Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1073397
46 FLEX007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2019 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 Brendan Hogan, managing director of smart electronics manufacturer MivaTek Global, discusses how to better design for flex, and ways designers can stay current on manufac - turing technology that can impact their flex boards. Barry Matties: First, can you tell us a little bit about MivaTek and what you do? Brendan Hogan: Miva Technologies has devel- oped a new method of using DLP and LED. About six or seven years ago, we replaced the laser technology with a DLP-LED tech- nology with a lower cost of operation and all the obvious drivers to do that. We've evolved very quickly over the last four to five years to get better market penetration in the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia now. We're starting to expand more rapidly. One of the benefits of our technology is that it maps into many dif- ferent platforms, and is pretty simple to map in a new platform. So, that gives us a lot of specialty application opportunities. Matties: How do your products fit into the flex area? Hogan: A lot of the flex applications we cur- rently do largely deal with A/B registration— the precision with which you can have the two sides run a check to each other for signal-to- noise ratio or certain performance criteria, and how that end circuit performs in applications. That's a more conventional application. In the last 12–16 months, we've been developing systems for reel-to-reel that have implications for flex and things like LED shadow mask and other reel-to-reel type applications. We see a lot of activity in Korea and China related to reel-to-reel, so that's one of the main direc- tions we're headed. Matties: If an OEM and their system designers are looking at integrating flex into their prod- ucts, what considerations should they have in terms of imaging and technology that might help them improve either their overall quality or strategy? Hogan: A significant element of direct imag- ing in general—whether you're talking about Staying Current on Flex Manufacturing is Smart Business