Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520956
16 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2024 defects are outgassing of the dielectric—which can redeposit in places and show "puddling"— or some kind of mechanical damage at a micro- scopic level, it's all visible. When we were just plating holes, we simply looked to see whether the light was coming through, or if the bottom of the microvia was okay. Now, we must look at a huge surface area, and that surface area is a whole different animal. Controlling the outgassing is important. You have to clean out the surface. ere's so much solvent that can come out that you need differ- ent methods for cleaning. One supplier who is sputtering uses a nitrogen blanket with laminar flow, which sweeps the solvent away. Another supplier uses a vacuum to extract it, but a vac- uum can redeposit solvent on the surface. We even have outgassing problems with some materials just doing epoxy via fill in holes, never mind fully exposed surfaces. For a problem like outgassing, you now take that and magnify it times 10 because you're looking at the whole surface of the panel. en you magnify it another 10 times because of the density of the features on the substrates. en you probably need to add yet another factor of 10 for other issues. So, you have a few orders of magnitude higher complexity. Yield issues typically have to do with this topic. LaRont: Do you see significant adoption by U.S. PCB fabricators over the next decade? We will see more of it. From a sustainabil- ity standpoint, it is the way the world should want us to go. e OEM PCB fab shops have been much keener at adopting this and they push their suppliers. Whenever an OEM gets involved, it's a good thing, whether it's putting up their own captive shop, or working with the supplier to develop specifications. e OEM is going to drive the adoption rate. I would say the ideal situation is to take a company/supplier that is currently consid- ered a leader for inkjet printing equipment and combine that with an ink supplier, and then combine that with some solid OEM marketing, and make that a new company. at is the type of organization that will be the most capital-efficient at driving technol- ogy adoption in the market. e current eco- system is very slow because you don't have this unified push across all the channels and it's debatable right now as to which way it will go. e technology is developing. e