Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1011746
16 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2018 Feinberg: Of course, the big product that we had was dry film resist. Well, dry film resist is now selling for less than what it used to cost us to make it, and it used to be a very, very high-prof- it product. Now, from what I'm understanding the prices that are being paid on the retail side are far less than the manufacturing cost back in the day. So you've got to wonder how they're doing that and how they're dealing with it. Of course, the suppliers are very different and I'm sure the raw materials are different and it's just a totally different world. Osborn: It is a different world. Feinberg: What other reliability challenges do you have with raw materials? Krick: To the best of my knowledge, at least for consumables coming in the door, the quali- ty is there. They're repeatable. Thicknesses are good. Copper quality is good. The typical stuff that you used to see, such as handling scratches and pack- aging, I am assuming it is so automated now you general- ly don't see that. It comes in in a nice pretty package and it's vacuum sealed. Other than not getting it as quickly as we need to get it, I think the qual- ity of the material has gotten tremendously better. It's a lit- tle difficult dealing with the smaller population of suppli- ers. It's kind of like with In- sulectro buying everybody. You're dealing with a giant and being able to flex a little muscle with somebody that big. They don't always respond. Knapp: You're talking about a lot of laminates. I was a process guy for 35 years, chemical engi- neering. I was on the chemistry side of things and, if we look back, we used to have a lot of options. It was a lot of 'me too,' but you had a lot of options. You remember the dry film business; there was DynaChem, Hercules and DuPont. But they're gone. You don't have a lot of options, and, as Mark alluded to earli- er, it looks to me like there's not a tremendous amount of R&D going on in the process world from our vendors. Although, occasionally, they come out with a solution desperately searching for a problem. Feinberg: Let's swing off just a little bit off from the raw materials. The finished parts that you sell are 100% circuit boards but not assembled devices. Obviously, the quality of the circuit board you send customers is good, but what about the quality of their finished device? Mark, you and I have had some discussions with various customers and various agencies about counterfeit components. Are you hear- ing any more about that? Osborn: No, it has kind of died down. Feinberg: Three years ago, that was not what we were hearing. So, I think that's probably good news. Osborn: There was a lot of hype and I know it was going on, but I don't believe it was re- ally to the degree that was ex- pressed at that time, or at least not with our customer base. Feinberg: What can the design- ers do to help improve relia- bility? Osborn: If our engineering manager were here right now he would tell you that he'd like all the design- ers to come here and spend a week with him working on one of their designs so that he could show them exactly where they are mak- ing our life difficult. That to me is probably the biggest obstacle in getting good product out the door: getting it out of engineering right the first time on time. We're finding that we have to go back and educate the designers who are using great software but have no knowledge of how boards are built. That's a big obstacle right now. Mark Osborn