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42 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 Feature Interview by Patty Goldman I-CONNECT007 I met with Rüdiger Lange, CSO at Schmid Group, in their spacious, comfortable booth at productronica. We discussed the current capi- tal equipment market and Schmid's business direction for the future while watching some of their new technology in action. Patty Goldman: Rüdiger, please begin by tell- ing me something about yourself and Schmid Group. Rüdiger Lange: I'm responsible for the sales and marketing at Schmid Group, which I joined about 18 months ago. I've been working in the high-tech equipment business for about 20 years, starting in the early days with Phil- ips Electronics doing OLED displays, flat pan- el displays, and then moved into more semi- conductor technology, SMT technology, pro- cess technology for plat- ing and semi-conductor. Wet process equipment, Schmid's core business, is an area that is very fa- miliar to me. Schmid has been in the electronics business since the 1960s. The compa- ny is over 150 years old. In its early days it was building production equipment for iron foundries and wood mills. In the 1960s we started offering solutions for surface treatment of PCBs, consisting of wash- ing, cleaning, brushing and then very quickly we moved into chemical processing of PCBs. That's still our main business today. We're ex- perts in chemical technology, chemical surface treatment, developing, etching—any kind of surface treatment on a PCB or substrate—and we also use this expertise in other applications and markets. We also offer chemical process Rüdiger Lange Schmid Looks to the Future for Industry 4.0 and More