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And, with a background in the electronics industry and many years’ experience in the development of UV-curable resins, another logical area of development was in photoresists for PCB and LED production, also for chemical milling of aluminium, stainless-steel and copper components. And to complement the product group, solder masks for PCBs and solder pastes for SMT assembly. Dr. Zhang proudly showed many examples of the ways in which PhiChem continues to build its identity as an emerging major player in the electronics materials market.
PhiChem’s product range did not stop there: it had further diversified its portfolio to include ceramic materials, such as high purity (99.999%) alumina for the manufacture of single crystal sapphire, used in substrates for LED manufacturing and as transparent windows for displays on electronic products.
After this comprehensive introduction, it was time to direct our attention to the primary objective of our visit, to preview PhiChem’s new R&D centre. We took the elevator to the sixth level and worked our way down floor by floor.
Several of us in the party had experience of working in high-end R&D. Speaking personally, I spent quite a few years of my early career in research laboratories equipped with leading-edge facilities and, having visited many since, I can be pretty blasé and difficult to impress when presented with what is promoted as the latest and greatest.
But PhiChem’s laboratories were magnificent in every respect! Breath-taking would not be an exaggeration. There was acres of space, spotlessly clean and environmentally controlled, equipped with every conceivable provision for materials synthesis, materials analysis, applications development and reliability testing; all of it was brand new and staffed by more than 70 skilled scientists, engineers and technicians.
The research department on the sixth floor consisted of a complex of laboratories and engineer offices, with advanced polymer characterisation apparatus such as gel permeation chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography for determining molecular weight distribution and understanding and predicting polymer performance. In addition, the R&D scientists had direct access to spray coating chambers and vacuum plating machines. PhiChem does all of its own synthesis, with a laboratory dedicated to developing new methods and products, and many patents to its credit.
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