EIPC Winter Conference, Cologne, February 3 and 4, 2011

Citation

Ling, J. (2011), "EIPC Winter Conference, Cologne, February 3 and 4, 2011", Circuit World, Vol. 37 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2011.21737bac.003

EIPC Winter Conference, Cologne, February 3 and 4, 2011

Article Type: Conferences and exhibitions From: Circuit World, Volume 37, Issue 2

Day 1

Winter yes, it was cold, wet, piles of snow lay in the streets outside, and the elegant towers of the cathedral were shrouded in fog. Inside the excellent Hotel Mondial Am Dom all was warm, including the welcome from Chairman Rex Rozario to over 100 delegates from 15 different countries to the first EIPC conference of the year.

The keynote speech was given by Ray Sharpe, CEO of the Isola Group. This was useful as a background for the delegates who would, later in the day, be visiting the Düren plant. From his point of view, as a private equity company, the electronics world was their total priority. Teamwork was key to the operation, and his management team comprised experienced time-served veterans. A company that is now nearly 100 years old, they have factories throughout the world, with 54 per cent of revenues coming from Asia with seven plants. The product range is comprehensive, with 81 million square feet of pressing capacity in Asia. The group has 2,000 employees worldwide, a 45 per cent market share with High Tg lead-free laminate, a 32 per cent market share in high-speed laminates, 30 per cent in High Tg and a 30 per cent market share in the military and speciality markets. Laminate is a $6.8 billion market, of which China accounts for 53 per cent. Having got the statistics out of the way, Ray went on to say that demand is forecast to increase dramatically as increasingly advanced electronic materials call for better performance. The European trend for the PCB industry was not looking so rosy, the number of manufacturers down to 289 in 2010 from 478 in 2003. However, if one includes all the PCB shops in what was formerly Eastern Europe, and includes Russia, the number is still around the 400 mark. In 2003, there were 23 laminating companies in Europe, and now there are only two. But that is not enough, so laminate from the East is a strong contender.

At Duren they think “lean” and have increased productivity at the same time reducing their overall footprint. Duren started manufacturing PCB laminate back in 1956, and over the years grew to become one of the major players in the market. However, in 2008-2009, the decline was dramatic, forcing their hand to look hard at closures, which thus saved $30 million in costs, and saved the company. But at no time did they ever cut any investment in R&D, and nowadays they enjoy the lowest debt levels ever. Such is the technical development of high-performance products, that they account for 70 per cent of their turnover, whereas it was the low Tg range that some 75 per cent of turnover.

Not so much keynote, more “we” note.

Walt Custer brought news of global recovery, production of rigid and flex PCBs was up 19 per cent in 2010 v 2009. He now follows the Global Purchasing Managers Index as a reliable barometer, and this is up, and shows that Europe is growing, led by Germany and Austria. Worldwide there is a $1,620 billion market for electronics equipment, and in Europe the sales graph is going up nicely.

Turning to PCB fabrication, the market is worth $52 billion, of which Europe has about 6 per cent. In Japan, PCB shipments are up 20 per cent in 2010, and Taiwan and China are up 19 per cent. In 2009, European PCB rigid and flex production totalled: €1.825 million, with Germany having 38.1 per cent. Rising copper prices are of course a cause for concern, and this is in the main due to a shortage from mining sources. Walt presents a great deal of information in a very short period of time, but for those who subscribe to his commendably helpful; service, it is both invaluable and unique. As is Walt.

Hans Friedrichkreit took a look at the circuit board technology for power electronics. The drivers here are two basic trends, the first is global warming and thus the demand for wind power and photovoltaics; and the other is the fact that fossil fuels are running out which leads to electromobility. In the field of wind power, Germany leads with 23 GW of wind power, Spain following with 16.7 GW. Wind turbines housing their generators weigh in at 660 tonnes, and can be positioned up to 135 m above ground level. Each one costs $11 million, and when the wind blows, is capable of generating 7.5 MW. This rarely happens, of course, and wind turbines are normally about 15 per cent efficient. Such massive installations call for some good system controls, such as the monitoring of speed, yaw, blade pitch control, brake system, speed of rotation control and such systems demand PCBs accordingly.

