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36 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2022 PCB Talk Feature Column by Tara Dunn, AVERATEK Do you have a smartphone? Most of us do. Did you know that most smartphones con- tain PCBs fabricated with mSAP (modified semi-additive process) technology? e abil- ity for a fabricator to produce 35-micron fea- ture sizes has long been taken advantage of by this consumer market segment. A handful of very high-volume fabricators specialize in this technology and serve the industry. But outside this high-volume market, SAP processes have not been widely available for other lower- to medium-volume PCB applications. e good news is that this is changing. Fab- ricators now have access to both A-SAP™ (Averatek's semi-additive process for PCB fab- rication) and mSAP, and the PCB design com- munity is just starting to scratch the surface to find creative ways for this technology develop- ment to benefit next generation electronics. Reduced size, reduced layer count, reduced lamination cycles, and dependence on stacked microvias' increased functionality within the same footprint; the list of benefits can goes on and on. As the PCB design community embraces the benefits of this newly available printed cir- cuit board fabrication technique, there are, of course, many questions to be answered. is column will address some of the most fre- quently asked questions related to circuit layer combinations and routing as people are intro- duced to this new technology. Burning Questions About Designing for SAP