Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1479191
30 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2022 Let's face it, the technology is much fur- ther advanced today than it was 15 or 20 years ago when the market started moving to Asia. e good news is we have this opportunity to stake out our position. We don't have to want everything, but it can be IC substrates, high- end aerospace, defense, medical, safety, and security, that's a big deal. Cybersecurity is at the forefront, and you have all these opportu- nities that would be protected-type industries. If you get the automotive companies behind it, along with the various soware companies for security and then of course the military aero- space, we have an opportunity to rebuild this business here in North America. Matties: Regarding yields, though, isn't it the management's discipline to control the pro- cesses that we already have? If we already have well-managed companies, but our pro- cesses are out of control, maybe there's a lot of improvement for management discipline. Carano: Oh, obviously. ere are investments. One of the things I've shown folks over the years is I can completely automate the con- trols of a process, several lines, for less than $50,000. at includes controllers, online con- trollers, online monitoring, something as sim- ple as a conductivity probe to measure the conductivity of the water when the rinsing is poor, and we got ionic contamination. ose little probes cost about $180. You carry them in your pocket, like a pen. You just check them. I don't see a lot of that. e focus needs to be more than just on man- ufacturing and getting work out the door, but also process control. I can't tell you how many times I went to a facility, walked over to the electroless copper line, and then looked at the electroless copper controller. "Oh, that's a nice controller, but it's not hooked up or not running properly and it hasn't been calibrated lately. Why do you have it if you're not going to use it?" at's where variation takes place, and when there's varia- tion, there's a problem. Matties: So, part of the investment that fabri- cators need to make has to come from think- ing about process—process control engineers, process engineers, etc. But when you start talk- ing about shops with 50 employees, you can walk into a facility and tune it up for $50,000. Do they not have the knowledge? Because $50,000 isn't resource limitation. Carano: Right. It's not that they don't have the knowledge. e problem is the company has one engineer that does everything. at's it. Everyone else is in administration. You need a place with more engineering talent, ones who can understand the process and what happens in the process. But you have a young person who comes in and has to work on imaging one day, solder mask the next day, and then plating the next because a "fire" breaks out. It all cas- cades down. Something is out of control. What do I fix right now? With more automation on the controls, the instrumentation will give you online analysis. Don't just depend on your supply base to do all this for you; you need it onsite and with much tighter controls. If you're building eight- or four-layer boards, maybe you don't need to do all that, but you need process control no mat- ter what. Only a few pro- cesses are truly auto- mated in terms of con- trol. Maybe the alter- nate etcher has the feed and bleed. But even with that, you want to make sure the equipment is maintained so it gives you an accurate reading