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Switzer: I would have to say being a total concept company is our single biggest differentiator. There are not many companies that can do that. That allows us to offer our customers a much more streamlined process where we can take them from literally an idea to reality. Besides being so much more efficient, all of this can be done with just one phone call, and it is much more economical for them. This is where the convenience factor comes into play with our customer base. They only have to cut one PO, making their jobs more efficient and easier since they can communicate with one source instead of multiple sources to get one final product task completed.
Beaulieu: Can you tell me a little bit more about your circuit design capabilities?
Switzer: We started that portion of the business in 2004 with one highly experienced EE, and due to design standards, our staff has grown to 15 engineers. We can work from ideas and concepts to having existing schematics and performing the layouts. The area of design that is evolving at a frantic pace is altering existing designs. Many existing products in the market need to be updated due to technology changes over time. We can take an existing designs and incorporate new technology, such as Wi-Fi, or even write new software. Our engineers have experience in the medical, automotive, aviation, industrial and commercial sectors.
Beaulieu: That’s pretty impressive. Especially at this time when there is much more new product development than ever. So let’s talk some of the special boards you build at PNC.
Switzer: We have refined our process over the years to allow us to manufacture an array of PCBs for multiple Industries. We still fabricate double-sided boards, but a majority of the boards manufactured at PNC are multilayers using FR-4 or polyamide.
For microwave/RF applications we typically build double-sided and multilayers using Rogers’s ceramic materials, and a few FR-4. A majority of the single-sided antenna boards are usually PTFE materials from Rogers. For double-sided antenna boards we also use the PTFE Rogers material and plate through from a strip line to the antenna.
Aluminum clad boards have become very popular in the last few years for LED applications. We fabricate single-sided aluminum boards from .02 to .125. We can also do HI-pot testing on all aluminum clad PCBs as well.
Another technology that we have been manufacturing for some time are hybrids. Most of the hybrids we see use aluminum laminated to either Rogers ceramic or FR-4.
Beaulieu: Where would you rate PNC in terms of technology?
Switzer: In terms of technology, I would rate PNC, on a scale of 1 to 10, somewhere around 9. In saying that, we are only a few process upgrades away from being a solid 10. One of those processes would be plating. Currently, we are plating at an aspect ratio of around 10 to 1. With a new plating line we can increase that aspect ratio immensely. We are looking to install our new plating line in the fourth quarter of 2016. With the tolerances becoming tighter and tighter, LDI would really help us with registration. This technology is also under review, but the return on investment is not there yet to justify it.
PNC has spent more than $2 million in the last three to four years upgrading capital equipment such as new routing machines, new drilling machines, new scoring, horizontal brown oxide, etching, primary developing, micro sectioning, reverse osmosis for DI water, inner layer cleaning, LPI, resist strip, tin strip, two ET machines, and video inspection.
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