metal products manufacturers, and is well known for its installations and service reputation in the automotive sector. The company also serves manufacturers of electronics and printed circuit boards, a diversity that matches perfectly with Bowman’s own.

Explains Bowman President Tom Leone, “the Bowman P Series XRF, which accommodates the widest range of sample sizes, shapes and quantities, is ideally suited for quality labs serving automotive. The W Series, which measures the smallest features in electronics, will give companies in that sector an important accuracy advantage – and ANITEPO an important competitive one.”

ANITEPO is owned by its Director, Artur Roznowski, who had a lengthy tenure as an electronics technician before founding ANITEPO in 2011.

“The competitive situation here is ripe for Bowman technology,” suggests Roznowski. “Our company has long sold an excellent instrument for measuring single elements. But customers are now looking for highly accurate, proven systems that measure multiple element layers. That is the definition of the Bowman, which measures up to 5 layers, all of which can be alloys.”

The other factor where Roznowski believes they have an edge is service. “From day one,” says Roznowski, “we will be able to provide expert installations, and ongoing service and repair for Bowman, as well as other major-brand XRF coating measurement systems.”

ANITEPO Director Artur Roznowski at EuroLAB, an international trade show for analytical, measurement and control computers.

Bowman Innovation Sets the Stage for Faster, More Agile QA Throughput

September, 2018 – Bowman, the premier manufacturer of world class, American-Made XRF measurement instruments, has introduced an extra-long, extended stage option for its XRF plating thickness instruments that are primarily used in the semiconductor / wafer manufacturing industry.

In this sector, circuit density, trace spacing, board gauge, aspect ratios and microvias dominate, and demand is strong for a way to measure more and smaller test points.

In some high-volume operations, rigid / flex boards can be as large as 610x530mm, and while it is impractical to cover that surface area in one pass, the Bowman extended stage option allows the task to be accomplished with just a single, quick re-positioning step.

The Bowman extended stage option had its genesis with two long-term PCB customers, independent of each other, who requested a 400x300mm (16×12”) table stock with a tabletop size of 800x600mm (32×24”).

A longer stroke potential and a more expansive tabletop has created an efficient and unprecedented new dynamic for quality labs throughout the microelectronics sector.

Bowman’s extended table precision is ±3µm. The option is now available for 3 of Bowman’s 7 XRF coating thickness instruments:
“P” Series “O Series” “M” Series

 

Bowman Expands Corporate Technology Team

September, 2018 – Jun Choi, Bowman Chief Technology Officer, has announced two key appointments to the company’s corporate staff.

Jessica Hermanny is Bowman’s new Operations Analyst. Previously, she managed Product Change Control, an engineering specialty, for 7 years at Caterpillar Global Mining.

For Bowman, her responsibilities are threefold: developing the company’s new ERP system, inventory control, and calibration recertification and related auditing. When fully implemented, the ERP conversion will optimize manufacturing flow and simplify response to customers’ change in Series selections and equipment options.

Fluent in German, Jessica is also assisting with marketing text translation for Bowman’s German distributor, DEPraTechnik GmbH & Co., which has had a stellar year in new market development.

Jessica has a B.A. from Hillsdale College, and an M.A. in German-English Translation from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a classically trained pianist, and a native of southeastern Wisconsin.

Jonathan Rakushin-Weinstein has also joined the Bowman Team. He is the newest member of the software engineering group, which is headed by Engineering Manager Bob Maygar.

Jonathan has a B.S. in computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His primary responsibilities include applications development and maintenance for the advanced XRalizer software that is the core of all Bowman XRF systems, also assisting with firmware and new features development.

Applied Scientific, Our Primary China Distributor, is Now Officially “Bowman China.”

August, 2018 – Under the capable leadership of Arthur He, Bowman China debuted in a big way at CPCA and exhibited advanced Bowman XRF technology at trade shows in Changzhou, Qingdao, and Chongqing as well. Hanergy, a major solar panel manufacturer with factories throughout China, is one of several major Bowman China customers; they recently contracted for 4 L Series units for advanced manufacturing lines. XRF users in China will benefit from the years of experience brought by Bowman China’s new applications engineer, Mr. Kai Zheng. He had years of experience with Oxford and Thermo Scientific Instruments before moving up to Bowman.


Congrats to Delta Sales

July, 2018 – Delta Sales Associates Inc. announces the recent sale of the Bowman Model “P” XRF plating thickness measurement system to TTM, North Jackson, OH. TTM will use the Bowman system to precisely measure ENIG, ENEPIG, tin lead and other deposits.

The Bowman Model “P” XRF was engineered specifically for PCB and connector applications; it has an extended table, and is guaranteed IPC 4552 Rev A capable.


Bowman Distributor Moves to New Headquarters

July, 2018 – X-RAY NOW, Bowman’s exclusive distributor and support provider for California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, the Pacific Northwest and Mexico, has a new headquarters in Santa Ana, CA. X-RAY NOW has provided XRF coating thickness measurement systems for the PCB and semiconductor industries since 2001. It sells new and used XRF equipment, and provides service, repair and calibrations, and standards, too.

X-RAY NOW offers customer demos for Bowman equipment, either in their facility, or at the customer’s location. You can reach Zach, Phil and their highly experienced XRF team at 714-396-2519.

Bowman Featured at JPCA

June, 2018 – JPCA (Japan Electronics Packaging and Circuits), was held in Tokyo June 6th through June 9th. Koichiro Hotta and his team at Flex Service Co., Ltd. demonstrated the Bowman P Series at this annual event, which last year drew 43,000+ attendees.


New XRF Instrument Measures the Smallest Features in Semiconductor / Microelectronics Manufacturing

June, 2018 – Bowman, a US manufacturer and global service provider for quality labs using XRF measurement technology, has introduced a new instrument for the smallest features in semiconductors and microelectronics.

Bowman’s W Series uses poly-capillary optics to focus the X-ray beam to 7.5 µm FWHM, the world’s smallest beam size for coating thickness analysis using XRF technology. A 150X magnification camera is used to measure features on that scale; it is accompanied by a secondary, low-magnification camera for live-viewing samples and birds-eye macro-view imaging. Bowman’s dual-camera system lets operators see the entire part, click the image to zoom with the high-mag camera, and pinpoint the feature to be programmed and measured.

A programmable X-Y stage with precision less than +/- 1 µm for each axis is used to select and measure multiple points; Bowman pattern recognition software and auto-focus features also do this automatically. The system’s 3D mapping capability can be used to view the topography of a coating on a part such as a silicon wafer.

The W Series is the 7th model in Bowman’s XRF instrument suite.

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