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56 The PCB Magazine • February 2017 serious about owning the high-volume produc- tion for this…it just doesn't seem like that big of a technical challenge to me from my limited point of view. That's why I'm asking what you think. What's stopping us? Van Dam: We believe it's going to take off. Matties: What should a PCB fabricator know that we haven't talked about regarding this technol- ogy? Louwet: The next step is the inkjet solder mask. Matties: Let's talk about that. Louwet: It was announced last year at produc- tronica. We decided to go in a joint develop- ment with Electra Polymers from the UK. Electra Polymers is an established solder mask supplier in the PCB industry. Agfa understands the ink- jet business. So we decided, let's put our efforts together. What you see here is our first proto- type, which we are testing with several printer manufacturers. This material has passed all the electrical tests. UL is also okay. You see here the nickel-gold finish, which is a very critical one. It is working quite well; the adhesion is good. Of course, there are still some issues that we have to solve. It is important to be sure that all the properties are OK before we go commercial. Matties: Tell me about the curing of your material. Is it high speed? Van Dam: Yes, it's UV, but then it gets a thermal post cure. Matties: Do you still bake it? Van Dam: Yes, for the solder mask and the leg- end ink. For the etch resist you normally need only the UV cure. Louwet: Our goal is to show something more at IPC APEX EXPO 2017 in February. Today we are at the stage where we are starting to talk to end customers with a kind of three-way cooperation between AGFA, the printer manufacturer and the end customer. Pete Starkey: The only question I have regard- ing this is that I see that the conductors are black. Have you done a special treatment to improve the adhesion of the material? Van Dam: We tested several pretreatments, and this one is a type of micro-etch. Louwet: We have been working with a team of 10 people very intensively on this and of maybe 15 different concepts that we have, a few sur- vived and this is one of them; the adhesion of copper is of course an important part. Starkey: From a personal point of view, I'm very excited. The real, working inkjet solder mask, is something I've been waiting 15 years for. Louwet: It's still to be proven, but we are quite optimistic. Van Dam: It looks very promising. Matties: What about the cost of the product? How do you think that's going to run? INKJET PRINTING SOLDER MASK Mariana Van Dam