Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1401769
32 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 matic detection equipment. You can't do that because it's going to change the side wall. ey said, "What do you mean it's going to change the side wall?" I told them, "It's when you get a little bit of a slant at the bottom of the side wall where it meets the copper." ey said, "You mean you can actually do that?" "Yeah, we have to avoid it." "No, we've got a project where we have been wanting to do that for years. Why didn't you tell me you could do it?" e result was I ended up taking $50 million a year in business from DuPont aer that. Com- munication. Matties: I know we talk a lot about communi- cation, but there are those two events that trig- ger a higher need for a higher level of commu- nication. You keyed in on the big guys with their AVLs; it's that smaller group that just may be out price shopping. at's probably where they get into more troubles with the DFM and respins. Joe Clark: I totally agree with that. Max Clark: It's good you said that, because I just met with a fabricator, a friend of mine that has been with the industry a long time. at's one of the biggest arguments he has with his sales staff. Designers come to them with the design that they want to build, they take the contract, he looks at it and says, "You know how many of these we're going to have to build at our facil- ity in order to get the quantity that you want?" ey say, "It's good business. We couldn't leave it behind." "Yeah, but we could have maybe taken another job, or two, or three because I have a fixed capability. I have a fixed volume that I can make." I mean, the one board he took was so bad that he's going to have to make 100 to possibly get four or five that would work. at's ridiculous. Almeida: Yes. Somebody's got to pay for it. e fabricator may be paying for it, but if he doesn't get that back from his customer, he's not going to be in business too long. Matties: Well, they're paying for it in lost op- portunity. It's not just the hard dollars, it's all this stress that you're putting on your team, and all the lost opportunity. How do you really measure that? Not to turn this into a sales pitch for your tool, but what's the traction that you're get- ting with the encrypted capability data, mak- ing that available? Max Clark: Actually, it's getting pretty good. A lot of our OEMs are insisting that their fabrica- tors go about doing this. Obviously, that's be- cause they want to see it upstream. ey want to be able to see the result of that upstream. You're right, not to pitch my own product, but that's the approach that we decided we must take because the fabricators in general are still hesitant. Matties: Now, in terms of capabilities, as you're putting this tool together, are you seeing that there's what you might call a standard set of capabilities that need to be published, or is it unique to every fabricator?