[PCB manufacturing] addition process has a strong momentum

There is no denying that additive manufacturing has become more and more popular in the past few years.The industry continues to hold additive manufacturing seminars and publish articles in magazines, and companies continue to research and develop processes.As a result of this technology, add-on electronics are becoming more and more popular, with a variety of options on the market for rapid transformation, proofing and PCB production.

Through in-depth analysis, it can be found that the characteristics of electronic products manufactured by addition method are becoming a development trend: the feature size is between the technology of reduction etching and IC specification.Full addition, semi-addition (SAP), or modified semi-addition (mSAP) processes allow manufacturers to process and produce PCB's on flexible or rigid materials, with features much smaller than those produced by traditional subtractive etching processes, and with larger panel sizes than typical IC processes.Although the concept of addition is not new, it is a new technology for PCB manufacturing.

Over the past few years, I have been studying additive processes and have found that the discussion and demand for feature sizes smaller than 75 microns is slowly increasing.Conversations, questions, and studies about SAP and mSAP increased significantly when the mSAP process was announced to generate the circuit in the latest version of the smartphone.Although the process is widely used in some parts of the world, it is still in the early stages of development in others.

In smartphone applications, it's easy to see the benefits of 35 micron widths/widths, reducing circuit sizes and making room for larger batteries and more complex electronics.Smartphone users want bigger batteries!

But even outside the mass-market smartphone market, there is growing industry interest in the ability to design features smaller than 75 microns in size, as well as in the hope that suppliers can provide low-volume and development-type production solutions that can achieve this goal.In working with SMTA to help them organize a workshop this fall on the topic "application of addition to electronics: from IC to PCB," the PCB industry is clearly at an inflection point.Smaller and lighter packages and more complex electronics will drive the demand for ever more elaborate feature sizes, and designers will need to seek possible solutions to provide PCB manufacturers with opportunities to meet new requirements.

One of the leaders in this advanced technology is Averatek's a-sap process.Averatek developed a liquid metal ink (LMI) and a semi-additive manufacturing process capable of achieving characteristic sizes of 75 to 5 microns.This technology can be licensed to PCB board manufacturer and can work well with traditional PCB manufacturing equipment.At present, a-sap process is being tested in two PCB manufacturing plants and will be put into the market in the future.

The semi-addition process has several advantages, the most obvious being the line width and line spacing.In the traditional reduction etching process, when the feature size is less than 75 microns, the yield decreases significantly and the cost per PCB increases significantly.Through the addition method, not only the line width and line spacing of 50 microns can be achieved, but also the feature size can be designed to be less than 25 microns without improving the manufacturing capacity.These addition techniques can realize design possibilities in a variety of ways, such as size.The overall size can be greatly reduced, and this technology has been widely used in hearing AIDS, nerve probes and catheters.

Controlling complex pin fanning is another important advantage.The wiring of 0.3mm and 0.2mm spacing devices can be completed without high cost of multiple lamination, and the number of layers is reduced compared to the traditional anti-etching process.Imagine that by removing four traditional layers of ultra-high density and combining the addition layer with the traditional etch reduction layer, you can achieve a design from 12 layers, 3 lamination cycles up to 8 lamination cycles.

Not all applications need smaller, lighter packages.This addition technique also enables the addition of additional electronics to a fixed space.Like adding extra electronics and features to the car.

As small batch PCB board manufacturer continue to develop the technology, designers who are constrained by product space and weight will have more options. As a result, people are brainstorming and thinking creatively about how to make better use of these additional features.It is clear that in the next few years, this technology will be used alongside subtractive manufacturing and IC manufacturing in the PCB industry.