The Marketing Minute: Staying Positive When the Market Isn’t
Marcy’s Musings: Continuing to Invent the Future With SEL
It’s Only Common Sense: Why Failure Is an Opportunity for Growth
Pivoting on Substrates
September 27, 2023 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Oved Shapira is CEO of PCB Technologies, the Israeli-based printed circuit provider. PCB Technologies has recently invested in facilities and expertise to design, fabricate, and assemble substrates, a key component for advanced packaging technologies. Oved spoke with Barry Matties and Nolan Johnson about how advanced packaging will influence the industry. He said it will shift everything, including design, fabrication, assembly techniques, and capital equipment development. Some of these shifts might be subtle, and others more seismic. Whatever the changes, Oved says it’s coming.
Barry Matties: Since you joined the company, you have been instrumental in defining the direction for PCB Technologies. Could you give us an overview of the company’s current strategic direction?
Oved Shapira: When I joined the company, I first asked where we were heading and where the market was going. For our major customers, what were their projected unmet needs? I asked our CTO to talk with the CTOs of our major customers as a way to develop a multi-industrial vision with advanced technology included.
Of course, when you ask CTOs about their unmet needs, you get much feedback from different angles. When you filter out all the feedback, we found three major issues that keep repeating.
Matties: What were those issues?
Shapira: First was miniaturization. Second was heat dissipation management, which is very much connected to the miniaturization of more functionalities and the growing demand for high-power applications. The third was the registration of mixed materials.
Registration is one of the larger causes of failure on the PCB, Everything that involves multilayer and sub-lamination always has the risk of poor registration. That creates shorts or other quality issues. So, we came back to the drawing board with what we learned.
I joined after the largest private equity fund in Israel acquired the company. We had a favorable cash situation and decided to invest the capital in technologies that would serve miniaturization, heat dissipation, and registration. That’s when we built a strategy of all-in-one. You can have a PCB shop, an assembly service, and advanced packaging of multi-chip modules or SIP (system in package).
So, we upgraded the PCB shop to PCB-like substrates. Today, we can go for a pitch of 50 microns, line space of 25/25, or 20/30.
We create a unique design of organic substrates by integrating copper-moly-copper. We give them a solution for heat dissipation and heat management in combination with miniaturization. Then, we add to the substrate all our capabilities in PCBs.
To read the rest of this interview, which appeared in the September 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.
Share on:
Testimonial
"Advertising in PCB007 Magazine has been a great way to showcase our bare board testers to the right audience. The I-Connect007 team makes the process smooth and professional. We’re proud to be featured in such a trusted publication."
Klaus Koziol - atgSuggested Items
Polar Instruments Announces Additive Transmission Line Support for Si9000e
08/20/2025 | Polar InstrumentsTransmission lines embedded into the PCB surface are a feature of UHDI constructions. The 2025 fall release of Polar's Si9000e PCB impedance & insertion loss transmission line field solver incorporates eight new single ended, differential and coplanar transmission line structures.
Meet the Round 1 Winners of the Bright Manufacturing Student Challenge 2025
08/20/2025 | Tara Dunn, SMTAThe Bright Manufacturing Student Challenge is an opportunity for student teams to design and develop innovative solutions for real-world electronics manufacturing problems. The eight-week competition, sponsored by the Electronics Manufacturing & Assembly Collaborative (EMAC) through electronicsworkforce.com, allows students to showcase their technical skills, creativity, and problem-solving abilities.
Inventing the Future: An Interview with Dr. Ed Schweitzer
08/20/2025 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer III, founder of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), has a corner office in the company’s world headquarters in Pullman, Washington. Forty-two years after his SEL-21—the first microprocessor-based digital protective relay—ushered in a new era of power-system protection, he has forever changed the way the world safeguards its electric grids. In this three-hour conversation, Dr. Schweitzer reveals that he remains excited to get to work each day, unpacking the “better, cheaper, faster, simpler” mantra that’s still driving SEL’s innovation, and the culture glue that keeps more than 7,000 employee-owners rowing in unison.
Amphenol to Acquire Trexon
08/19/2025 | BUSINESS WIREAmphenol Corporation announced a definitive agreement to acquire Trexon for approximately $1 billion in cash, subject to customary post-closing adjustments.
American Made Advocacy: Where’s the Budget for a Modern Military Run on Microelectronics?
08/19/2025 | Shane Whiteside -- Column: American Made AdvocacyIn a world of peer threats and urgent transformation, having secure, trusted, and reliable microelectronics is non-negotiable. While largely hidden, microelectronics are the ubiquitous enablers of modern defense platforms. Nothing in the current American arsenal flies, floats, or fights without a technology stack that includes a semiconductor, an integrated circuit substrate, and a printed circuit board.