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Q: What does Zirkon do? |
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A: Zirkon provides total electronics solutions, comprising of product design, development, manufacture, test and logistics, with knowledge and expertise at their core. |
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Q: Where is Zirkon based? |
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A: Rugby, Warwickshire, UK. |
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Q: Is Zirkon a high or low volume manufacturing company? |
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A: Zirkon is able to cater for both low and high volume production, to suit the customer. |
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Q: Do we have to use Zirkon’s full range of services or can we just ask them to manufacture something for us? |
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A: Yes, customers are able to ‘cherry pick’ which of Zirkon’s services they want to use from its full range which comprises of design, development, manufacture, test and logistics. |
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Q: Does Zirkon provide a tailor made service for its customers? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon’s customer awareness means that it is able to provide individually tailored solutions to meet design briefs, and Zirkon can also suggest and pioneer development for current and future projects. Zirkon’s customers receive more focused, more effective and more competitive solutions. |
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Q: If I have a product that has already been designed will Zirkon be able to help me? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon can manufacture existing designs for customers. |
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Q: Will Zirkon be able to help with a design problem for an existing product that we are looking to update? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon’s design and development team will be able to help develop an existing design in order to iron out any problems, or develop the product to its next stage. |
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Q: Does Zirkon involve the customer in product development? |
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A: Zirkon develops individual working relationships with each of its customers to accumulate and share all of the available intelligence and subject matter expertise relating to any given project. |
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Q: Will our products have our branding on them once they have been manufactured? |
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A: Yes, products manufactured by Zirkon can be own-branded for its customers. |
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Q: Does Zirkon use an ERP system? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon uses a company wide ERP system in order to provide complete material management for its customers, such as control of free issue material, consignment stocks and Kanban, along with financial project and quality management to ensure that everything meets ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards. |
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Q: Does Zirkon comply with any ISO standards? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon complies with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. |
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Q: Does Zirkon consider environmental issues? |
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A: Yes, Zirkon has an Environmental Policy. Click here to view it. |
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Q: What is Surface Mount Technology (SMT)? |
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A: SMT is where the electronic component is located on the same side of a printed circuit board as the electrical connection. The solder joint may be made via reflow or flow wave soldering or conductive glue. |
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Q: What does through-hole mean (TH)? |
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A: TH is where a components leads go through the printed circuit board, thus making the electrical connection on the opposite side of the printed circuit board to the component. The solder joints are normally flow wave soldering and or hand soldered but intrusive reflow may be used. |
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Q: What is AOI? |
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A: AOI, stands for Automated Optical Inspection. It can be used for inspection of paste deposition, component type; orientation and positioning and solder joint integrity. This is undertaken by image comparison technology. |
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Q: What is reflow soldering? |
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A: Reflow soldering is where a mixture of flux and solder in paste form is applied to each pad for which the SMT component needs to make an electrical connection. The component is then placed on the printed circuit board touching the paste. The populated printed circuit board is sent through an oven where the heat causes fusion of the paste, pad and component to take place, thus making a soldered joint. |
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Q: What is intrusive reflow? |
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A: This is similar to SMT reflow soldering with the exception that the component is through hole. The paste is applied over the hole with the component legs then being inserted through the paste and printed circuit hole. This is then sent through a reflow oven for fusion to take place. |
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Q: What is flow wave soldering? |
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A: Flow wave soldering is a process where a SMT component has been glued to the bottom of a PCB and/or a TH component lead is showing through the PCB. At this stage no solder joints have been made. The pcb is then put through a flow wave soldering process where flux is applied, heated, and the bottom side of the pcb then passes over a molten wave of solder immersing the SMT components and TH leads thus forming solder joints. |
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Q: What is In Circuit Test (ICT)? |
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A: ICT is used to confirm the value and orientation of components assembled onto a PCB at low power to avoid stressing of those components. |
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Q: What is Final Functional Test (FFT)? |
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A: When a product is fully assembled it is then tested to ascertain that it works to a given specification. |
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Q: What is Burn-in (Screening)? |
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A: For special applications a product may need to run for several hours while being temperature cycled. This is done to catch any early life failures. |
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Q: What is involved in testing Radio Frequency (RF)? |
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A: Products may require special equipment and screened rooms to carry out tuning and functional testing. |
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Q: What is Prototyping? |
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A: Low volume production of the initial design in order to prove and demonstrate functionality. |
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Q: What is Design for manufacture? |
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A: Consideration of process and ‘design rules’ which are used to ensure that the design will run efficiently through the assembly process, including testing and packing. |
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Q: What is Product validation? |
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A: Once the production version of a unit has been completed, it is checked to ensure that it conforms with the product specification for environmental and full functionality, for example temperature performance. |
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Q: What is wire less? |
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A: Infra red (IR) and radio frequency (RF) are used when data needs to be transmitted without connection wires. A typical RF low power radio system will operate in the range of 100MHz to 1GHz. |
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Q: What is a Control System? |
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A: A control system processes input signals to generate output signals which control a device whose performance is monitored and fed back as the input signals. |
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Q: What is a Microprocessor? |
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A: A typical design can have both analogue and digital elements and may use a computer chip (microprocessor) containing software to perform the control function. |
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Q: What is Hardware? |
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A: The hardware consists of the printed circuit board (PCB), with components soldered into place, along with any casings or fixings included. |
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Q: What is Software? |
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A: Microprocessor based software is the computer program stored within the microprocessor chip. |
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Q: What is Electromechanical? |
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A: Electronic controls linked to a mechanical output device, i.e. electric motor and gearbox, convert electrical signals into physical movement. |
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Q: What is Design validation? |
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A: Once a design has been completed it is checked, using simulation, to confirm that it meets the design requirements. |
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