Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1530610
26 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2024 Tell me about your GX system. e GX product takes the X-ray measurements and brings in the stackup information from an external system. We have exactly how the product is built, all the different materials in there, the copper distributions on the various layers, the press cycles that would be used to laminate, and any other key information about how those boards are being processed differ- ently to every other set of boards being man- ufactured. It all goes into a big data pool. Our smart engine is constantly running in the back- ground, churning through it and fitting the information into a model. When the customer has a new design, they input the stackup and the processes. e system will go through the model it created from the previous data sets and tell you how the materials are going to behave. If there are multiple lamination stages, the next data point is taken aer the first lamina- tion stage. ey get the feedback right aer the first lamination, so we know what the boards do aer a single lamination versus two lamina- tions, three laminations, etc., or if you laminate a thin subassembly against a thick subassem- bly. It measures all those things. It all goes into the data lake, and the system learns from it. Manufacturers that are high-mix/low-volume eventually will run without making a pilot lot. at job will be correct the first time it comes out of the press. If it's a material the system has never seen before, there are warnings to indicate low con- fidence because we don't have the data to pre- dict it. But we can give a starting number, and many of our customers are happy to take that as the basis for the first lot and then fine-tune aer that. So GX is cumulative, continuing to learn as you run more product. Yes, it's constantly learning. Of course, if you completely change all your processes, then some of that data is no longer useful. In that case, we would come in and refine the data processing to give you counter artwork scales, so the final product is exactly the nominal size required for the end customer. It is advantageous to your product develop- ment that your core group came out of physi- cally making the boards. Explain XACT PCB's approach to improving inner layer registration through these smart tools. e core point for any measurement system has been an X-ray drill process system post-lami- nation, which unfortunately means any errors on the board are already fixed in the board. You can't change them, but you can learn from them. However, as long as the layers line up, you can counter any subtle scale errors by then adjusting the drilling process, the next imaging process, and so on. e X-ray drill is probably the core point from which all our systems users would begin. From that, they can take the measurements post-lamination and understand any errors they've incurred during the inner layer manu- facturing process. If a post-etch punch puts the slots in the wrong place, their layout process has damaged pins. If the operators damage the slots on the pins, and so on, we can see the sys- tematic errors versus the random errors and assign root causes to those problems. Andrew Kelley