Manufacturing Operations & Quality Assurance

Cougar's in-house manufacturing processes include hermetic seam sealing; gold wedge, ball and ribbon bonding, and automatic wire bonding; eutectic and epoxy attachment; plasma cleaning; and fine and gross leak detection. They have a robust SPC program for wirebonding and other critical processes. To increase accuracy, laser marking will be added soon. In test, they have automated nearly every electrical test function using a highly sophisticated software program. They have the capability to perform complex tests over wide temperature, voltage, and frequency ranges. The company recently added phase noise to their RF testing capabilities.

Cougar's manufacturing operations have been tailored to meet their ultimate commitment to quality. Please see below for a full description of Cougar's manufacturing operations and the elements they have implemented to achieve their commitment to quality.

Manufacturing Operations and Quality Management Program

Cougar's quality management system has recently been certified by the Defense Supply Center, Columbus (DSCC) to MIL-PRF-38534, Classes H and K, Technology Review Board (TRB) Option as well as to ISO 9001:2000. At the time of their audit, they were one of only four companies worldwide to achieve certification to the TRB Option. Cougar has a complete in-house documentation and training system as required per MIL-PRF-38534 for design, workmanship and quality assurance activities and specifications. Each of their functional areas including manufacturing, test, materials, quality assurance, process engineering, procurement, document control, sales and design engineering have documented procedures in their Quality Management Portfolio that are readily available throughout the facility. They conduct internal audits and retraining periodically to ensure continued compliance.

Technology Review Board

Cougar's TRB is a cross-functional team of senior staff members from all the technical disciplines, led by Cougar's Quality Assurance Manager. Cougar's TRB directs the implementation of their Quality Management Program and makes broad decisions affecting quality and performance for the entire manufacturing operation. These decisions are not geared for the short-term but are by definition meant to guide the operation through long-term process stability and high performance capability. Management representation is provided to the TRB by their Vice President of Operations to ensure appropriate resources are available and allocated to effectively implement the Quality Management Program.

Program Management

They can offer customers dedicated project engineering for the program's duration. This ability is particularly useful for Class K jobs requiring special documentation, source inspections, design reviews, milestone schedules and other types of support. A cross-functional team assists the project engineer until the customer is completely satisfied with the product and service. The teams are staffed by people from quality assurance, manufacturing, test, materials, procurement, and document control. Other functional areas are pulled into the loop as required.

Environmental Screening

Cougar's standard cascadable product line is designed and constructed for full compliance to MIL-PRF-38534 Class H or K screening. Additionally, they have three streamlined screening flows that assure high reliability yet are cost-effective and reduce lead time. Their Q-Series screening sequence is based on the Class G flow of MIL-PRF-38534 and is detailed in Table II. Additionally, Cougar offers the QH-Series and QK-Series, which follow the MIL-PRF-38534 Classes H and K screening flows, respectively. The QH- and QK-Series are fully compliant MIL-PRF-38534 hardware, including element evaluation and subgroup testing.

When requesting either Cougar's Q-, QH-, or QK-Series screening flows, place a Q, QH or QK behind the model number; for example, model AC2056 becomes AC2056Q for the Class G flow (AC2056QH for the Class H flow, or AC2056QK for the Class K flow).

Of course, customized screening flows can also be accommodated, as they are capable of running various combinations of environmental tests similar to Class H or K hardware. Call or fax Cougar's sales or applications engineers for more information on these options.

Process Development and Control

Cougar has implemented one of the most current process development tools available – Design of Experiments (DOE). The benefits of thoroughly characterized processes are many, including high capability and low variability. Their policy is to couple the front-end DOE work with Statistical Process Control (SPC) at the back-end. They currently control their wire bonding epoxy attach and particle count processes statistically, and will expand the use of SPC to other key processes. Finally, their SPC program will feed their Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) program with useful data for further improvements in process performance, thus closing the process improvement loop. Tightening process control limits through variation reduction simply means fewer defective parts per million — the objective behind statistical analysis.

Other process controls include their equipment calibration and maintenance programs. They calibrate all required manufacturing and test equipment per MIL-STD-45622 and maintain records for easy review upon request. Preventive maintenance on all types of equipment is conducted regularly and thoroughly to ensure minimal down-time during critical production builds.

Process control at Cougar also has a human element. Cougar's highly qualified personnel provide the necessary infrastructure to support production requirements from high-end commercial applications to high reliability programs requiring vigorous screening and qualification testing. To ensure qualified employees, the company formally trains each employee to exceed the requirements of their respective processes. Because their staff is responsible for much of their process control and improvement, they go to great lengths to teach them and listen to their improvement ideas. The result is superior process control and manufacturing productivity.

Continuous Improvement

Each employee at Cougar is allowed the freedom to vigorously attack areas in need of improvement throughout their day-to-day business. Cougar employees understand continuous improvement to mean continuously searching for improvement in all processes of the company from product development to shipping. And every Cougar employee is involved in the continual improvement of manufacturing and business processes to meet their overriding objective — • Quality • Performance • On Time.

Cougar's continuous improvement effort is based on the principles of the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming and many of his quality engineering colleagues. Again, they use the matrix team approach to attain insights and expertise from a variety of perspectives to solve tough problems.

Cougar's goal is to achieve the highest levels of quality and reliability. In many companies barriers form between departments, inhibiting the flow of information and process improvement. At Cougar they have eliminated these barriers. Information flows freely for quick response to customer demands. Their continuous improvement efforts take full advantage of this built-in information.