Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1511625
48 PCB007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2023 Feature Interview by Nolan Johnson I-CONNECT007 In a conversation with Aidan Salvi, Ami- tron's chief transformation officer, he spoke of the interaction of machine learning on regis- tration. Amitron has been modernizing much of its manufacturing equipment, and Aidan points out that improving registration is a key objective. He sees registration as a holistic sys- tem. To make smart improvements, you need data. To get data, you need equipment and sen- sors which capture the data. To make sense of the data, you need analysis and, eventually, predictive tools. Aidan, you're leading a transformation at Amitron, and you've shared that registration improvement is one of the objectives of your modernization. Where do you see machine learning and AI contributing? Aidan Salvi: ere are steps to making AI impactful. It all starts with gathering the data. We operate our process with nearly 60 differ- ent pieces of equipment that do different func- tions. When looking at what the future of AI could be, the biggest challenge is how we con- solidate that data. How do we create stan- dards? How do we create scalable hardware that can store and retrieve the data? is is a tremendous amount of data; companies need to look at their data infrastructure and assess how to integrate and pull it all together. at is the first hurdle I see for AI in the future. When it comes to bringing AI into the PCB factory, is this a hardware processing horse- power and data storage challenge, or maybe one with software tools or people and skills? Where do you start using machine learning and AI appropriately for registration? ere are at least three things I see as the cor- nerstones of this challenge. First, it's integra- tion with the equipment. You must deal with quite a few manufacturers to extract the neces- Aidan Salvi