[PCB design]PCB additive manufacturing process

"It's hard to predict. It's even harder to predict the future."- Yogi Berra

 

Time and time again, Yogi Berra and other scientifically minded people, including the pioneering physicist Nils Bohr, have been shown to predict the future simply and shrewdly. The future is hard to predict, but certain things can be inferred by logic and bold extrapolation. I "invented" virtual reality (VR) and/or augmented reality (AR) today. It was based on a steel helmet, had a curved display, had a 180-degree field of view, and had speakers placed around it for stereo (though I remember not thinking of a stereo vision for 3D imaging).

 

Of course, we can't implement unrealistic ideas because the technologies that support our Shared vision are only now available. I'm sure there may be others out there with similar ideas, as demonstrated by the Oculus VR headset now available.

 

We see people to the use of materials manufacturing methods and real-time 3 d printing technology is more and more interested in making electronic board, it is the real change of product development, industry to increase material manufacturing technology of the surge in interest in recent (published articles and press releases a large increase) show that the electronic interconnection manufacturing will become the manufacturing technology of breakthrough.

 

The basic concept of circuit additive manufacturing goes back a long way, to the birth of the industry in the 1940s. Engineers and technologically far-sighted experts used various combinations of conductive and insulating materials to explore different new ways of generating printed electronic circuits. They were right, but because of the limitations of the equipment, materials, and processes available, it remained a marginal technology, limited to circuits operating at higher voltages and lower currents.

 

In the late 1960s and 1970s, major OEMs, such as AT&T, again used additive concepts to produce copper-based PCBs. But the process can take hours to process the copper to the desired thickness. It was developed through the concept of semi-addition processes, which are now widely used, such as high-density multilayer PCB in high-performance products.

 

I joined ELF Technologies, a small startup, in 1990, where the founders developed a laser-printed catalytic toner technology that they intended to use to create a mid-layer. However, I convinced them that the technology was well suited for printing catalytic toner lasers onto the material web, generating flexible circuits of infinite length, and a circuit that could run economically because the data was digital. The company invested in this simple idea, but in the process of testing it, the market was not ready. Today, the same functionality can be achieved through direct Web printing circuit technology, and the circuit size is very small, which is unthinkable in the past.

 

In the early 2000s, Seiko Epson demonstrated a multilayer printed circuit in which each layer of medium and conductor was printed sequentially to produce a very fine circuit. These technologies, which have been evolving and improving, inspire confidence that it is possible to print circuits directly to flat terminals at the contact points of components, eliminating the need for welding steps at all.

 

I was inspired by my years of opposition to the EU's lead-free directive. Finally, I named the new weldless method "Occam process", thanks to its simplicity and adherence to the Occam principle of "simplicity first, get rid of complexity".The process eliminates the trickiest process step in electronics manufacturing, welding, and all its negative properties.

 

For those who are skeptical about welding technology, check electronic journals, magazines, or newsletters to see how many articles and papers have focused on welds-centric topics, including materials, equipment processes, defect detection (and ongoing commitment mitigation), and failure analysis. Then, calculate their percentage of the total number of articles.

 

Today, it is possible to use existing equipment (ala Occam) to produce electronic components without the use of solder, which involves a simple reversal of the process by first building a component circuit board and then adding coated circuits in addition. For those who are more interested, I recommend visiting my LinkedIn for The "The Occam Files" series.

 

All in all, today's additive printed circuit board assembly promises to live up to the promise of a long time ago. It's a way to deliver to the consumer the most precious thing in the physical world - time. Time itself may be infinite, but everything else in life is finite.

 

If manufacturers can be developed faster than its competitors and deliver samples, they will occupy the market, even if is only temporary (big companies tend to steal ideas, if good enough, as a sign of industry characters of Bill Gates and Steve jobs can correct observation and convince yourself to adopt these ideas), velocity is small, innovative companies the only weapon against the big companies rival. Embrace change and adopt additive technology; This will be a chance for small companies to compete in an increasingly cutthroat business environment.

 

Finally, I want to comment on Yogi's famous quote: "the future will never be the same as the past, so accept change."