Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1038326
46 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2018 Goldman: You must lose some of that electro- less copper. Foley: You would be surprised how little is lost. However, any time you pump it over and back, you're going to lose some. Holden: What does GreenSource do with the water after dumping it out? Foley: Generally, the water goes to waste treat- ment and gets recycled and used again. How- ever, this water might not because it has chem- istry in it. The first one right out of each bath is a dead rinse. When that gets drained, it goes to chemical waste—not freshwater waste. The other cascade rinses go back to water and get reused. This one would go to chemical waste. Dreiza: To help reduce water waste, we reduce dragout. With the horizontal system, we can reduce dragout by 50%, then the quadruple rinse that John described. You're talking about a very low consumption system overall. Goldman: It's double the savings. You save on replenishment chemistry, and you also save on waste treatment of dragged out and rinsed chemistry. Foley: On the electroless line and the platers, Atotech moves the solution continually back- and-forth from the bath through the automatic analyzer. The analyzer also controls. That is a nice feature to have—especially in Alex's case where he's using minimum manpower. Dreiza: This is unique in the industry. Instead of trying to dose the stabilizer based on through- put, you can grab a sample and analyze it. In typical lines, operators spike the stabilizer, and as it decays, they calculate based on through- put when to spike again. With the stabilizer analysis, you can keep a much more controlled stabilizer level, which means that your depo- sition of electroless copper is more controlled across the process. Another feature I should point out is that on all these lines is the pumps have frequency Figure 9: Supply pipes from above for recycled water, along with control devices and sensors.