Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1060280
78 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2018 ture sizes—down to five microns and below— in PCBs, integrated-circuit (IC) packaging, and interposers. The chemistry was initially devel- oped at SRI International in Menlo Park and was transferred to Averatek when the compa- ny was spun out of SRI. Since then, Averatek has done additional development on this fun- damental chemistry as well as proprietary fab- rication processes that leverage this chemistry. Dunn: Your team is going to be presenting two papers at IPC APEX EXPO 2019. Can you tell us a little bit about the topics you will be pre- senting? Vinson: One topic that will be presented is "Sub- 10-Micron Semi-Additive Process (SAP) Utiliz- Averatek is going to be presenting two pa- pers at IPC APEX EXPO 2019. One paper dis- cusses semi-additive processing (SAP), and the second addresses a surface treatment that en- ables low-volume soldering to aluminum. I sat down with Mike Vinson, Averatek president, to learn more about what the company does. Tara Dunn: Mike, as we get started, can you give me a brief history of Averatek and what you do? Mike Vinson: Of course. Averatek is a small business located in Santa Clara, California, with extensive expertise in very high-density interconnect (HDI). Averatek develops the key chemical products that enable very small fea- Averatek to Present Two Papers at IPC APEX EXPO 2019 Flex Talk Column by Tara Dunn, OMNI PCB Figure 1: A 25-micron trace and space with SAP.