ICT Symposium Review: Sustainability and the Circular Economy

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Scaling Up

Steve Driver from Jiva Materials remarked that, although institutes like ICT and EIPC are great platforms for new ideas, many new ideas remain as ideas and don’t get off the ground because they don’t have a driver (the pun probably was intended…).

In his inimitable style, good-humoured modesty carrying a serious message, he shared his experiences of scaling-up a sustainable laminate from development to commercialisation.

Moving on from ideation and proof-of-concept requires a change of narrative, using words like “production” and “factory” in place of “laboratory” and “samples,” talking about “capacity” and “lead times,” not “testing” and “verification.”

Driver’s definition of scale-up really means moving from start-up, having more than 10 employees, having raised more than £1m, having stabilised or verified its demand or business model, having the potential to generate revenues of £1m-£3m, and having a plan.

With specific reference to Jiva’s Soluboard product, he discussed his strategy and progress, and how he had addressed and overcome some of the obstacles he had encountered along the way.

His first challenge has been to position his product: He didn’t want it to become “just another item on the shelf.” Although Soluboard has one remarkable attribute—its recyclability—it is not an appropriate laminate for all applications. But the OEM has a choice, and sustainability is a new criterion to consider. So, Driver introduced the concept to selected OEMs on the basis that Soluboard will make the waste more valuable and that it will reduce carbon in manufacture. His objective is to get Jiva’s material specified on the drawing. From the PCB fabricator’s point of view, it is not a drop-in replacement “but PCB fabricators are clever!”

He chose to focus Jiva’s efforts on a handful of OEMs who were interested in cooperating. “We worked our socks off for no revenue but won an opportunity!” and he showed examples of some of the PCBs that have been successfully manufactured.

In scaling-up the operation to meet customer and investor expectations, a big question was where geographically to locate it. The decision was made to begin with a reel-to-sheet line in England. Principal objectives were to grow revenue faster than expenses by leveraging the technology and refining the processes, and to expand market share with the goal of dominating the market rather than just surviving in it.

Huge challenges with raw materials had to be overcome. In order to ensure batch-to-batch consistency, Jiva chose to take control of its resin formulation at source and to blend its own bespoke polymers. Although the original material chosen for reinforcement was flax, this was very expensive, and jute was chosen as a lower-cost alternative. However, it was difficult to produce a consistent fine fabric with jute, and it was replaced with Lyocell, a spun cellulose fibre. The sample of woven Lyocell fabric that Driver handed round was lightweight and appeared homogeneous.

An accepted physical limitation of Soluboard is the 220°C melting point of the polymer. Therefore, low-temperature soldering is mandatory, and a tin-bismuth-silver alloy gives good results. A current challenge is to achieve UL94V0 flammability rating, and it is hoped to qualify by the end of Q4 2025. 

In printed circuit manufacture, Soluboard has been demonstrated to be compatible with normal process chemistries. Blackhole and Shadow metallisation technologies enable the production of high-quality plated-through-holes.

Driver’s final slide summarised the current situation: “We have a proven recipe and a proven process, with over 50 pilot production runs to date. Soluboard is currently under review with three major OEMs. Jiva is ready to scale!”

Digital Twins

“Digital twin equals digital win” was an appropriate title for the presentation from Robrecht Belis, director surface finishing at Elsyca in Belgium, who stressed the critical importance of a good copper balancing and discussed the benefits of using a digital twin for optimising plating processes and getting copper thickness control “right first time.”

Market trends and high-density interconnect technologies are pushing PCB designers to pack more components into smaller spaces; layers are becoming denser and thinner, and the need to maintain controlled tolerances for the thickness and width of traces across the entire PCB is increasingly difficult to achieve. Getting it wrong could seriously impact design and production workflow and cause substantial cost and lengthy delays.

