Martin Cotton Explains Ventec’s Plan for Growth

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

One thing we've been trying to work on is overshoot and undershoot to a specification, so that if it's undershot, you obviously can't reach the specification, you can't provide functionality, but if it's just overshot, you're going to reach functionality. But if it is massive, you then have a huge margin left on the product.

Shaughnessy: It costs a whole lot more than it had to.

Cotton: A whole lot more. It's going to work. That's what a lot of engineers do, they often over specify. Part of it is not their fault, sometimes the time-to-market pressure is so high that they do that to go very fast to market rather than spend the extra two or three months actually developing their feedback from the laminate suppliers, for example, of what can actually be done. PCB manufacturers, of course they have a wealth of knowledge, but they may not know exactly where that overshoot/undershoot kind of range is.

Shaughnessy: Where's the line?

Cotton: Right. Where is the line?

Shaughnessy: That's part of your job.

Cotton: Exactly. Coming back to our chat earlier on, is that part of my job as an old PCB designer is I help to show people how to do these things. Whereas in most PCB laminate companies, they don't have designers, they have chemists and engineers, very qualified people, but they don't have people who are hands on and say, "Look at the impedance triangle," for example. How the traces get smaller and narrower the closer you get to the reference plane, the manufacturing costs would probably go up.

But they can't help it, like the poor lads and lasses in these places, like DesignCon, because they don't have the education about that. So part of our job, being the Ventec team, is to show people these things, and we do that. We've used the tec-speed banner as a part of a rebranding exercise of existing materials in the low-loss arena, but also it's the umbrella for future product developments. So for example, we've got tec-speed 6, 6.1 and there's a 7, so it's a completely different leap.

When you're looking at material, are they halogen-free or not halogen-free? Even if they've got a similar Dk/Df kind of thing going, what's the difference? One of the interesting things, you might find this a little bit weird, is that almost every single Tier 1 company I’ve talked to, when asked the question, "Halogen-free or speed?" They always say "speed." 

So that's the thing. If you can get halogen-free without any compromises to the performance of the laminate and cost, etc., whereas any impact particularly on the performance of the material, they'll dump the halogen-free part. I found that amazing in this modern world.

Shaughnessy: Well, they're just getting used to lead-free.

Cotton: It's just really an odd situation. Coming back to DesignCon, this is a new venture for us. It's a pipe cleaning exercise. We're pretty certain we'll be back, a little bit better informed next time, a bit better prepared maybe.

Shaughnessy: This was your first?

Cotton: I've been to the conference many times in the past 15–16 years, and I've had a booth here with a friend when I worked with Viasystems in the old days.

Shaughnessy: This is Ventec's first year?

Cotton: This is Ventec's first opportunity to do this. Traditionally, they'll go into the IPC Work Show or something like this, or CPCA, TPCA in Taiwan. That's where they traditionally look at it, but we're trying to complement the sales and operation, particularly the sales, by having the OEM group feed the pipe at the beginning. So we may be a year, year and a half in front of the sales, and if you're looking at new development material, we could be two years in front, or two and a half years.

So that is a partnering with an OEM, a group of OEMs and their suppliers, and that's something we're actively involved in. That kind of arena of intercompany expertise being shared, for example, provides you with a really good result. It lowers cost which is obviously important, but allows for better performance and not forever wasting money and putting margin on a product you don't need, and things like that. It's a new start, and we're very proud of tec-speed. We're just getting our ducks in a row, if you like. We're trying to work it through.

Shaughnessy: We talked to them at APEX 2015, and they're all a good bunch of guys.

Cotton: It's a great little company, and they call it the Ventec family. They literally welcome you in as part of a family group. It's quite emotional as well when you get there. You have 50 or 60 people all hugging you because you've joined the company. It's like, what's happening?

Shaughnessy: That is cool.

Cotton: It's a different environment, something I wasn't truly prepared for. It's an exciting world.

Shaughnessy: Is there anything else you want to add?

Cotton: I can tell you that we will be launching new materials, we have some step change ideas, and that's crucial, but obviously I can't tell you just yet.

Shaughnessy: Are you going to write some articles for that?

Cotton: We will be. We are looking to publish and present here at DesignCon and maybe co-author, but since we're going to take it to people, we need to make certain that it works as well. We'll certainly be doing something in that order. It's just nice to see a real good road map in front of us.

Shaughnessy: Thanks for talking to us. I appreciate it, Martin.

Cotton: Thank you, Andy.

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