Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1415897
72 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2021 I think we're going to see a wave of materi- al and parts obsolescence over the next six to 24 months that will be unparalleled in the past 20+ years. I don't know if it will be the worst we've ever seen, but it will be an enormous challenge. Looking at that trend, then looking at what's happening with large semiconductor companies developing new technologies in sil- icon photonics, integrated RF technologies, greater consumption of custom technologies because design cycles are moving ever fast- er… looking at all of that, we back up and say, "What can we do about it?" First, let's continue to be the best and lever- age our current business model. We want to develop custom manufacturing solutions and be able to offer turn times in days, not weeks or months. We know that if we get our cus- tomers to test and they get empirical data, and the faster we can cycle, the faster they can iterate through their design cycle. We're go- ing to continue to focus on velocity because that is the secret to supporting development customers. Second, we're looking at expanding our ca- pabilities in our offering, whether that be or- ganic or through acquisitions. We'll be looking at areas such as custom semiconductor com- ponents that can help customers address their obsolescence issues, where we could step in with a high-mix, low-volume custom solution to address the supply or ca- pability gap. And then a deep focus on hybrid- ization of technology, being able to take SMT technologies along with chip and wire and bring them togeth- er so we can help customers achieve a level of form factor density and sys- tem performance that they may not be able to get from just one typology or the other. If we can achieve even a portion of our plan of record for the next 12 months, I think we will be an- swering the mail for many of our cus- tomers immediately and be standing by and ready as the customer community in the high-reliability markets makes their transi- tions into the future. ey'll know that there's somebody standing by to support them. Johnson: What are your thoughts on partnering more closely with PCB fabs? And how would you characterize fabricators, with respect to their ability to respond to Naprotek's needs? Everitt: If you look at a lot of the high-end HDI shops in the U.S., the HDI fabs, many are push- ing toward fine features, high layer count and passive component integration. ings are getting faster. e parallels are getting closer together. Components are go- ing to finer pitch. at's going to put a stress or even a gap on SMT capabilities, because the board shops could probably go to finer features than what could actually be manufactured, but the current state-of-the-industry SMT capa- bility has a floor on both the pitch and toler- ance that can be placed in high speed. Here's a very specific example. If you have a decent end-to-end, two-sided SMT line, and you can place a 250- to 280-pitch part at 10% tolerance on accuracy of placement, you're down at 25 to 28 microns of accu- racy, whereas if you want to place a silicon photonics chip, you need to be sub-micron. Naprotek continues to explore growth opportunities through equipment and new market opportunities.