Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1538540
46 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2025 ized process, but there is also the very important aspect of the cumulative impact of all this automa- tion on overall quality. Lines like this are designed for high-end, high-volume manufacturing with the maximum yield possible. To get that high-quality interconnect, the less handling, the better. This line is called a wet-to-wet. Between the low- build copper, the electroplated copper that's put- ting a flash down, and then filling that hole, it is a continuous process. Compare this to coming off the first wet line, going out to dry, and then being manually loaded onto the next alternative line. Keeping it all inline is great for production in terms of efficiency and quality. Continuous flow manufacturing is obviously the smart way to go instead of having work queue up, for example, for oxide and those extra cleaning processes. Peters: You put your thumb right on it with oxida- tion. Without the wet-to-wet process, oxidation is the enemy of low build and copper electroplat- ing. We have all the other effects, like the copper analyzer, designed to take it out of an operator's hands—not because you can't train an operator to do it, but to make it automatic so that we are closer to a steady, consis- tent state of opti- mal operation. Small, frequent additions keep the bath chem- istry very stable panel to panel at any given hour, no matter how many pan- els could go through that line. If the chemistry in that tank fluctuates during that hour, there could be dif- ferent characteristics or quality yields from one panel to another. Automating helps us keep every- thing very finely tuned, very precise, to achieve the maximum yield. There are many advantages to this line: automation, high yields, high production capa- bility, and it's a sustainable approach. We mesh so well with SEL because we value the same things. All those things have a value that goes directly toward the end product. So, it's good for high volume. This isn't necessar- ily a high-volume shop at the moment, so there is a lot of capacity. Kennedy: We're looking for expansion, and we are well aligned to meet our end-of-year goals. The PLBCu6 provides great processing capacity. We plan on adding a second line, likely another Uni- plate Cu18. That should take us to 10,000 pan- els a week, which still leaves us space since our PLBCu6 is working so well. Maybe we will invest in different technologies in the future. Maybe we will start building microvia or buried via technology. But for the time being, that line is doing everything that we've asked it to do. Let's talk about the current technology of one process talking to another and the ability to make real-time modifications, for example, keep- ing the baths balanced and tuned. Humans can't do that. From shift to shift, there's a 20-minute cycle between people coming on and off, then breaks, and lunch. Things can get out of control whether you're at lunch or standing at the other end of the line. Peters: The more manual processes there are, the more weak links you have. We want reproducibility and predictability in terms of what's coming off that line, which is very high quality. That narrows the upper and lower control limits. Peters: The controls can be very fine. The chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering that goes into these lines is complex. Chemical engineering is on par with the number of raw materials that go into these chemistries—their form and function. Some- times, we're measuring things at ppm or a frac- tion of a ppm level. We don't want to have any big swings, as that is a potential weak link in the pro- cess. It's important that you have things built into the system to mitigate those sorts of things. Our decades of knowledge build on each other. We want to share this with our customers and, like SEL, help them be successful. It's excellent when C ollin Peters