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December 28, 2015 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Ryder: It makes a huge difference. Ultimately, any tool is a big investment for a customer. They want to feel that if something goes wrong, or if they do want to invest in further development on different material sets or specifications that they're seeing from their customers or different end applications, they can go to somebody locally to at least initiate the discussions they'll need to have. I think it is a good mix between the local support that we have and the long-term engineering prowess that we have at our headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
Matties: Have you been primarily focused on the flex side of the industry here in China?
Ryder: Yes, flex has clearly been the cornerstone of our business thus far. Basically, it's been a UV-based laser systems market for us. However, the UV laser portfolio that we have is also quite broad. Of course, there are different aspects to that and different end applications, some of that is for cutting and some of it is for via formation. We bring with us a whole portfolio of tools that meet different needs for accuracy, also expanding beyond the flex market into materials, such as ABF materials for substrates. Where extra accuracy is needed we have different arrays of system accuracy. For the flex market we have tools to meet the customers’ needs on affordability and throughput, depending on what's more important for them.
Matties: What do the customers that you have in China look like?
Ryder: China represents a very broad spectrum of customers. You have your smartphone type of customer who's driving the edge of accuracy and throughput. It's definitely these customers that are driving miniaturization in terms of vias getting smaller and materials getting thinner. On the other side, we do have low to medium cost manufacturers that need a reliable tool that can run 24/7 throughout the year with very simple and low-cost preventive maintenance.
Matties: Someone said that you're installed in each of the top 15 fabricators here in China. Is that true?
Ryder: Correct. We are definitely a world leader in that market.
Matties: If you're installed in the top 15 I think that speaks volumes to the footprint that you have here in China.
Ryder: It's a very good reference to have. I have to say, this comes from developing long-term relationships. This has been the backbone of our business for many years. We've won their trust, we've proven the performance and a lot of the effort that's gone into these tools—the accuracy that we get out of the tools, and the reliability—we've tried to leverage into our new tools such as the CornerStone for substrates and nViant for CO2 HDI manufacturing.
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