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February 2017 • The PCB Magazine 39 THE POWER OF THREE : TAIYO'S JOHN FIX ON NEW MATERIALS, PRODUCTS IN THE WORKS put their latest unit into our laboratory, which enabled us to work much quicker in develop- ing some DI solder masks that work very well on their equipment. One of the things about designing solder masks for the North Ameri- can market is that customers don't deal with the volumes that China does so there are issues with UL costs. We try to do our best to satisfy our customer base, where, "Can you change the solder mask to stay within the UL specs so they don't have to requalify everything?" That was our major goal when we started on the DI mask; can we modify our big selling products, the BN product, the HFX products, the MP products, our main bread-and-butter prod- ucts for the North American market, and make it simple for our customers to make a switch from those products to a DI and utilize this new equipment that's coming to the market? Having that equipment in our lab enabled our chemists to develop it so much faster than had we been developing an ink, then flying it to a customer somewhere, running a test, and coming back to the lab. We've greatly appreciat- ed everything that Schmoll did for us. They re- ally enhanced our development cycle and now we have a product to offer to the market that really enhances production speed. There are no UL issues for them to have to deal with. Matties: It made it easier to get past that hurdle. Fix: Right, so any user that already specs a BN or an HFX or an MP, this product falls right in there with it. All the final properties are the same. The process is the same except that instead of using your old flood exposure, now you're using a di- rect image exposure. Matties: Is there a customer approval that needs to happen or do they just do it and ship it? Fix: Essentially, they just do it and ship it. Matties: Customers don't care. Fix: F rom an end user standpoint, the material hasn't changed. The final properties are the same, the UL is the same, the IPC SM-840 testing is all the same. It's quite convenient for the customers. Matties: Are you already selling this and market- ing commercially or is this just now coming out? Fix: It's just coming out now to the market. We're eager to introduce it and get the market base going on it. Matties: You're developing it on Schmoll equip- ment, but obviously, it's compatible with all the others? Fix: Yes, and that was a difficult thing to start with because we've counted well over a dozen other DI machines out in the market. Matties: And more are coming. Fix: Yes, and everyone's designs are a little dif- ferent. Like I said, Schmoll was very generous to work with us. Trying to find a system that's going to work with everyone is difficult and we did our best with what was in our hands with regard to equipment, to design a product that's very wide and flexible. This product will work on various equipment and it works well. Matties: With the Schmoll equipment, basically they just gave you the equipment. There was no involvement in the development other than that? Fix: Correct. They were kind enough to install it and make sure it was all set up. They installed all the test patterns that we needed for our test- ing and the unit conveniently fit into our labo- ratory. It's not a very large unit and it was quite convenient for us. There wasn't a lot that we had to do from our end to make it fit into our lab. Matties: Good. In terms of solder mask, what are the greatest challenges that people face in that area? Fix: The biggest challenge we face when de- signing a solder mask is that everyone wants to work fast, and working with a new light system is just the physics of trying to get light through a thick coating. As I mentioned before, every- one's using thicker copper, so they're putting down thicker coatings of solder mask. You're