Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1330321
64 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2021 Fuji or Konica Minolta printheads and integrat- ing them. Even with the finest ones, if you're trying to do very small features, such as 2-mil or sub-2-mil dams, and very small features in the 50 microns or less area, you'll find that it's hard to draw a square with round dots. There will be what we call a ragged edge. If we're all used to looking at solder mask that's either been phototooled or direct im- aged, we'll have a very unappealing first glance at very small features. We'll say, "It's a little bit raggedy. It isn't as precise as I'm used to." That analogous to when I was on the direct imaging side. A lot of comparisons went into phototools. Any sort of variation was quickly compared to that. But the technology got better, and people got used to seeing those types of features. If you were doing a greenfield, I would say, "If most of my work is planned at 3-mil dams and great- er, I'm not looking at extremely tight features." But then, with the state of the art, you might as well jump into it right away. You'll find a lot of people that are looking for a very wide range of performance, and they won't be able to do everything on today's inkjet printer. Johnson: Is there still room for direct imaging? Carignan: Yes. That's where adoption will not hit its peak. Just like direct imaging, it doesn't hit its stride until there's some minimum lev- el of utility. What this says is I can do all my products on this machine, and that's not true today. Johnson: What's in the gap for inkjet? Carignan: One is cost. These printheads are expensive. And because it's a new- er technology, you find almost across the board these are expensive units for people to adopt early on. Very similar to the initial laser-based systems and even other systems with the UV LEDs, they start out at a pretty high price point because nobody's manufactur- ing these in any sort of volume. It's not a trivial point that says the place- ment accuracy is based on a pretty precise mo- tion control system, a stage platform. Even the stage becomes expensive because you need to move in nanometer-type precisions, and with that comes costs. Until you really have some sort of volume be- hind it, almost all of the manufacturers today are commanding a pretty high price for these units. That is an inhibitor for a lot of shops with limited capital. It's almost the exact path as direct imaging, where it started out pretty high in price. Eventually, those prices came down by about 50% within just five years. Happy Holden: Can you comment on the use of the DMD engine for direct exposure ver- sus the inkjet engine? These DMD engines don't come from our industry; the DMD en- gines have the advantage that they're show- ing up in projectors and many other applica- tions. I don't know if inkjet engines are show- ing up in diverse industries, but maybe they are. As DMD engine use grows, they're a tech- nology that continues to improve without us having to put in the money from PCBs. That makes for a healthy future because they don't seem to be going obsolete. Can it be similar to inkjet? Carignan: You're absolutely right. DMD tech- nology came out from simple tabletop ways to do conferencing to cinematics, mostly in the Printhead assembly with UV LED cure units.