A U G U S T  2 0 1 8 ,  I S S U E  # 6 3
  View our profile on LinkedIn
In This Issue


January 29-31, 2019
San Diego, CA USA
Booth # 316

November 12-15, 2019
Munich, GERMANY
Booth# TBD

Taiyo America, Your New  FLEXPERTS!
 
As Epictetus one said,  "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." We have heard that our LDI flexible green solder mask is a bit light in color over the years so we put one of our top notch chemists on the project to rectify this aversion.  

Recently we took a new formulation out to the field to test a new ink and the results were very encouraging. The new LDI flex green is very green, very flexible and pretty fast on an Orbotech Paragon LDI machine. Here are some photos from our first field trial: 



In the photo on the left you can see that the solder mask was capable of resolving tight features and the color is dark green. 
The copper height in the photo on the right is 32 µm and the solder mask coverage over the knee is 24 µm.

During the trial our customer commented that he was very happy with the way it screen printed because it didn't stick to the screen and there were no bubbles along the traces. He was also very pleased that the product dropped right into his process; he didn't have to change his standard tack dry, develop or final cure process. However, for testing purposes we ran several different exposure energies from as low 90 mJ/cm 2 to 400 mJ/cm 2. The photo above was at 135 mJ/cm 2. In the end, the panels remained very dark green and flexible. Our chemists still have some modifications to do to make improvements to photospeed and dam retention, but for a first trial we and our customer are very excited with the results.

With the continued growth of robotics and miniaturization of electronics, flexible circuit boards are becoming more prevalent in our industry. Taiyo America saw tremendous growth last year in flexible printed circuit boards and we expect that trend to continue. Taiyo as a global company has made major R&D investments in flexible products. We have designed Flexfiner dryfilm, flexible inkjet solder mask, and flexible conductive and stretchable inks, just to mention a few products.

For more information regarding the latest developments in flexible LDI solder mask, please contact Taiyo America!
                                                                              
John T. Fix
Manager & Director, Sales and Marketing
johnf@taiyo-america.com

 

Journey Through the Solder Mask Process,
Part I: Mixing and Pre-cleaning

I am relatively new to the solder mask world, but have been fortunate enough to mentor under some of the industry's finest and most experienced; many thanks to Taiyo's technical service engineers Pete Binzel and Steve Campisi, and to the sales staff Brian Wojtkiewicz, Don Monn, Bob MacRae, and John Fix. Backed by over 213 years in the industry, with 102 years of which are at Taiyo, these gentlemen showed me the ins-and-outs of the fascinating world of PCB manufacturing, therefore my training could not have been better.

I will be writing a series of seven articles summarizing the key solder mask processes: mixing and pre-cleaning, screen printing, spray coating, tack drying, exposing, developing, and final curing. In this segment I will focus on mixing and pre-cleaning. So, without further ado, let's get to it!
 


Pumice Scrub

Aluminum Oxide

Chemical Clean

Sang Lam
Technical Service Engineer
sangl@taiyo-america.com
469.929.5462 

 
JPCA and EIPC!


Well here we are at the Taiyo America newsletter for August. As promised, I'm writing about the JPCA and the EIPC conferences that I attended in June of this year. Tokyo one week and Germany two weeks later with a week of vacation in between, what a month! I'm betting that Delta airlines will send me a Christmas card this year.




Don Monn
Midwest Regional Sales Manager
donm@taiyo-america.com
651.491.4199 



     
Catching up with Umicore's Martin Mack

Umicore is Taiyo's foremost distributor in Europe and since signing up with Taiyo over a decade ago they have proven to be a truly valuable partner in Taiyo's quest into the European market. It's always good to check in with them to give us all a perspective on how things are going on the "other side of the pond". 
 



To learn more about UMICORE Galvanotechnik go to:  www.ep.umicore.com

For more information about Dan Beaulieu's DB Management Group:  https://www.dbmanagementgroup.com/



Taiyo's upcoming events:




Established over 27 years ago TAIYO AMERICA, INC. is a subsidiary of TAIYO HOLDINGS CO., LTD., the world's leading manufacturer of specialty inks and solder masks for printed circuit boards. Taiyo offers conductive inks for manufacturing printed electronics, lighting & displays and other applications.
www.taiyo-america.com




Share Feedback
We appreciate your comments on this newsletter and your suggestions for future topics.
We want to make this your newsletter and answer your questions.
Email your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to: