Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1476200
36 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 per layer. So, if you have all that in an 18-by-24 inch panel, you just add it up and have $7. It becomes pretty good stuff. Johnson: Under these current c i r c u m s ta n c e s , f o r a l o ng time, the fabs have basically had their margins squeezed down to the bare minimum. With this much demand, this much production, everybody this busy, and the supply chain the way it is, is this the time to start to claw back margin? Carano: Yes, they're grabbing margin. I think that's happening because the chemical cost around materials has gone significantly higher in the last year and a half too. at has to trans- late all the way down to laminate materials, photoresist, and what have you. A lot of times folks want to commoditize a circuit board and they want to get it priced that way, but it is not a commodity. It is a highly functional, critical device and, as I have said, chips don't float. ose chips have no circuit board. You can make all the billions of chips you want. ey're not going to go anywhere. ose packages are reliable and when that chip is attached to a BGA substrate that goes on the circuit board, the circuit board has to be reliable, and I think that the message here is we've got reliability. We can do higher layer counts, tighter toler- ances, and give the OEM more functionality and greater reliability than they've ever had before. at has to cost something and you've got to pay something for that. It's time to get those margins back, especially now. Johnson: Continuously increasing your capa- bility, so that there's value for that. Carano: Exactly. Again, with yield, you've got an opportunity. ere are other things that aren't necessarily seen. ere's the yield improve- ment. Someone was telling me the other day, "Well, this is a very difficult board, but we get good money for it; it's a 70% yield." What if you've got him up to 80 or 85%? You'd capture all of that, you wouldn't even be remaking it. He said, "Oh no, he did the math; the math was phe- nomenal; that math went right to the bottom line." And he said, "at's the key, though." I said, "Let's look at what you're doing in these var- ious areas to help you improve that because what's causing it? Is it misregistration, drill- ing problems, maybe plating?" He said, "All the above." But yet, they make 70% perfect. Let's look at why, and that's where the process audit comes in, that's where the workforce training comes in. Why? When 70% comes out good, that's great. Why can't we get another 10 or 15 points? You must be doing something right 70% of the time. It's variation in the process. Let's cut that back and improve the technology. Ask, "How do we do this?" and go from there. Barry Matties: Michael, is there a metric that you use to measure how the industry is doing collectively and how it's improving? Carano: Not all fabricators take part in it, but at Conductor Analysis Technologies, Tim Estes and his team maintain the IPC PCQR 2 database, which is a benchmark that compa- nies can subscribe to. ey send in test vehi- cles for various evaluations, registration, reli- ability, impedance. Unfortunately, I don't see an area where we can see how these improve- ments are being made, at least not in a collec- tive sense, but that's something worth look- ing into. Also, we still tend to hold things close to the vest, right? For instance, we've had this Michael Carano