Photovoltaics for solar energy installed in Germany are the world’s largest with 7,000 MWp, versus 228 MWp in China and 475 MWP in the USA. China’s solar cell production is mainly for exports, with not much being installed in China, and so it is no surprise to learn that there are four Chinese companies in the list of the top solar cell manufacturers by MW output in 2009. Hans moved on to the interesting subject of electromobility. Here, combustion engines, hybrids and electric vehicles are the three main categories. Mercedes have a concept car called Blue Zero, which combines a combustion engine with a range extender powered by a fuel cell. GM has their volt. 12, and the Chinese have their EBikes and EScooters, and the e-car, all of which are hybrids. Nissan has the Leaf Electric Vehicle, going into mass production, using a power inverter, which is in turn a user of PCBs. Hans described how the car ownership system would change in the future; with a small EV being used for local driving need’s and a larger hybrid would be hired for occasions such as family holidays. Renault and Nissan are co-operating, closely, their joint venture car has a 150 km range with 12 g/km CO₂ emission. France going ahead faster than almost anyone else in Europe. Of the 100 million cars around the world, three million will be e-cars, five million with be hybrid and 10.2 will use flex fuel. Some other good news is that eventually all cars will have internet access, but quite how the driver is to take advantage of this whilst driving remained unclear.

The eloquent Martin Randall is the Operations Director of Spirit Circuits, who came to introduce us to lean manufacturing. They are a small to medium size PCB shop employing 60 people and doing very nicely, thank you. So, what is lean? This started out in life as a “just-in-time” manufacturing, which changed its name to lean in about 1988. Lean is a system; it is a practice, and not just a philosophy. It is to do with improving quality, eliminating waste, reducing time and reducing total cost. So, how do you achieve that? There are several lean management tools – 5S and visual management are but two of them. The major wastes include defects, over-manufacture, inefficiency, waiting time, motion and inventory. The biggest problem is sustainability, and the change in culture needed; the problem with change is that people get outside their comfort zone, but the traditional approaches to change do not work, and a dictatorial approach is a real no-no. So, Spirit brought in a specialist who ran a “lean” staff awareness day, and they then recruited a lean facilitator, from the beginning of March. Visual management includes new effective notice boards providing good communications with the staff, such as key performance indicators, and standard work instructions, information on H&S, on fire, and there were demarkators such as walkways, and keep clear areas, so that a “cared for” look took over.

The 5S system stand for:

1. 1.

   Sort – separate the necessary from the unnecessary.

2. 2.

   Set in order – create a place for everything, everything in its place.

3. 3.

   Standardize – minimise variation.

4. 4.

   Sustain – not allowing a decline in standards.

5. 5.

   Staff – it takes committed and engaged people to give you the results.

It clearly works for Spirit, whose staff has it in spades.

Simon-Kucher and partners have Mathias Frahm – who came along to focus mainly on the revenue side of business in a paper entitled “Power pricing in the PCB industry”. In a presentation that would have appealed to mountaineers, he said that reaching the profit summit is hard work, and he used various analogies to describe what is required. Getting industry back to the right pricing levels now that the worst is over is a priority, and most companies are not exploiting their price potential. His view that the traditional mindset that is created in different situations can often be misleading and a price increase should be sold as a benefit to the customer, not a disadvantage. That is the confusion often found when the difference between price and cost is not explained fully. The rules of engagement were complex, and best understood with his guidance. For example, a company manufacturing, one or two pieces of machinery were disadvantaged compared to a consumable supplier who could swing profit margins around between products. For the former, avenues to be explored service, spare parts and used equipment, whereas for the latter, volume discounts are a good weapon. This is a specialist area, and an understanding of the topic would be invaluable to those who have to handle negotiations on a week-by-week basis, a situation to which many in the room would be accustomed.

