Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1207026
50 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2020 long way since early lasers tried to blast through circuit boards. Matties: You have seen a shift in the past cou- ple of years. What do you see in the future for lasers? Schmidt: They're going to be faster, cleaner, gen- tler, and even more accurate. The same trajec- tory that we're on right now will continue for some time. Laser technology continues to be developed, and there are completely new lasers available right now in the lab. Ten years from now, we're probably going to have them in manufacturing systems at reason- able prices. We see short-pulse lasers starting to become avail- able at reasonable cost lev- els that nobody could touch in a manufacturing environment five years ago. Today, they are reasonably inexpensive and produce at different quality levels that we couldn't reach with other lasers in the past. There's a lot more to come on the laser side. Matties: You're saying productivity is on par with mechanical, but the advantage of the envi- ronment and other variables make the laser a better choice and more accurate. Schmidt: Correct. We're going to get much tighter tolerances and a much more gentle pro- cess in terms of mechanical impacts, such as vibration, and much cleaner in terms of con- tamination. Contamination is a huge factor that is not considered by many manufacturers. They live with the yield that they have, often not real- izing that this can all be mitigated by going to a laser instead of cleaning the air. How about not creating dust contamination in the first place? Matties: And if the speed is on par or better, then what's the delay? Orlowski: The trend is changing a bit because manufacturers realize that the speed of the lasers is often on par with the routers now. By switching to lasers, they can eliminate their entire post-process cleaning when it comes to the debris on top of the board. Coming back to the ROI, you should not compare your router price with your laser price. Instead, you should compare your router cost plus your tooling and cost for post-process cleaning with the cost of laser. There's quite a bit of difference there. Holden: We've been publishing articles about a new high-density construction called the verti- cal conducting system, or VECS. Instead of cre- ating a hole, it creates a trench and uses the sidewall and treads to connect to inner layers. They use a mechanical router, but it would seem that with the right kind of laser, you would be much more efficient and pre- cise than a mechanic router. Schmidt: Yes. A laser would be able to process this more selectively and with higher resolution. Matties: Lasers have impacted the industry on a large scale, and will continue to do so in many ways. Schmidt: It's a big field, and lasers can do many amazing things; they all are a little specialized. Lasers are not good at everything; instead, they have specific purposes. It's not the one-size- fits-all solution; that's long gone, and I don't think it's ever going to come back. Orlowski: Because they're able to produce much better results. That's the key. Schmidt: Exactly. Matties: Very interesting. We appreciate your time and expertise. Schmidt: Thanks again for talking to us about this. We are happy to help. Orlowski: Thank you. SMT007