Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/992528
JUNE 2018 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 19 cled circuit board industry, look at all the pre- cious metals that are just thrown into dumps because it's not well thought out. It's not de- signed in. Antonellis: But they're doing it internally at Whelen, I believe. Goldman: Well, I think what has happened in our country is that people already have the processes in place. They already have their dis- charge permits and everything is set. The costs are already amortized or taken into consider- ation. It's different when you start out building a new facility; you're going to make it as effi- cient as possible and try to eliminate the need for permits and such, but I'm guessing the in- centive is just not as great for an existing fa- cility. Antonellis: That's true. Holden: Part of the incentive is that it lowers your costs, but more so as environmental reg- ulation gets stricter, then it becomes important for survival. Cullen: But we've seen a couple of these in- stances. We gotten strict in the United States. People went to China, not just because of en- vironmental, but I'm sure that was a part of it. China is being stricter now, and so we're saying, "Great, we love environmental restric- tion, because it allows us to deploy processes that are cleaner, and it's a transition, so we can deploy new innovations when there's market- place needs, like new environmental restric- tions." The direct metallization is a prime ex- ample. We have this technology, made to an- ticipate the time when formaldehyde will ab- solutely be banned, because it would drive a better, cleaner process. It still hasn't happened. We're seeing it now in China with these restrictions on phosphorous; we have non- phosphorus baths, but what they do is they move to Vietnam. We're seeing something similar right now on one of my PV projects. We had all the technology certified, the value proposition was proven. We're going to build a giant factory for plating solar cells, and the local government said, "Oh, you can't have nickel in that facility." I said, "Well, we have technologies to have zero emissions." They re- plied, "No, you just can't have it. You can't get a permit to plate nickel." They moved to a different province, and we're getting that facility designed. What hap- pens? Well, they adopt those rules. So they ended up moving to Thailand, and so there's still Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thai- land, Malaysia. That's where the shops are go- ing instead of just adopting cleaner technolo- gy. They move, you know? It's unfortunate. Goldman: That's very frustrating. Matties: If you were to give somebody running a wet process department advice, what would be the most important advice that you could give them? Kologe: I believe, for a lot of fabricators—and that will come from improvement of these ad- vanced manufacturing processes which are still maturing—it will be yields that are go- ing to be the number one thing for this year. I mean, we saw this year with the iPhone, and again, this refers to Asia and mSAP, the new ad- vanced boards that went into the iPhones. The processes and the cost that these companies are paying for them end up being outrageous I believe, for a lot of fabricators— and that will come from improvement of these advanced manufacturing processes which are still maturing—it will be yields that are going to be the number one thing for this year.