An Interview with Gene Weiner at HKPCA

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Matties: That's your best chance of protecting it. As far as America goes, I know you've toured the Whelen factory, and the impression is that it's the first fully automated PCB facility in the world.

Weiner: Certainly it is the first new PCB facility in North America in more than a decade. What's first in the world is that there's no effluent and there are fewer than 20 people operating it on all shifts. It could not be done for an HDI board factory, because the process they use for imaging, the Mutracx system, which is a digital printing system, is probably good for 100-micron line and space on a consistent basis. Also if you are thinking of high volume, where you would have to have several additional imaging machines and longer wet processing lines. But the idea of the containment of the operating equipment, the maintenance, the effluent, and the central control overlooking the whole thing that forms a circle, from which you can side-step to do ENIG or some other special process or finish, is sheer genius in the way it was designed and built. Several pieces of equipment were created especially for that line as well as the waste treatment, such as a plasma desmearing system for desmearing that uses oxygen instead of an organic. There are a lot of innovative things at Whelen.

Matties: Is that the beginning of a trend in America?

Weiner: It should be, but it probably is not. What we'll probably see is the inventor of the waste treatment system in particular and other things in the line probably arrange to have it built and sold as a freestanding version for new factory lines or retrofits anywhere in the world. And since that market is primarily in Asia, it will most likely be seen over there next.

Matties: I was impressed with their openness to bring anybody in to really look under the hood and see what they're doing, because they want to share this technology and approach with American companies. Whelen is a real pro-American manufacturer of sirens and indicator lights.

Weiner: It's interesting in that because of the nature of the work required by Whelen Manufacturing for its automotive industry and the level of technology they need, they can compete with any Chinese company for their work and keep the design and everything else in-house.

Matties: The fact that it's a captive facility obviously makes it a lot easier for them to invite others in. I think they were spending $7 million a year on products here in China, and for a little under $12 million they were able to set up that facility, and as you mentioned, the zero discharge aspect is the grand appeal.

Weiner: They are in the state of New Hampshire which is very tough on environmental controls, and they don't need a single permit for hazardous waste. What's most interesting to me about the Whelen story is that it isn’t over yet. When I was there they were debugging the lines and some of it hadn’t been completed yet. I'm going back up this month, weather permitting, to take a look at the changes and talk to the general manager, Alex Stepinski, about his next project, which is plating on plastics. Again, there is no POP facility which is fully automated that does not have any waste treatment effluent. Whelen plans to be the first. The interesting situation at Whelen is that they have their own injection molding equipment and can injection mold the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plating grade and just transfer it over to the next building. That's going to be a very exciting project for me to watch, because that's never been done either.

Matties: One of the things that I see here at the show is a lot of inkjet and digital imaging. It’s really a driving factor in this marketplace and it's changing the way we produce boards.

Weiner: The inkjet stuff that I've seen here is really not much improved over that which I've seen ten years ago. The software of course has evolved, but as far as the equipment and the material the only major improvement I’ve seen is for the soldermasks. Now there are now soldermasks with low enough energy requirements that allow a laser imager to do its job.

Matties: I was recently at the 3D printed electronics show in Santa Clara and they had one booth there with a tabletop printer, maybe four feet by three feet, printing complete multilayer circuit boards.

Weiner: I'm planning on going to that show next year. But those boards you saw could not be for very high frequency or high tech because the conductors are generally from thick film type formulations—they're not pure copper and they’re not pure aluminum.

Matties: What they were using for the base material is what they called a liquid FR-4, and then they were using a conductive ink so you don’t have to drill but just put it right where you need it between layers. But the point being that it may not be perfect today, but it is certainly rapid prototyping for $70,000–150,000 that you can put in your office and be building boards. It surely isn’t ready this moment, but if you fast forward 10–15 years from now it might be a real possibility as the technology advances.

Weiner: Well, there are basically two types of inkjet printers: One of them requires a thermoplastic material that it lays down, and the other uses a laser that can actually melt and lay down copper, which is very expensive and that's in an early stage right now. But I think it has great application, not only for RFIDs for identification but also for wearable electronics. If you look at a Fitbit, almost everything except the chips could be made by 3D printing technology today—but not in volume. But long range, I think it has great application potential. Even the cover now, sapphire or Gorilla Glass, could be printed as polycarbonate.

The technology should be good for prototyping in certain applications where the dimensions and tolerance are not too great. Again, you’re not going to go to the HDI level, but for many simpler applications, such as the circuit board that controls a washing machine, it has a future—but it will have to be done by way of developing a high-speed printer with greater preciseness. Remember, most of what we're doing on the resins is with a thermoplastic, not a thermoset. Once you have a thermoset, like an epoxy, you will have to cure it somewhere along the line and epoxy takes time to cure. There are high-volume applications and prototyping that will be in the mainstream for printed electronics, but not so much for what we’re seeing here at the show, but definitely in certain market segments.

Matties: Like for the circuit board designer who's sitting in his office and wants a rapid prototype. I think five years from now it could be commonplace.

Weiner: For rapid prototypes, absolutely. I went to the design show in Marlborough, Massachusetts, a few months ago and there were maybe 20 representatives with 3D printers, but only two or three of them were those that use the laser and the rest is of them used the thermoplastic. I went around and had each of them make samples, and for the ones that do large tasks with five or six kinds of plastics would take eight hours for a part like we have here. So there's a time constraint.

Matties: It’s still faster than sending your file off to a circuit board shop and waiting. You can design it by lunchtime and have it out by dinner time.

Weiner: That’s true. We are going to see a need for 3D printing in flex and we’re also going to see a need for more assembly techniques for flex with HDI, and there's going to be enough room for all of it. You asked about surprises earlier, and what was a surprise to me was how rapidly Americans developed HDI and then never developed the ability to produce it in volume. It went to Japan, to Taiwan and then to mainland China, and that was that. Along the way it merged with several semi-additive or build-up processes.

Matties: So, any final thoughts on what you see happening in 2016?

Weiner: World War? No, I'm kidding. I would prefer to wait until I see who gets elected to the U.S. government, and see how well the new President here [in China]gains better control of the economy in China, and how well their diplomatic efforts to Africa and other parts of the world work out. How Russia will respond after the current Middle East situations settle one way or another, and when the political turmoil ends and the economic stability returns to a controllable or predictable level in mainland China; whether the famous handshake between the President of Taiwan and the President of China leads to better relations in business, and whether the majority of terrorist organizations get wiped out. That’s when I'll make a prediction. For now, 2016 is much too unpredictable to provide a meaningful opinion.Page 2 of 3

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