MivaTek’s New Technology and Market Drivers

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

I recently spoke with Brendan Hogan about the upcoming new product releases from MivaTek. The conversation flows naturally from the new product’s market drivers to the X=X_c – 1 idea that is at the core of the market drivers.

Nolan Johnson: Brendan, I wanted to follow up and get your take on what is happening with imaging from your spot in the industry. Additionally, our 2021 theme at I-Connect007 is continuous improvement. We are using the tag line “X=X_c – 1.” The idea is that when we take one iteration out and improve those small steps throughout, we can start to create more efficiencies, better margins, more throughput. And when we’ve done it once, chances are good we can do it another time.

Brendan Hogan: Our point of development is right in that mix. Direct imaging eliminates several steps in the manufacturing process— phototools and manual registration is now obsolete. With the advent of Miva’s Quad-wave technology the same machine can “image anything” and without significant operator intervention. Direct imaging brings a certainty to the imaging process. Most of Europe and North America, let’s say, have some form of direct imaging which has improved the imaging process and capabilities. What Miva is focused on is solving the next element in the certainty question; total process certainty with digital imaging can influence plating quality, adapt to new scaling issues that result from the exotic material sets that are increasingly becoming less than “exotic.” How are we going to handle the technical demands three to five years out?

Miva Technologies has a great track record of working with companies and institutions developing new methods of manufacturing for technologies that will be on factory floors in the 3-5-year range.

Miva Technologies intended to demonstrate and announce its next technology offering at the IPC APEX EXPO in March. Unfortunately, due to COVID, a live trade show isn’t going to happen for the first time in my 35-year career. Miva Technologies and its sister company MivaTek Global will be announcing a live web demonstration date in the coming weeks.

Johnson: What can you tell us about the next offering from Miva Technologies?

Hogan: Our new offering will go way beyond the current concept of direct imaging. It is a broad re-thinking of the notion of digital imaging to establish tools for the factory floor that allow users to correlate multiple processes in a highly efficient approach to make wider process windows and total process control a reality. Miva Technologies has been very active in development through a span of products from PCB to microelectronics. For example, at the University of California’s Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology we are now producing 2-micron line and space for additive technologies. The registration challenges we faced in substrate imaging were the catalyst to this new technology we will be introducing.

To read this entire interview, which appeared in the January 2021 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.