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EPTE Newsletter from Japan - INTERNEPCON 2007 (Continued)

Topics of the Week

INTERNEPCON 2007 (Continued)

This is part two of my observations from the 36th InterNepcon held at Tokyo Big Sight from January 17th through January 19th.   There were not many multi layer board manufacturers and flexible circuit manufacturers represented at the exhibition.  We could see an industry trend towards finer traces, smaller via holes and finally higher circuit densities.  100 microns diameter via holes (4 mils) by mechanical drilling was very common for the board manufacturers.  Many companies at the exhibition said they were able to generate smaller via holes than 40 microns diameter (1.6 mils) using UV YAG laser, thus making a 30 micron pitch trace (1.2 mils) not so special for both rigid boards and flexible circuits.  Several flexible circuit manufacturers had on display ultra high-density circuits. Nitto Denko, one of the major flexible circuit manufacturers in Japan showed 20 microns pitch traces (0.8 mils) built by a roll-to-roll manufacturing process.  An engineer explained that it was made by semi-additive process, and it is ready for volume production. Taiyo Industrial, a prototype shop for flexible circuits displayed several flexible samples with 15 to 17 microns pitch traces. They were less than 0.7 mils pitch. Taiyo said that it accept small volume production for the ultra-high density circuits.

One category that was a hit at the show was ultra-fine screen printing. There were few equipment manufacturers and many screen suppliers.  They were pitching the low cost capabilities as the alternative solution to the traditional lithography or direct imaging process. Machine manufacturers for the screen printing segment presented fine capabilities smaller than 20 micron pitches. MicroTech, an equipment manufacturer said it could provide roll-to-roll machines for the 20 microns pitch lines. Most of the screen mask suppliers displayed the high-resolution capabilities; the 30 microns pitch was the minimum. Naganuma Art Screen demonstrated 15 micron pitch resolution (3 micron lines and 11 micron spaces).

An issue that arises from screen-printing is ink material. The manufacturers said that it was relatively easy to have fine conductive ink material to generate 10 microns line and space for the green sheet of the multi-layer ceramic circuits. There have been some resist materials as the etching resists, but manufacturers did not talk about the etching solutions and conditions.  Another challenge is to get conductive paste for the fine line printing. A couple of material suppliers said their nano pastes could be the solution; however, no nano paste could satisfy all of the basic requirements such as conductivity, resolution and bond strength on the substrates. Another big hurdle for the nano paste to overcome is cost related.  Customers are expecting a remarkable cut in costs by screen printing processes; therefore, the circuit manufacturers and end customers are looking for a suitable conductive ink material.

Dominique Numakura, DKN Research (dnumakura@dknresearch.com)

Headlines of the week

1.      FDK (Component supplier in Japan) 1/9

Will increase the manufacturing capacity of the backlight inverter module in China 25% to 400 thousand units per month to cover the booming demands of LCD TV.

2.      LG Electronics (Major electronics company in Korea) 1/9

Has unveiled a new 2.2" active matrix type OLED with 10000:1 contrast for the main displays of the cellular phones. It will be applied for the new models in the 3Q this year.

3.      Panasonic (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/10

Has developed the third generation negative electrode for the lithium ion batteries. It improves the energy density 20% from the second generation electrode.

4.      Nihon Densan (Motor manufacturer in Japan) 1/9

Will build a new manufacturing plant of small size motors in Thailand for in-house use of hard disc drives.

5.      Clarion (Car audio manufacturer in Japan) 1/10

Will commercialize a new car audio system. The system does not use any mechanical components.

6.      Howa Kogyo (Equipment manufacturer in Japan) 1/10

Has developed a new alignment system with an accuracy of +/-10 micron for the multi-layer ceramic circuit boards.

7.      Sony (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/13

Has unveiled the new flat panel TV with 27" OLED panel. Sony believes OLED could the major technology of flat panel display in the future instead of LCD.

8.      Canon (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/13

Will commercialize the SED TV by itself. The technology partner, Toshiba will drop out from the business.

9.      Sharp (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/12

Will build the second plant in Mexico for the whole manufacturing line from the LCD panels to the assembling the flat panel TV.

10.  Samsung Electronics (Major electronics company in Korea) 1/13

Will reduce the investment in 2007 19% to 8.1 trillion wons because of the slow demands in the display market.

11.  Kuraray (Major plastic supplier in Japan) 1/12

Will invest 4 billion yens to increase the manufacturing capacity of polyvinyl alcohol film for the LCD panels.

12.  KFE (PWB manufacturer in Japan) 1/12

Had agreed to have a business alliance with In-Flow for the internet sales of the printed circuit boards with large volume.

13.  Sony Manufacturing Systems (Equipment manufacturer) 1/9

Has rolled out a new AOI machine for SMT circuit boards with a micro scope function.

Interesting literatures about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

1. New "2006 Global Material Projection for Flex Circuit" DKN Research, October, 2006. http://www.dknresearch.com/Products.html

2. "Introduction for the Printed Circuit Boards of Car Electronics, Flexible Circuits", (Japanese only), Dominique Numakura, Nikkan Kogyo Shinbun, June, 2006, 2400 yens.

3. New "The latest semiconductor package, Part XXI, Teardown Analysis of Notebook PC", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, December, 2006 

4. "Five Year Projection of the Global Flexible Circuit Market" Robert Turunen, Dominique Numakura and James J. Hickman, The Board Authority, Volume 7, August, 2006

5. "Technical Trends and Market Projection of the Materials for the Flexible Circuits", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2006

6. "Leading Edge Material and Application of Polyimide (Materials for the Advance Flexible Circuits)", Dominique Numakura, CMC publication, August, 2006

7. New "Business Trends and Technology Trends of the HDI Flexible Circuits -

Roadmap for the Ultra High-Density Advanced Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, KPCA, October 31, 2006

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "Innovative Solutions for Leading Edge Designs", George Milad and Mario Orduz, CircuiTree, January, 2007.

2. "Finding hidden Placement Problems - Recalibrating equipment improves placement yields", Kary Voegele, Circuits Assembly, December, 2006.

3. "Screen Printing in the Dawn of Fuel Cells", Darren Brown, SMT, December, 2006

4. "Laminate Material Selection for RoHS ASSEMBLY, Part 2", Ed Kelley and Erik Bergum, Printed Circuit Design & Manufacturing, December, 2006.

5. "Innovations in Computer Tomography, 3-D X-ray Inspection has Arrived", David Bernard, Advanced Packaging, November/December, 2006

6. "From Chips to Systems via Packaging - A Comparison of IBM's Mainframe Servers", Hubert Harrer, George A. Katopis and Wiren Becker, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, 4th Quarter, 2006

7. "Under the Hood-Latest DESIGN GEMS Unearthed",  presented by EE Times and techonline, December 2006