Nano System, Two Years On

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Sekine: Basically, they wanted to get good quality holes. When you do the plating, in order to have a better plating capability, you have to have a nice hole shape overall. Instead of just straight holes, you need to have tapered holes so that the plating liquid gets into the hole nicely.

To make this kind of hole shape, you need to have excellent optics. You need to have the lens and then the beam shaper. Luckily, we have Todd Lizotte on our team. He's the co-chair of the Laser Beam Shaping Conference for Optics & Photonics of SPIE and has authored many technical articles on the subject over the last 20 years. He knows how to make the design. That's one of our strengths because nobody else has it. He came up with the design to make a really fine beam shape—the UV ray is about 20 microns, so it’s a very small beam.

Nova Drilling is an established company for drilling service. Their customers always come over to Nova because their original drilling company could not process what they were asking for. It's always a difficult job, but Nova always does it; and by utilizing our machine, they are capable of doing that service.

We have the very small, tiny holes, like 1 mil, 25 microns, and 2 mil, 50 microns. Not too many companies can plate 1 mil yet. That's something that may be difficult, but we are capable of doing. Nobody's capable of doing those jobs and no one is helping their customers by providing something their customer cannot do; but our machine does it.

Las Marias: So manufacturing is all done in the U.S?

Sekine: Yes, in New Hampshire. A lot of people like to hear the machine is made in the U.S. They feel more comfortable. The majority of people feel comfortable with the base being a Taiwanese machine too, because quality-wise it's very good and the people accept it. That's something that they see and they're very happy to have that package with both Nano System and Tongtai working together.

Las Marias: What can you say about the future of your UV/CO2 laser drilling equipment? How do you see that developing in the next few years?

Sekine: Harvey Miller came over to our booth to see our products. He's very happy to see those 1- and 2-mil holes, because it’s becoming a requirement in the industry to have the capability to make those small holes. If it's 20-micron holes, the pitch between the holes is about 100 microns. He asked if we could make it and our application engineers said absolutely. All these people are really after the accuracy, and trying to make those small holes with the accurate position is not available yet, but Nano System can make it.

Maybe you remember that 15–20 years ago, there was a big change to surface mount technology. In the past, there was no surface mount and you had to make a big hole and insert the component in there. After that, SMT came out and that's the time Hitachi introduced the drilling machine. The majority of the drilling machines could only drill one high with 18-mil holes, but Hitachi came up with three high, and six stations, so that the productivity was much better. That's the reason why Hitachi was very successful. This is a similar situation. Not too many companies can produce 1-mil holes accurately. If we can produce or supply those capabilities, then the designer can just design 100-micron pitch.

In the past, they could not do it, but now they can. It may be like a new age. If there's a growing requirement for more of these kinds of machines, I think that could bring us a good chance of getting business.

Las Marias: Definitely the consumer trend is towards miniaturization. Everything is getting smaller, especially the boards inside these devices, therefore the drilling requirements. Is there anything we haven't discussed yet that you think we should be talking about, Sam?

Sekine: Maybe the most valuable thing I can say is about our employees. Everybody at our company came from Hitachi. Some of the best members from Hitachi joined our startup company after we had just collapsed. So it’s a very strong team, and the result of that team is our machines. And now, we’re ready to make our third one and we already have a lot of potential customers asking about it. Our employees are one of our strongest features. Everybody has a long experience with Hitachi, and so the spirit here is the same as the old Hitachi. We have a very strong desire to make this company better and to support the customer.

Las Marias: It shows that there is a lot of trust in your people and technology. That's a good thing.

Sekine: I think that's the main thing. Why are we successful? Because most of our customers are from the Hitachi age and they do believe in us. They say, ‘Sam, if you do it, I can trust you. I know why you needed to get out. However, even if you get out, you're also committing to support Hitachi machines. That's your commitment and we feel comfortable.’ I think that's the main thing, and it’s not only me. Many people feel the same way. So many people had spent 10–15 years working for Hitachi, and then they joined us. That's something that I feel very proud of.

Las Marias: Earlier on, you mentioned that manufacturing these products is really expensive. Do you have any plans of manufacturing it elsewhere?

Sekine: Eventually, maybe in Taiwan or possibly China. Our investor is from China and they have a huge facility, so there's a potential there. We are considering using the Nano System name as a high-end machine, and then maybe having a different name over there. In China it's much less expensive, so it’d have to be a different model and different brand name so people can differentiate between what is made in China and Nano System, which will be made in the U.S.

Las Marias: Sam, thank you very much for the interview. I hope you find continued success with your company.

Sekine: Thank you for your time. You had asked very good questions, Stephen. Thank you.

• < Previous Page