Figure 2 Bill Birch

Dr Veronique Steukers from the European Flame Retardants Association in Belgium gave us a presentation entitled “Flame retardants in a changing society.” With a reminder that flame retardants saved lives, and quoting the example that a typical LED television set contained 8 kg of plastic, equivalent in fuel terms to 6 l of gasoline, she stated that the world market for flame retardants was over US$4 billion, 1 billion of which was attributed to Europe. Flame retardants in PCBs were generally based on tetrabromobisphenol-A, although certain halogen-free materials used phosphorus compounds in combination with metal oxides.

Dr Steukers gave an update on the RoHS Directive, the re-cast of which was under finalisation. Formal council adoption was expected in March 2011, with publication in second quarter 2011. The re-cast RoHS Directive would be aligned with REACH, and would be open-scope, meaning that it would include all electrical and electronic equipment unless specifically excluded. There were no new substance restrictions; it would continue to apply to lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBBs and PBDEs. The next registration deadline for REACH was 2013. Flame retardants for circuit boards were registered under REACH before the December 2010 deadline, and the RoHS re-cast would give more legal certainty regarding future restrictions of substances in electrical and electronic applications. The upcoming REACH review would be an important opportunity for the EU to continue its drive for more consistent legislation, and it was comforting to note that Dr Steukers believed that European legislation was increasingly based on sound science.

Birgit Neubauer is responsible for coordination of UL activities in Multek in Germany, and she gave a very objective and thought-provoking presentation entitled “Experiences and challenges concerning UL approval of printed circuit board products.” The PCB industry continually had to address changes in multi-layer constructions and material requirements – increased numbers of sequential build-up steps, thinner dielectrics, mixed builds, increased operating temperatures, etc. all of which potentially required modification of UL files or new approvals. Short product lifecycles and time-to-market demands added to the pressure.

Two different levels of UL approval were possible: flame-only recognition and full recognition, and in many cases, neither the PCB fabricator not his end-customer knew which classification was applicable to a particular product. And the procedure for establishing UL approvals was expensive and time consuming. There was an obvious need for better understanding of requirements on the part of PCB fabricators and their customers, a tightening of the approval process with the objective of shortening time-to-market, and for a straightforward, consistent and transparent sample requirement for new approvals. Ms Neubauer described a typical process flow for the UL approval of a standard PCB base material, and suggested ways in which it could be made more time- and cost-efficient, to the benefit of both parties. It was obvious from the response of the audience that her views and suggestions clearly represented the general feelings of the European industry.

After an excellent lunch, the delegates were taken by coach to the Isola AG factory at Düren. Here, the tour were shown the operations of CCI Eurolam who inhabit the neighbouring buildings, and who are Isola’s distributors in Europe, and then on to the main factory where 8 million square meters of laminate are produced per annum in a fully automated plant. It was all most impressive, not only for the seamless way in which, from a wide product range, they “made to order”, but on equipment lines that for the most part were fully automatic with robotic handling. The enthusiasm and pride that came across from our Isola guides was almost tangible, and for those for whom this was the first glimpse of how the basic building block of PCB construction was manufactured, it was a welcome and well-delivered education.

Day 2

Dr Markus Riester is the MD of Maris TechCon in Germany, and he spoke about embedded component technology. This is not yet on the market, there is much work yet to be done, and it is all about putting very thin ICs into the laminate in inner layers of a multi-layer board. The concept goes back to the 1950s with the first patent in 1968, but targeted development did not get going until the 1990s, and by 2010 some marketable products had been developed. Components can be embedded in two ways, face down and face up, or one can build the board with the components embedded inside. However, the chip first process seemed be the favourite. When should one use embedded components? When miniaturisation is called for, or when thermal management is required, when electrical properties matter, and when cost matters. Reliability, creation of added value, and naturally, protection also come into the frame. The technology also avoids disruption in the PCB environment, and improves yields. Embedded technology does have competition; it comes in the form of die-on-die, and the multi-chip power package. ECT is a reality, is present in products and is coming to the market very rapidly.

