TE ETC Field Trip Visit

On 13th July 2018 the Third year students of the Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering Department were taken for a field visit to two very prominent establishments in their respective fields. The first visit during the morning session was to the Siemens PCB manufacturing unit which is located in the Verna Industrial Estate. The second visit was to the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) which is situated in Headland Sada, Vasco.

On arrival at Siemens the students were given a brief video presentation on the various safety measures to be followed while on tour of the shop floor and the entire Siemens Industry compound. Students were handed with shoe covers that are required to be worn at all times while walking through the production area known as the shop floor.

Students were then taken in batches on the shop floor and were explained the process of how PCBs are made for various devices and products are manufactured.
The entire process from raw materials to the final packaged product takes around 11 steps. The whole process begins by applying the soldering paste on the PCB which is then followed by an inspection of the applied paste. The PCB is then mounted with the Surface Mount Devices (SMD) such as resistors, power capacitors, transistors and so on by a machine which is programmed to do the needful. Next the PCB passes through the Reflow Oven. The PCB at this stage is subjected to heat which melts the soldering paste and hence the mounted devices are now soldered to the board. After this process the PCB is again inspected by the AOI process (Automated Optical Inspection ).

After this inspection other components such as Relays, jumpers, transformers and so on are manually placed on the board. The PCB now goes through a process called as Wave soldering, during this the manually mounted devices get soldered to the PCB. After all the components are soldered the PCB is tested by a process called as PCB level testing. Then the PCB is mounted into the respective devices to form a full product. At this stage the device goes through another test known as Device level Testing. After passing this test the product is packed and kept to be dispatched. A few of these packed products are again tested this time for various criteria after which the packed products are given the final approval and can be dispatched.

After the visit to Siemens the students had a quick stop to have lunch. After which they hit the road again; now on their way to Vasco.

At the Research centre students were given an introductory talk about the Antarctic continent. Then students were given an insight into the research work carried out by the Indian scientists and the Research unit of India. Multiple video presentations were shown to the students to give them a proper and in depth idea of how flora and fauna survive on the icy continent and how research centre “Bharti” was built in the years 2011 to 2012. Students were then explained a few processes in which Electronic engineering applications are required. The visit ended with refreshments offered by the host.

All in all , the field visit to both the establishments proved to be very informative and was a great learning experience for all the students.