Hi,
I circulated the of of Richard Mazzoli paper among peoples in my plant as
case study.
The point is,how are the new technologies introduced and implemented.Middle
and samall size companies, such the one I am working for, can not affort (
or are not used ) to perform such long tests.Directed plating process is
both chemistry and equipment independent.The start point must be allways the
equipment fitted exactlty to the chemistry and the type of boards to be
processed.The pre-process and after process requirements must be clear and
understood taking into account the existing technology in each PCB shop.
Chemistry suppliers and equipment suppliers are presenting their products as
"plug-in"technology .Simple,quick,cheap,world wide installations, very
impressive reference list.How is the reality?I can learn from both stories
of Richard and Glynn.Now one of them blaimed suppliers of chemistry or
equipment,they get the best support available.As Richard stated,only in
production stage they discovered the real weak points and the way to
overcome it.
This lead me to the next point:most of us are debuging the new process with
customer boards.I have question to Richard and Glynn:how many test boards
they processed befored they switched to production boards?We are talking
about multilayers - what is the cost of such boards?How many microsection
they made?What was the cost?What I mean,that we might realise,the the cost
of the proper and safe start up is very high even before calculating routine
in-process control and monitoring .
I do belive,that the point,that Glynn`s Engineering Director is the owner of
the company and he was in position to take some cost-effective decisions.
Just to emphasise my point : we are now debugging our new plasma machine and
the value of polyimide boards just to measure distribution od etchback
across the each board and accros the chamber is in terms of several thousend
$ per each run.Our ( engineers) aim is to prepare the recepies for
dependindg on thickness of the boards and numbers of layers.What will be the
cost of the such test boards?I prefere not to mention this apart of cost of
cross-sections.
At the end,when the decision to install the new technology is taken,not only
the purchasing cost should be taken into the consideration,but also,how and
on what cost it will be introduced into production.The normal approach " X
days of installation peoples + Y days of instruction ( equipment ) , Z days
of start-up days ( chemistry supplier ) this is only the tail of an
elephant.




Edward Szpruch
Eltek , Manager of Process Engineering
P.O.Box 159 ; 49101 Petah Tikva Israel
Tel  ++972 3 9395050 , Fax  ++972 3 9309581
e-mail   [log in to unmask]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Glynn Shaw [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: ה אוקטובר 07 1999 3:56
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: [TN] Direct Plate (includes our experiences)
> 
> Very interesting article. I am impressed with the thoroughness of your
> testing approach and am glad to see that others share the science of
> circuit manufacturing. I believe that your experiences are real and that
> in
> your shop it happened as you say. In our shop, things went differently.
> 
> We have been using direct plate for over 5 years and I can honestly say
> that we do not experience the problems you have seen. Our initial testing
> uncovered wedgies when we first fired the line up, but we managed to
> control the micro etch adequately and they have never reappeared. We found
> the wedge voids were also related to our plasma etchback cycles, so
> tweaking those played no small part. We regularly send test panels outside
> for APD Oil T-shock test at Robisan Labs. Every test has passed with
> flying
> colors and our results show absolutely no increase in resistance with
> quantity of thermal cycles, unlike tests we used to get with electroless.
> From time to time, perhaps once a year, will may see some voids, but
> chemistry replacement does the trick. We run test panels every morning to
> catch the first signs of trouble. Overall, I wouldn't go back to
> electroless for anything.
> 
> We have lost no customers due to this process and have had the process
> approved by IBM, Sun Micro, and everyone else as well. Sun made us modify
> the Oil T-shock tests to include 012 mil vias, a practice we still follow
> to this day. In general, we don't use NFP's and I am extremely interested
> in your findings. I intend to run your NFP study on my process and
> equipment combination.
> 
>  I would really like to see your photos and learn the name of the process.
> Ours is Shadow and our equipment by ACS makes use of fluid-head technology
> as opposed to sprays. Consequently, our line is shorter and faster. In
> addition, we use a "diluted" chemistry solution, less than half of
> recommended, to keep the coating thin. Our micro etch is "dosed" every 25
> panels to keep it steady-stated, and all other aspects surrounding the
> micro etch are very tightly controlled. The thin coating we obtain
> requires
> a less aggressive micro etch to remove the carbon. In plating, we initiate
> at higher ASF for a short period, then reduce to finish the plating.
> 
> Perhaps we were lucky, perhaps it wasn't luck. Our Engineering Director,
> Robert Jordan, is an owner in this company. He has the power to test to
> his
> heart's content and likes to tweak all equipment and processes. He never
> buys a "drop-in" process or off-the-shelf equipment, but instead critiques
> everything. Our Shadow process runs better than any electroless line I
> have
> ever run. It is faster, easier to control,  and our boards do not fail in
> the field for these types of problems.
> 
> When I have received your photos and have completed running your study in
> my plant, I will certainly share our results and thoughts with you.
> 
> On another point, I truly wish the majority of TechNet was composed of
> these types of articles and discussions as opposed to the 49 e-mails of
> bullshit, 1 e-mail of value, that get sent every day.
> 
> At 10/3/99 12:14 PM-0400, you wrote:
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >For a number of reasons I did not include the photos and drawings
> referenced
> >in the article I posted on TechNet last week.  The article describes the
> >problems and defects pretty well, but I have received numerous requests
> for
> >the photos.  I will send these out to whoever requests them over the next
> >week.
> >
> >If you'd like to receive a copy e-mail me and I'll see to it that you
> receive
> >them.
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> >Mark Mazzoli
> >
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