NIC manufacturing, test, and design capabilities

NIC has established global manufacturing centers of excellence to provide cost-effective products with the highest levels of quality. Our integrated team approach including experts from disciplines ranging from engineering to manufacturing to quality ensures that NIC transfers value to our customer from design through volume production.

NIC is AS9100C and ISO 9001:2008 certified, and its facilities occupy over 20,000 square feet. We operate highly automated and dynamic assembly lines which allow NIC to monitor a wide variety of products in production at the same time. From special vision systems to automated test taking stations, solder reflow and crystal tuning to precise tooling in our own machine shop, NIC can produce efficient and high quality products for our customers.

NIC has developed proprietary software to link analyzers to computer-driven automated test stations that require minimal operator intervention during final testing. This allows NIC to reduce cycle time and provide our customer real-time measured data.

NIC offers a wide variety of environmental testing capabilities in-house, which allows us to guarantee that quality and reliability meets the requirements of our customer’s application. NIC conducts 100% ESS screening on all products manufactured. Testing is automated to increase efficiency and ensure high performance in all conditions. Examples of environmental testing equipment include moisture resistance, temperature/ altitude chambers, thermal shock chambers, automated vibration system, and phase noise testing. The table below lists NIC's screening capabilities. Please contact NIC with your specific requirements.

100% Environmental Stress Screening (ESS)

In-House Environmental Test Capabilities

Recommended SMT Installation

The following is NIC's suggested guidelines for Surface Mount (SMT) installation. A typical reflow profile is provided below. Mass of all components and Circuit Card Assembly should be considered when establishing a reflow procedure. Higher density board populations may take longer to achieve reflow temperatures. The temperatures shown below are the temperatures at the NIC component.

NIC builds its surface mount components using high temperature solders. Standard alloys (Sn63) should be used for installation.

NIC products can be cleaned with aqueous and semi-aqueous systems. Parts should be thoroughly baked after cleaning to prevent entrapment of moisture.

The rate of heating and cooling must be controlled to avoid thermal cracking of internal components. Processes, heating or cooling should not exceed a rate of 200°C per minute. Spikes must not exceed 100°C maximum for any solder operation. Avoid forced cooling or contact with heat sinks, such as conveyor belts, metal tables or cleaning solutions, before the units reach ambient temperatures.

Typical Reflow Profile :Insert reflow profile.jpg

Using a wide variety of State of the Art simulation tools and proven circuit design techniques, NIC’s talented engineers find innovative solutions to your problems.  Listed below are examples of the industry standard design software that engineers at NIC utilize:

• PCFILT – Filter Design
• Agilent Genesys
• Ansoft HFSS
• Agilent ADS Design Suite
• PSpice
• AutoCAD
• Solidworks
• MATLAB
• In-house custom tools

Simulation capabilities (summary):

• Monte Carlo
• Aging
• Mean Time Between Failure
• Environmental Sensitivity
• Pulse Response
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) System

NIC utilizes a custom tailored MRP system to effectively manage planning, scheduling, and inventory needs of its production environment. This system provides extensive manufacturing functionality to manage and plan people, equipment, materials, and suppliers.  Additionally, it provides visibility of material and labor cost variances, late orders, material shortages, over-capacity resources, and other production problems.