Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1284035
SEPTEMBER 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 61 that happens once a week, month, or quarter? Castro: Not all the time. But when a customer has a special project, prob- ably once a year, I get that kind of requirement for a special solder that we have to use for a project. The cus- tomer will provide us information on what kind of solder they want to use, so probably once a year we have that kind of issue. They're going to have a sample for us to run that if it's the solder paste, but we're not doing the qualification build until I see the sample that they provided to us has been tested. Happy Holden: Do you have a specialty area where you have lots and lots of experience and competence that people come to you for? What's the range of complexity of the products put together there? Malmrose: Green is the real deal. A lot of cus- tomers come to us because we do flex. We also do a lot of rigid-flex, and lots of just regular rigid boards. Regarding our capabilities on the component side, we do 01005s. We build prod- ucts with that small of component. We do flip- chip, so very tight pitches. On the board com- plexity side, we run a board that might be 320 mils; it's at least 300 mils, and it is about a 20-by-20-inch board, so the thing is a beast. On that board, we will put as many as 15,000 components. It's just crazy. Holden: Is that done in-house? Is that making flex or assembling flex? Malmrose: We don't make any boards. We out- source the flex, rigid-flex, as well as rigid, and we just do the PCBA. We do the assembly of the PCB here and then board-level test, box build, system-level test, direct fulfillment, and all that stuff. We do the assembly side. We buy components from all over the world; we buy circuit boards, as I mentioned flex, rigid-flex, and rigid from all over the world, and we do the product assembly and test here. Holden: Kudos to you if you do flex. I managed the world's second-largest flex assembly facili- ties in China, and flex assembly can be compli- cated depending on how it was designed and how much fixturing they're prepared to give you, or you may have to create yourself and how much experience they have in designing flex. Malmrose: If you were to come into this place, you would see lots of pallets, and it's not easy sometimes. Some products are very, very chal- lenging. Holden: Especially in the Bay Area. Some of the more creative types can try to do too much with their flex because they don't quite under- stand its limitations. Malmrose: We've had a number of customers come in, and with some, we've been success- ful in modifying their designs, particularly if they're doing flex. Sometimes we can change the layout and turn 100% flex into a rigid-flex to at least make it better for reliability and make the fixturing issues less challenging. Holden: Even if a product is headed for high volume, your ability to do rapid prototyping and fill in a lot of the holes indicates that you might end up doing a lot of the engineering, but the volume goes offshore once they kind of get past the pilot stage. Malmrose: About 60–70% of our business is quick-turn prototyping, and we are really fast. Mechanical and final QC.