Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
34 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2021 ing capacity in the next two years. When all of these factories are up and running at full ca- pacity there will be a considerable constraint. e U.S. requirements pale in comparison to the projections in China and Europe. is will force the the foil manufacturers to make a tough choice between PCB foil or battery foil; regardless, it is going to cause the price to go up for everyone. Johnson: And the challenge, of course, is that electronics are needed to control the electron- ics that make those other two parts work to- gether. at requires copper also. Coll: It just goes on and on. All the battery fa- cilities are filled with robotics and the elec- tronics to run the Factory X.0. All of these ma- chines need PCBs, which need copper. e EV cars are charged through a cable that contains copper, which is attached to a charging station filled with more batteries or copper bus bars, attached to the electric grid, by more copper wire. It's all copper. And we are all going to be competing for that same resource. Johnson: What advice do you have for fabrica- tors? We have the immediate short-term issue with shipping channels (which really is a COV- ID-related delivery issue) but it's also showing us what we should expect. How does a fabrica- tor prepare to survive this? Coll: I wish I had the answer. e unprece- dented issue for us is the change in the price of the raw material, and this commodity price flow through from our suppliers all the way up the supply chain. is is where the copper- clad laminators, and certainly some of the oth- er distributors within that fabricator network, have done a very good job of trying to average out some of that price fluctuation over time and make it a little bit easier for the fabricators to absorb. is pricing volatility is something that we expect will continue. Fabricators are in a tough spot. Aside from the copper foil, they are getting hit with the volatility at copper plating as well. We are working with all our supply chain partners to better understand how to manage the rap- id pricing changes. As quickly as the price of copper increased early this year, it is impossi- ble for one member within the supply chain to absorb alone. Unfortunately, we don't see that this volatility is going to go away. Johnson: Michael, how closely do you follow the emerging processes that are then using the foil and the laminates? Coll: Overall, we have a fairly solid understand- ing of the printed circuit board fabrication pro- cess. We supply foils for copper-clad laminates and for PCB outer-layer applications. We work closely with our customers to make sure that we understand the performance requirements for the end use. Copper foil is one small com- ponent in board building. It is critical to partner with the copper-clad laminate makers as they look for new solutions for thinner and lower- profile foils for emerging digital and RF appli- cations. ere is more activity, recently around thinner foils, since most of the copper is ulti- mately etched off by the fabricator anyway. Johnson: Especially if you're going to start talk- ing about some of the additive processes, the first thing to do is strip it all off, put it in a so- lution, and then put it where they want it. It's a nice closed-loop system for them, but that takes away a lot of what you're doing. Coll: e migration to thinner foils is not a con- cern for us if the increased adoption of build- up applications in North America continues. inner foils have value, with less to etch and improved trace definition. Our value is with the treatments and bond-enhancements, and the foil thickness is not a concern for us. Our partners in Japan excel at producing thin foils, so we are excited about the opportunity to use their capability to support this growing PCB