Michael Weinhold, EIPC Technical Director presented a paper on standards for embedded components. But he set the background which lies behind. The value of the PCB production in the world in 2009 was $44 billion and 85.8 per cent of this is produced in the Far East; what is left is split between Europe and the USA. In Europe, there are 24 official languages, and 495 million inhabitants, and on the assumption that you can call Europe a “country” then Europe is the third largest in the world after China and India.

Ah yes. Standards. A complex subject that Michael endeavoured to cover in the time allotted. Suffice it to say that there are manufacturing standards and safety and security standards. Standards impact on all areas, components, assemblies and now standards are required for embedded components, but manufacturers are naturally reluctant to share their information with others. Standards come from the industry, and always have done, but with embedded components it would seem that the industry bodies on whom one can normally rely to set global standards are not in this particular instance very interested, so it is now left to others, and Michael used the occasion to ask for partners to join him in writing the standards required for embedded components.

Daniel Brandler of Ohmega Technologies shared his experiences with the electrical performance of embedded resistors in PCBs for lead-free assembly. Embedded resistors have to pass the thermal stress reliability tests, given the higher temperatures required, which increase the physical stress in the board and of course some failures have occurred, and some components have been destroyed. PCBs with embedded resistors require bare board electrical testing for ohmic value and percent tolerance. Embedded resistors have major electrical advantages aid PCB design (they can eliminate solder joints, and boards can be made smaller) and improve reliability. He has a product called Ohmega Resistors Built in Trace (ORBIT).

Thomas Coxtet of CIRE Group brought us up to speed with the PCB2 project, funded by Aerospace Valley. The project targets are the design and development of integrated technologies for avionic and space requirements using embedded systems, to give more functionality whilst reducing size and weight as well as cost. Thomas gave us a wealth of technical detail which shows that they have to a degree managed to meet the objectives of qualifying new base materials, both resistive and capacitive, have improved electromagnetic compliance using embedded passive components, and have developed embedded energy storage using ultra thin batteries. Reliability data will be available at the end of the year.

The next session was chaired by that indomitable European Editor of PCB007, Pete Starkey, who introduced the first speaker, Patrick Jahn of Gbr. Schmid, who is an authority on conveyor systems for thin core and flexible materials wet processing. He introduced New Transport with Clamping, known as NTwC, which is suitable for panels of <50 μm in which the panels are transported by a clamping system of different types for spray, immersion and electroplating applications. The clamps are affixed to a chain that moves the panels through the line, although this chain is outside the active process area, and not exposed to any chemistry; it is thus easy to maintain, and provides continuous and smooth transportation. Material size min is 305×305, maximum is 610×533, and it can also handle panels of a fixed size, material thickness minimum 25 μm, and maximum 2.4 mm, and although they have transported 12 μm material without difficulty in trials, Patrick emphasised that 25 μm is optimum. Material of all types can be accepted, and production speed is four panels per minute, the restriction being loading and unloading, but work is under way to remove this bottleneck. The system can be used for preclean, developing, microetch, stripping, oxide replacement and electroplating. Processing flex has never been easier.

Glenn Oliver from Du Pont came to see us, and an advance in flexible circuit design was his theme. The use of flex for high-speed application is increasing, and the use of flex to connect boards, is now commonplace. And the use of flex for controlled impedance is increasing. The balance between determining line width and the loss of signal due to roughness of the copper plating was discussed, and Glenn had put together a very detailed paper in which he covered differential pairs, the DK and DF for key materials, copper effects (thicker copper has slightly lower loss and wider lines have lower loss) via processing and other topics. As one might expect from a man from Du Pont, Pyralux^® TK composite materials seemed to be the answer.

