Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1534953
Are you taking the new HATS² system out to market? Naisbitt: Yes, and it's brand new. As Bob said earlier, it's been in development for a long time. The product is actually very mature in terms of development. Now it's been launched and released. We received our first unit two weeks ago and Bob has now visited us to install it and train our team. Do you have hands-on experience with it yet? Naisbitt: Not quite yet. This is all brand new. I want to make sure our team is up to speed with the knowl- edge and has a full understanding of HATS² technology so that we are in the best position possible to sell and support the machine going for- ward. It's a vital part of who we are that we can support the equipment, just as much as we supply it. As Bob said, it's a real passion for him. We saw that and, frankly, jumped through hoops to become a part of this. I've got my own pas- sion for honoring the legacy of my own family and the length of time that we've been around. I want to drive the business forward with new ways of doing things with new partners. This is a really exciting opportunity for us, and for where we will go from here. As far as commu- nicating with the market to address interest, we have some webinars lined up with customers and our distribution network to get the dis- cussion and education started. Neves: We've been doing a lot of work with industry consortia and some of the government and space entities in various countries. They recognize the importance of reli- ability and are eager to use the lat- est available tools. The buzz is very good. I just didn't want to release an unfinished product. So many peo- ple I know put an idea on the mar- ket and allow customers to buy an early revision that is still in the idea phase and being developed. They have their customers developing their product. That's just not a good way to do business. Let's talk a little bit about the pro- cess itself. Are you still using cou- pons to go through the tester? Neves: Yes, historically people have put IPC-2221 coupons on the edges of their production panels. Some- times it's just the AB/R coupons for microsectioning, but there are other coupons that serve different purposes as well. The D coupon is one that can be automatically generated by most of the design programs out there. That's just two daisy chains of via structures that represent what's on your production panel. D cou- pons are the primary coupon being tested right now for via structure reliability, and those just plug right into the HATS² test system. I made the system very config- urable, so you can reconfigure the unit very easily to test any kind of coupon you want to design, up to seven 4-wire resistance nets per coupon. We're also using the sys- tem for solder joint reliability. We're cycling daisy chains that go through the solder joints, looking at their reliability, and speeding up that pro- cess a lot. Because now, with seven nets, we can regionalize testing on large I/O components rather than just having one net for the entire component. We can look at the cor- ners, the center, and at other areas separately and give you information " " This is a really exciting opportunity for us, and for where we will go from here.