Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1524164
82 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2024 In the PCB industry, we have strug- gled not only with getting the data but with exactly what to do with it when we have it. It's good to see this devel- oping. Our industry has always been a little bit trendy. e now commonly used term, "Industry 4.0," initially sparked a lot of curiosity, but there's still an incomplete understanding of what that is, and especially, how a specific fabri- cator can implement it in their facility. Customers are starting to ask me about how to be "Industry 4.0 compliant." So, it is about the evolution of work- ing with your customer base to stream- line their needs, and some of that will naturally lead to a conversation about chemical handling and the manage- ment of these systems. What is in the Alpha Circuit line, how big is it, and what is it allowing them to do in terms of their technology? From a technology standpoint, Alpha has the complete capability to pro- gram all their recipes and vary the cycles any way they want on any single flight bar. ey are now able to do higher aspect ratios, improve their copper distribution and uniformity, and do VFL—all automatically. Tell me about the automation piece. ese are typical automated cranes that move flight bars through a Betty Crocker process of a recipe. e tank attributes are what separate it from older technology and plating tanks. Prashant introduced inert anodes at Alpha Circuit vs. anode baskets, and copper oxide instead of copper balls—methods which pro- vide better, more consistent Cu distribution across the board. Now Alpha is working on increasing plating speed. We introduced some new anode types to Prashant and demonstrated that they would facilitate plating speed. Aer doing some tests, their database and MRP systems, our pro- grammers are in-house and able to respond. It is not intimidating for us to make commit- ments that vary from the norm. Many soware suppliers oen respond negatively if you hit them with a little bit of a change or a special request. e data acquisition and management part of these processes has always been a chal- lenging gray area. If the copper on your boards doesn't come out right, what happens? Having a time stamp of everything that took place with that process, a clear record of the chemical additions to maintain the process, and a tight hysteresis between the tanks so you get repeatability in all the cells is a huge deal when you are making production quantities. We open up those highways so that customers can query the system and get the data they need. Alpha Circuit has implemented this in its new facility.