He proposed a simulation-based validation workflow, with a copper deposit and balancing check at design, RFQ, CAM and production stages, resulting in reduced time to market, lower development costs, more robust design, and less material waste. At the design stage, simulation software can analyse the layer thickness distribution and automatically generate copper-balancing areas where they are needed. These features don’t form part of the electronic circuit but serve to improve thickness distribution in the plating process. Belis illustrated the effect with a before-and-after “heat map.” The copper balancing operation was automatic, fast, consistent, and user-independent.

It is possible to integrate software into ECAD and CAM tools to determine whether a design is satisfactory for production without additional balancing, whether it would be acceptable if additional balancing were added, or whether it is not fit for production and would have to be modified.

The plating process itself could be modelled as a digital twin. Belis explained the procedure of gathering and characterisation of infrastructure properties, measurement and quantification of data, and combination of the relevant aspects into a digital twin. Outcomes were upfront plateability analysis, definition of mitigation strategy and upfront validation of process strategy. For example, custom screening tools could be created to be incorporated in the plating cell to improve distribution on specific designs.

Belis gave many examples of positive user-feedback, particularly regarding increases in first-pass yields on new parts, energy savings, and cost reductions. It was clear that a key takeaway is the breaking-down of the wall between PCB design and fabrication.

Practical Realities

Reasons why PCB manufacturing must embrace sustainability, and some practical realities of how the biggest challenges were being addressed in a leading UK PCB fabricator, were eloquently detailed in the concluding presentation by Hannah Whitmore, HSE and sustainability manager with Amphenol Invotec.

The key categories she listed were regulatory pressures, cost and risk, resilience, customer and OEM expectations, and reputation and talent attraction in a competitive sector. In the PCB lifecycle, impacts occur in materials, energy-intensive manufacturing processes, chemicals, rinsewater and effluent, and end-of-life considerations. Key regulatory drivers include UN Sustainable Development Goals, RoHS and WEEE obligations, UK REACH, PFAS scrutiny, energy and carbon reporting, HSE ACOPS adherence, and ISO 14001/50001 compliance.

So, where to start? Data! She stressed the importance of establishing core metrics and setting a baseline from which progress could be tracked. Examples were the costs of energy, water, chemicals, and waste per square metre of board produced.

As well as CapEx constraints, some of the greatest challenges to sustainability in PCB manufacture are effluent complexity, hazardous chemistries, PFAS surfactants under regulatory pressure, energy hotspots, yield and scrap losses, and maximising recycling opportunities,

There was scope for simple small changes, short-term actions and quick efficiency wins, but very few in the audience envied the enormous task that Whitmore’s job entailed, although she remarked that thankfully she has positive support and cooperation from all areas of the business. She emphasised the importance of tracking the benefits of a change and not forgetting to register all the work that has gone into it.

Her list of medium-term actions included replacing legacy chemical processes with lower-temperature or higher-activity chemistries, installing electrowinning on copper-rich effluent streams, etchant regeneration, and upgrading to laser direct imaging or inkjet imaging wherever possible. Projects for the long-term include partial closed-loop water, using ultra filtration, ion exchange or reverse osmosis, together with smart controls. She also foresaw the time when environmental product declarations and product carbon footprints for key products will be integrated into bids for contracts.

Whitmore ended her presentation by sharing a roadmap for the future, which involved setting 2030 targets for energy, water, waste, and key hazardous substitutions, using UNSDG targets to align the company’s policy with globally adopted targets, creating a line-by-line opportunity register with CapEx, opex, and payback. A cycle of plan-do-check-act for review and improvement will be established, with internal auditing to check and confirm compliance, and there will be a monthly review and report via the SECR reporting scheme.

ICT vice-chairman Leigh Allinson brought proceedings to a close, thanking the presenters for sharing their experiences and all the delegates who have made the effort to attend. He proposed a particular thank you to Emma Hudson for her efforts in organising and managing a splendid event.

I am grateful to Alun Morgan for kindly sharing his photographs.

• < Previous Page