Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1080843
72 PCB007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2019 Matties: You mentioned HDI. We were looking at Lee Ritchey. He's one of our authors of the design book as well and gave a keynote last year. He said, "If you're not doing HDI now, you're about to be doing HDI because this is where the industry is moving." But there's a strong argument as you're making for stay- ing in the RF space because with 5G coming around, there's so much in the RF space and more than what people can even imagine right now. I think that's a good strategy one way or the other. The other thing GreenSource did that is appealing is they're a zero-waste facil- ity. They did that out of necessity, but that has a selling strategy. We're also seeing other as- semblers that are using the green strategy in their selling process. Do you think that's a fac- tor with customers, and how would you ad- dress that? Stevenson: At this point, I'm kind of up in the air. I think it is definitely a differentiator today. They're hitting some of the hot buttons from environmental and regulatory standpoints that haven't really been done before. The PCB in- dustry has been known as a pollutant industry over the years from the heavy metals, acids, and everything else that goes into circuit board manufacturing. It's very chic right now. If they can sustain that and continue to use that as a differentiator, I think it's a great strategy. I don't know if pricing and overall customer im- pact are going to continue to fuel that in the long term. At the end of the day, it's going to come down to quality, price, and being on time. If they can do zero waste within those bounds, I think they will do great, but to me, it's a bit too early to tell. Matties: As it turns out, what they discovered is, first, if they can't maintain it, there won't be a facility because New Hampshire doesn't allow circuit board facilities unless you're ab- solutely zero waste. Second, what they're re- porting is that not only did zero waste reduce emissions, but it lowered their total operating cost substantially. So, it's giving them a higher profit margin and more latitude in pricing. The strategy actually lowers their total operating cost. Stevenson: Mostly through eliminating a lot of the labor probably, right? Matties: Well, the labor, but also the actual con- sumption of water; it's all recycled. They don't buy any copper because all of the etchant that they etch off of panels they use in their copper baths. They're using a lot of smart technology that while the end result is zero waste, the real benefit is that it lowers their total manufactur- ing cost and increases the quality of their prod- uct. It seems like this is a growing trend. I'll be visiting a company in China—Victory Tech- nology—which just opened up a $220 million facility that George Dudnikov is running. It's a fully automated HDI factory in China that's also zero waste. We're also seeing this in other places in China. They're having factories move out of cities within two years if they don't meet a zero-waste mandate, so I think that there's an advantage for people from cost and maybe a selling strategy. Johnson: To pick up your point, Barry, part of the motivation has been governmental in a lot of cases. But also it seems that, as GreenSource is seeing, the customers are driving that. At the same time, they're asking about conflict min- erals in the supply chain and counterfeit parts and all of those other issues knowing that they can point to their supply chain as being sus- tainable and green, which helps overall with their product.