Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/950499
48 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 tics for bringing material from the warehouse to the machines just-in-time for processing. The process recipes are controlled by the MES, the computer system of our customers, so you really have the optimized fab that will increase the availability of your machines. You have the material at the machine when you need it and it also enables you to handle smaller batch siz- es efficiently. There will be a change from today's manu- facturing. Today we can stack the boards on top of each other, so we can easily have 150- 200 PCBs in one stack. If you go to higher-end PCBs you cannot stack anymore; you need to singulate the PCBs, to handle them one piece at a time. You can transport them either in clamp- ing frames where they're suspended and they are not touched again or you place them in sin- gle panel trays. It means that instead of trans- porting 150 substrates in a stack, you might be able to transport 30–50 substrates, and that means the transport and logistics in the factory will increase significantly. This can be solved by either putting in more people moving more carts with products, or by using intralogistics systems that takes care of this increased flow of goods in the factory. Goldman: And you must be prepared for this change. What does that look like? This is all very interesting. Lange: It is, and we're ready to support this change. We have the machines that are ready for Industry 4.0 and we link them with an in- tralogistics material transport system. In our R&D labs we're looking at the next-generation processing tools, which we will introduce in one or two years. We're giving a small insight in what it means to go from the subtractive process as we know it to semi-additive processing for PCBs. There's vacuum processing coming in, where we're using vacuum deposition and vacuum etching. You can imagine that for a PCB that has a fine line and space, the surface morphol- ogy will become very important. The rough- ness of the surface becomes important; we're going down to 50 nanometers or less and a wet process is just not enough anymore, so we're working on vacuum processing with those substrates. Goldman: Thank you for this peek into the fu- ture. Any final thoughts? Lange: I think this show confirms that the elec- tronics industry is undergoing a major change in production from subtractive processing to semi-additive processing and we are offering solutions for these processes. We are develop- ing new innovative processes that will come into the market in the next years. There are customers, the technology leaders, who will make this move in the next few months. We are having discus- sions about building an integrated automated fab. There's a lot of in- terest, and I think the direction is set for the electronics industry. I be- lieve it will follow a similar develop- ment that the semiconductor indus- try has seen, improving factories for the highest yield and lowest cost. Goldman: Rüdiger, thank you so much for your time and insights. Greatly appreciated. Lange: Thank you for the opportuni- ty, Patty. PCB007 Figure 3: Detail of spray manifold in horizontal developing module.