Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
44 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2021 dards... I've always been careful about giving our customers a tech roadmap and then asking "What are you capable of doing? Can you do a three-mil line and space? Can you do a two and a half mil line space?" What does "can" mean? at's part of the problem, and that's why you can't necessarily have an AI-driven model. Eventually, you could, of course. If humans can think of it, computers can think it as well, I un- derstand that. But I don't know how you deal with that product on a competitive basis. Johnson: I'm starting to understand why this is different for PCBs. Semiconductors and PCBs share the same sorts of concerns, but by the time we got the chip going into the package, it's usable in multiple applications— whereas the printed circuit board is unique and specific to that one particular design, that one particular product. PCBs are much more customized. Link: You could argue the same for semis: they're custom made for their particular ap- plication, but the volumes are so much great- er that they're not going to make a semicon- ductor and make 20 pieces of it. It's going to be thousands or hundreds of thousands, or whatever. e volumes are significantly differ- ent to be able to address. I've never been in that level of de- tail with the semis, so I don't know what they do from a de- sign for manufacture stand- point. Do they revisit it and say, "We're going to run a test run and see what yields we get; we revisit the costing based on our yields?" I don't know. It doesn't happen for our industry. Johnson: Semiconductor fabs might be running 300-milli- meter wafers, squeezing as many components as possible out of each individual wafer as they can. e quantities are such that half a percentage point in yield is a significant change to the bottom line. PCB is oen a much smaller scale. So how do we bridge the gap? I suppose this is why it stays a fairly human activity, design for manu- facture in PCBs. Link: Yes, because the volumes are inherent- ly smaller. Maybe you have Intel making the motherboard, and maybe that's a whole dif- ferent discussion? Or maybe they have dif- ferent tools that they've really worked on. I know that people like them will go out and constantly survey the industry and constant- ly ask what's capable here and what's capable there. ey take many, many tours through PCB facilities to be up to speed with what reality is, but it would be interesting to see those types of guys and how they're dealing with that side. Johnson: How do you work with a designer to describe average vs. cutting edge? Because if you can make a change that makes the board more manufacturable, then it's usually less ex- pensive to produce. Is it different when you're consulting with somebody vs. when they walk in with a design? WUS Printed Circuit Co. headquarters, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.