Dr Andy Cobley hails from the Sonochemistry Centre at the University of Coventry and is always worth listening to, as he always has something really interesting to say. This was no exception, as he spoke about the use of ultrasound to enable low temperature plating. Low temperatures mean lower energy costs, and here Sonochemistry can help, remembering that electroless plating uses temperatures of between 70 and 90°C at the higher end. Sonochemistry is the effect of sound on the chemistry of a solution, where acoustic cavitation takes place at a force of 220 m/s, as was illustrated. When ultrasound is used, higher plating levels can always be achieved. An exhaustive work programme covering many aspects of the project was undertaken, one with an electroless nickel formulation, and determined the cathode polarization curve, and the anodic polarization curve, saw where they meet, and noted that the rates were two times higher than the normal or “silent” plating rate. Microhardness is higher with ultrasound, with a brighter deposit. There are many sound advantages of this process, and one hopes that the industry will be adopting it in short order.

Bill Birch (Figure 2) is concerned about material robustness. His company, PWB Interconnect Solutions is based in bracing Canada, and so being robust and hardy is not only desirable but absolutely necessary. Bill reported that his company has studied 27 new materials from nine major laminate suppliers, and they use electrical techniques to test. Why electrical? Put simply, cross-sections do not tell us about robustness, and solder float tests say nothing about what happens during reflow. Conversely, electrical testing creates a product profile using resistance and capacitance, is non-destructive, is fast and is low cost. Moreover, it yields improved statistical validity, establishes process and material tolerances. His company is a member of the HDPUG group comprising IBM, HP, Cisco, Alcatel, Oracle, Fujitsu, Intel and Isola, which has been formed to measure the ability of 27 new but identical laminate materials to withstand tests including CAF, water intake, changes in between DF and DK, Coupon design was made to highlight causes of delamination, Testing includes high speed, FR4, High Tg laminates, a capacitance test shows where faults lie, and noise levels and C-stage relationships were measured. All the Asian laminates were noisy, whereas the European ones were superbly quiet delamination is now less prevalent and they have seen much greater robustness, so within the last five years great improvements in laminate manufacture have been made.

After each session, there was a panel discussion comprising the speakers of that particular session, and this was a welcome move towards some spirited and highly relevant questioning from the delegates, and as always more useful information was forthcoming.

After lunch, Alun Morgan of Isola AG was the first speaker, who knows about the influence of materials and processes on conductive anodic filamentation. Back in the 1970s, an abrupt and unpredictable loss of insulation resistance was observed in PCBs which had been exposed to high humidity and temperatures. Bell Labs investigated this and found that there was a disintegration of the glass/epoxy bond and there was moisture absorption in high-humidity conditions. Water acts as an electrolyte, and the copper thus becomes both anode and cathode, causing the short circuit. The failure between glass and epoxy was attributed to the presence of un-reacted dicyandiamide and so the need to improve reaction efficiency was necessary. Tests showed that phenolic-cured FR-4 exhibited significantly better CAF resistance over dicy-cured FR-4. Mind you, there were other factors, plenty of them: glass weave, polarity, curing system, reflow, orientation, the board shop involved, the voltage, drill feed speed, although type of finish made no difference. The resin formulation was a factor, as was laminate thermal resistance, and the glass cloth used. Glass fibre wet out, style and finish and fibre distribution all counted. Mr Morgan knows his stuff.

Paul Reid is another doughty Canadian, who knows a lot about butterflies, especially the North American Monarch. In the realm of reliability, he is something of a monarch himself. He engaged us with how a surface finish affects PCB reliability. Reliability may be determined by thermal cycle testing, which they do a lot of at PWB Interconnect Solutions Inc., and the Interconnect Street Test is one such.

Indirectly, the application of a surface finish exposes the circuit board to extra thermal excursion protection. OSP, silver and tin do not adversely affect reliability testing results, but ones containing nickel might do, and heat certainly does. Incomplete nickel coverage may also cause a failure. 400 cycles to failure can be reduced to 70, which is dramatic. Some finishes require thermal exclusions, including HASL. If you want to test interconnections use nickel. If it is material ranking testing, do not use nickel, nor HASL, nor any fused finishes, was his advice.

