Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1460418
MARCH 2022 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 75 Johnson: Is there room in this for the smaller fabs, the boutique? For example, the U.S. has a high percentage of high-mix low-volume PCB manufacturing. How do these shops partici- pate? Marsh: Yes. ere's room for anybody in our industry: little, medium, or large. I men- tioned at the onset, TTM is the country's larg- est printed circuit board manufacturer with 16 manufacturing sites in 10 states. I met a small PCB manufacturer based in Southern Virginia and his main issue was that it's really hard to invest in very, very expensive equipment when you're producing low volume. It's on us to pro- mote larger legislative initiatives that come with real federal dollars, and which allow all manufacturers to participate. e Department of Commerce and Depart- ment of Defense thrive on competition. ey promote it. In many instances, the way an RFP or an RFI is written skews toward the small- and medium-sized folks. ey want to see these folks survive; they don't want to see just 10 PCB companies in America. ey want to see 200 or 500. Are we going to get to 2,500 again? I doubt it. But we are creating opportu- nities for the small- and medium-size folks to participate at a larger level. Johnson: Look ahead 24 months. What effect on the industry do you want to see from PCBAA's work? What's your goal? Marsh: I would like our PCBAA mission and message to be on par with the SIA's message and mission of full, heightened awareness at the federal level that we have a domestic resilient national security and economic security prob- lem; that we have to work as a team to address an ecosystem problem, not just a semiconduc- tor issue. We've already embarked on that. Johnson: Will, thanks so much. Marsh: ank you, Nolan. PCB007 Additive Reality Isolated Raindrops Announce the Storm By Luca Gautero It is an early January e v e n i n g a f t e r o f f i c e hours. Despite my best New Year's intentions of a good balance between work and personal life, when I hear the ding of an incoming email I decide to check it anyway. It's a message from the U.S., where Don Monn of Taiyo has just given his view on the inkjet market. Something he says immediately strikes a chord, "What I can tell you is … there are well over 20 installations … between North America and Europe. There are another five or six already committed to be installed in the first quarter of 2022." I do my best to keep track of sales in the ink- jet market and Monn's numbers don't add up for me; other equipment manufacturers must have sold some machines and we missed them in our count. The missing ones were not documented by press releases or similar announcements. Thanks to the help of a few colleagues and my professional network, the accounting of tools reached the 20 installations. Since 2017, every six months (more or less) a press release reports a tool being installed. Rumors of other installations tell us that this num- ber is at least twice as high. Combining what we know with what is rumored comes out to one tool per quarter, so hearing Monn say that five or six installations will be completed within one quarter represents a sudden increase. The "driz- zle" of the past years now has a different look; it's a tipping point. Previously isolated raindrops have announced a storm. Luckily for us, this "cli- mate change" will bring along environmentally friendly manufacturing. To read this entire column, click here.