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106 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2026 Editor's note: This column previously appeared in the October 2021 issue of PCB007 Magazine. It was the first of Happy Holden's series of technical columns based on the work of Karl Dietz. T he industry has not introduced many new structures in the last 60 years. Multilay- ers have continued to evolve with thin- ner materials and smaller traces and spaces as well as drilled vias. It's been nearly 40 years since Hewlett-Packard put its first laser-drilled mi- crovia boards into production for its innovative Finstrate process 1 . Now we have a new structure, vertical conduc- tive structures (VeCS), developed by Joan Tourné of NextGin Technology BV of the Netherlands. This technology is a breakthrough because now any advanced board shop can produce HDI level high density interconnects without any new capital equipment—and at a lower cost with higher elec- trical performance. I first became aware of the technology from an interview in the February 2017 issue of The PCB Magazine 2 . As seen in Figure 1, the key technology is the replacement of small or blind vias with a routed trench (slot), that is much easier to metallize and plate. VeCS is a true 3D concept for interconnection by creating a routing channel (slot) in the printed circuit that can then be metallized and plated easier than high-aspect ratio vias while allowing a connection to the inner layers. The channels are easier to plate and can be created by existing PCB Vertical Conductive Structures (VeCS) Figure 1: VeCS slot under magnification (left), bottom view of VeCS slot (right). (Source: NextGin) H A P PY'S T EC H TA L K BY H A P PY H O L D E N , I - C O N N ECT 0 07