Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1309864
42 PCB007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2020 in what they think can work and what can't work. They don't want to change because the process is well understood. It's there, and all I have to do is produce more of it. It is very dis- ruptive to that type of thought pattern. Matties: Is the mentality, "We're just a job shop. We take the orders and provide you what you've ordered. We're not the innovators." Dickson: Yes, and they rely on the industry. I was blessed to start in this industry with Hap- py back at HP. When I was going to college, I was working at a captive board shop for an OEM. I got to learn the entire manufacturing process as a junior in college. When I came out of that experience with all those really bright engineers, I did lots of innovations because they were doing innovations. They were able to do different techniques. That's how dry film got brought in. There are all kinds of technologies that were done, and that's gone. That type of industry is gone. You can't do that, innovate directly with a partner for a specific product in the industry. Companies like Apple may recognize that, but it's rare. With company development comes control of IP, so it's not leveraged into our mar- ket. You have to get somebody to get a piece of equipment. They have to try it, bring it over, research it for years, build it up, and then lever- age it and utilize it. Some board shops will try it for a trial and sell it as a technology. That's a really slow method and typically doesn't have the capability of being disruptive. Our leadership at WUS is very innovative and wants disruptive steps to the PCB market. They want to do things that are uniquely dif- ferent. That's rather unusual in this industry. We seek out examples of technology leader- ship to benchmark against, and it's outside our industry. My personal benchmark is TSMC. Happy Holden: Have you reached out to any fabs in North America or Europe to evaluate the process? Tourné: We've tried it a couple of times. We noticed that it's much easier to use the OEM as a lever to push them. Board shops in the West aren't keen to take on new technology. There is no license cost involved in it, and we support it and train them, but it's difficult to get them on board. Sometimes, it goes against their own strategy to go to HDI, and then they're going to involve this technology; they shoot themselves in the foot due to all the big investments they make on lasers and plating systems. Johnson: What's your business model? Tourné: The business model is we license the OEM an annual license or volume license, and they pay by the product. We have a lot of data coming up on reliability. There's a lot of data coming in now in SI, so those two at least we have available. Holden: One of the things the OEMs like to see is multiple sources or a prototype capability. They get leery of a single vendor; as you roll this out, you might take partners. Tourné: We've had those discussions multiple times with the OEMs as we roll it out. The in- vitation is open to all the board shops. They just have to send an email. We've been talking to Taiwanese suppliers, and they want to do it, but then they end up saying they want to be a follower and don't want to stick their necks out and be the first one. We've also been talking to prototype shops, but they're very focused on today's work. What can we ship tomorrow? We have to break that cycle. The easiest to do is like we're design- ing a real product now that has to be built. If it was a real product on the market, then we expect the floodgates to come out, and people start asking how they can do this. Holden: One of the other things is that laser drills are expensive, but if a fabricator has al- ready invested in a lot of laser drills, one of the sidebars from innovation is, "How could VeCS take advantage of laser drills that are better than what they can do with mechani- cal drills?"