Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1299286
OCTOBER 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 25 roadmap work really is valuable to those early adopter companies. You're one step back from the early adopters in the big part of the bell. As these techniques move out of the early-adopter phase and become more mainstream, it shows up on your roadmap. You're bringing the tried and true technology. Stevenson: That's fair. Our manufacturing model is not necessarily engineering-driven for customer fulfillment; it's product fulfillment- driven and not about what we can do better, faster, cheaper. It is also customer-driven for us and depends on what people are willing to purchase and what we can do in a very quick amount of time. Johnson: At the same time, you're working on things that also generate good products and high yields even in a high-mix environment, leaving that lower-yield, experimental, bleed- ing-edge stuff to other providers. I can see your point. Watching the association roadmap is not as valuable as it is to some of the other pro- viders. Instead, tracking what's going on with some of the leading-edge fabricators might be a good source of forecasting for you. Stevenson: Once a technique has dropped down to that first tier of adopter fabricators, then we can be pretty confident that it will be moving toward our part of the bell curve within a few years. Depending on what the thing looks like, we may start to research these processes to be better positioned when our customers start asking for them. The association's roadmap is a bit too early and not always a good predictor of what will actually be adopted for Sunstone to be watching them very closely. Johnson: It makes sense that the customers tell you what they want. Since you're operating back from where the industry roadmaps are fo- cused, how much G2 are you getting from oth- er fabricators? Do you share that sort of infor- mation back and forth? Sunstone Circuits' support team.