Alan Desire from Arlon was talking about LED. Not lead, but light-emitting diodes, and how to reduce temperatures and improve operating efficiency of. High-power LEDs are projected to increase to 4,000 million units per annum by 2014. Lighting systems are required with a long life, with aesthetic appearance, and with reliability, as increases in heat reduce the output of light. If there is a shift in wavelength then the colours will change and wavelength will change due to an increase in heat. For every 10°C increase of junction, the lifetime reduces by a factor of two. For a multi-layer one should use StaCool laminate, and StaCool Prepreg as both dissipate heat to prolong life. The message was clear – use Arlon materials for a long and happy LED life.

Huntsman Advanced Materials had despatched the elegant Hildo van Hettema to tell us about a white photoimageable solder mask for LED applications, where colour stability, resistance to degradation from heat and UV, and freedom from micro-cracking were essential requirements. This known as Probimer 77 73100/79002 and is best in class for non-yellowing behaviour. He then discussed their new automotive LIPSM, which has good thermal shock robustness, and withstands the high temperatures experienced under the bonnet of motorcars. Thermal cycling test results looked promising; in fact the number of cycles was doubled with a minimal number of cracks compared to the original Probimer 77 formulation.

In the field of organic electroluminescence, Huntsman are participating in Fast2Light, an FP7 project with 16 collaborating organisations working on the development of high throughput, roll-to-roll, large area deposition processes for fabricating light-emitting polymer-OLED foils for intelligent lighting applications. These foils were multi-layered structures and the functional internal layers were susceptible to degradation by moisture. Reliable encapsulation to prevent moisture ingress was the major challenge to be overcome in order to make flexible OLEDs commercially viable, and Huntsman were responsible for providing specialist technology for the creation of organic barrier layers.

Emma Hudson from UL Laboratories was the last speaker, and she was there to provide information on what UL is and what it does. UL, founded in 1894, is about compliance to standards, for reasons of safety, in all aspects and in all respects. UL maintains a presence throughout the world, but needs a bigger presence in Europe, which, she felt, was an area in which some of the delegates might be interested in joining a call for. UL recognised PCBs will meet various UL Standards such as UL60601 for medical equipment, 61010 for control equipment, or 60950 for IT equipment. To meet NEC requirements in the USA, the UL mark is what will be looked for.

UL have been working to Lean and Six Sigma disciplines for years now, and they do have standard pricing, and by using global engineering and lab capacity can speed up projects. They have a Knowledge Management System for sharing information, so that technical questions can be lodged with all UL engineers globally.

PCBs need two type of recognition – full takes six to 12 weeks, or Flame only recognition takes six weeks, although their end-product standard will determine which recognition is required for a PCB. UL796 covers nearly all of them. For rigid boards, it is ZPMV2; for flexible circuits is it is also ZPMV2 for those without marking limitations, but ZPXK2 for those with marking limitations. They test for bond strength, delamination, plating adhesion and flammability. They test for conductive paste adhesion, silver migration as well. There are engineers in the UK, The Netherlands, and Italy and a laboratory in Denmark. Many UL engineers come from industry and they now have a Preferred Partner, namely Microtek, based in California and China. Precertification is now available, for a more complex board, which is designed to plan the project and explain what is involved. This is free.

UKL approval is a selling point, and in many cases, it is expected of you. Put it on your web site; use the UL Listing Cards to find potential customers, Use UL recognised boards for non-US products and use UL to find PCB manufacturers near you. UL is driven by safety; UL recognised products are independently assessed, and covered by a continuous monitoring programme. UL shows that you are committed to safety, and this is something to be proud of, apparently.

EIPC have held another quite excellent conference, extremely well attended with a wide and largely pertinent range of subjects being covered by mostly very good speakers. Cologne is a most convenient venue for most Europeans, and the hotel was of a standard that ensured that the well being of all was looked after at all times. The usual Conference Dinner was held in a local restaurant and with a combination of good food, excellent service, and great company, not to mention the odd glass or two, a more convivial occasion would be hard to imagine. EIPC know how to do it, and why not, they have been doing it for 44 years.

John LingAssociate Editor