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PCB007-Jan2024

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46 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2024 A big focus for me is making sure we bring more people into the indus- try and teach them, as opposed to only relying on people with indus- try experience, which drives up our labor costs, worsens our age gap, and does not support the future of the industry. Sean, is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to cover? We've covered a lot, but let's talk for a moment about the industry from a cultural perspective. We need to be builders again. I wasn't in the industry in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s—the roaring PCB times. But from my view, there were some important dynamics. First, most of the technology was founded inside the OEMs, and then spun off because some of the people working for the OEMs who thought they could do it better on their own started their own PCB shops. ose out- sourced, independent shops then became the ones developing the processes. Engineers were excited to make the next new thing, so in those early times, PCB engineers were the build- ers of an industry. ey had a greater, more altruistic motivation and there was excitement around that. is kept people in the industry. However, much of that excitement shut down through the dotcom bust, offshoring, and sim- ple aging. Now, you can take an established process, put a process engineer on it, and maintain the line. But it's a maintainer mindset. It's hard to get builders to do maintainer things. ey'll do it, but they're gone within two or three years. If we are so good that some- thing becomes just standard and is not excit- ing to do, then we should figure out how to fully automate the process controls. But with that, our industry has not done a good job of planning for machine-to-machine con- nectivity—a challenge when many of our Is it always about yield, though? Are there really many factories able to achieve 98% inner layer yields? at's the quality argument. And yes, I think that everyone can expect 98% inner layer yields through a focused engineering effort with the board designs we see in the United States. ey can get it done, even with an old etcher or what- ever non-automated equipment we are talking about. It just takes the right focus, unless you are making all PTFE or all flex. It depends on what capability you're building. Correct. As line widths go down, you can do some automation, but that plays into the need for very expensive automated equipment like etchers and developers. It's the right thing to do when it makes sense for the investment, so you strike a balance. ere is an ROI, but it's not one or two years. It's more like four to six years. When we have a capacity constraint inside the United States, as we do right now, and with current cost of capital, my choice for investment goes with capacity over automa- tion. You also have the people argument side. You still have to train people to see and under- stand how these things are done, which hap- pens better on non-automated lines. So, you're looking at smart choices, which does reduce workforce and cost.

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