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40 The PCB Magazine • February 2017 trying to get a light beam through a thick coat- ing of highly pigmented solder mask because everyone wants that dark green color or they want some other dark color. One of the biggest challenges right now is the white solder mask because white sol- der mask is made to be reflective. They want to reflect the light. That's what LEDs are all about. How do you make a white product and get it exposed with light when the solder mask is there to reflect the light? That's one of the biggest challenges right now—to try to find DI equipment that can work with a white sol- der mask because you're fighting that. You're designing a white product to reflect light and now you're trying to get it to shine through it to expose it. It's understandable that when the customer buys a piece of equipment like that, they want it to work on all colors. They don't want to hear "it works on all colors but white." Now you've got to buy a different machine for white. That's probably the biggest challenge right now is finding something that will work for the white solder mask. Matties: Does this Schmoll equipment work on white? Fix: We're still finding a challenge with the white. It's mainly for the speed because the DI was created for speed. You want a fast exposure illuminating the artwork so that's been the chal- lenge. We're still working on it. The equipment is still in our lab so we haven't given up, by any means. Matties: Other than that, there are no obstacles for your customers? Fix: No, not at all. Any obstacle is up to us from a chemical standpoint, finding the chemistry to make it work. We think we can figure it out. Matties: You've been around long enough. You have a big pool of knowledge to draw from, that's THE POWER OF THREE : TAIYO'S JOHN FIX ON NEW MATERIALS, PRODUCTS IN THE WORKS