Voices of the industry – Reviewing 2006, new challenges in 2007

Like every other year, 2006 saw the demand for electronic assemblies to be smaller, more powerful, and less expensive. Additionally, the electronics assembly industry in 2006 was highlighted by many companies being required to make the move to lead-free solder. Much money and time was spent on research, process development, materials, training and, finally, actually building product. The SMTA was there as a central point in sharing the knowledge and helping with each step, fulfilling its mission to "…share practical experience and develop solutions…"Smaller, more powerful and less expensive will again be the need in 2007. QFNs, MicroBGAs and 01005 components have been around for a while but will be more commonly used this year. Lead free will continue to be refined as more lead-free manufacturing helps drive down many of the costs of materials and the overall manufacturing costs. Reliability of lead-free products built in 2006 will be interesting to watch and fast and accurate failure analysis will be important to success. Whatever happens in 2007, the SMTA will again be the common ground to share information and learn from others all around the globe.Looking back, 2006 has been an exciting and rewarding year for ICON. Q4 will be our best quarter as a result of several successful product design improvements and good representation from our sales channel partners. We have also expanded our machine installation footprint to include Korea, India and SEA. Our design philosophy has always been centered round the MinMax principle–Minimum Operator Intervention, Maximum Throughput.Miniaturization will continue to be the trend and consumer electronics should continue to lead the way, especially in personal entertainment devices that combine communication, imagery and entertainment into a single package. Also, new wireless technology like Wi-Max will be driving electronics manufacturing due to demand for hot spots.Asia should continue to be hot bed for electronics manufacturing in 2007, with China leading the way. It is also time to start paying attention to some neighboring markets like Vietnam, which is starting to show some strategic and competitive advantage. Looking forward, we will remain focused on the Asian printer market. We will be introducing i6, which is specifically designed for the Asian market by end of Q1. We will also be moving to a brand new 4000 sqm factory beginning Q2 2007.The 2007 iNEMI Roadmap was a major focal point of iNEMI’s 2006 activities. For the first time, we held regional workshops in Europe and Asia in addition to our North American workshop. These meetings allowed us to solicit international input and identify issues of concern from each region. As a result, the 2007 iNEMI Roadmap involved more people from more countries than any roadmap to date. More than 500 individuals from 265 companies, consortia, government agencies, and universities located in 17 countries contributed to this effort.The RoHS Directive went into effect this year in Europe, and several of iNEMI’s deployment projects continue to address ongoing issues surrounding its implementation. In addition, we laid the groundwork for developing proactive programs to focus on new areas of environmental concern and will be working with industry and government agencies to evaluate alternative technologies and assess trade-offs. For example, iNEMI is partnering with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a proactive program to assess the risks and trade-offs of brominated and alternative flame retardants in PWB substrates.Some of the most significant deployment efforts this year came as a result of our broadening into new areas of activity. Our new Medical Technology Integration Group (TIG) launched a major project this year. The Medical Components Reliability Specifications Project is working to develop testing and use condition guidelines to help assure reliability of electronic components used in medical applications. Leveraging industry knowledge and existing standards, the project team plans to create a minimum set of requirements for electronic components used in implanted or life-critical devices. They will also develop guidelines that provide information about when testing should be done, what kind of testing is required, and how to apply test results such that they are relevant to the use conditions developed.Also is 2006, we established — for the first time — two research projects. Both leverage emerging nanotechnologies as a means of finding alternatives to SAC alloy soldering. The first is the Pb-Free Nano-Solder Project, which is investigating the use of nanoparticles to depress the melting point of SAC alloys. The second effort is the Nano-Attach Project, which is studying alternative lowtemperature nano-attach processes, such as nano-velcro and biomimetic dry adhesive, for joining electronic components.During 2007, we expect to see the boundaries between computers, communications and entertainment products continue to blur. Large, flat panel displays are experiencing rapid growth. Wireless products, particularly WiFi and Bluetooth, are now widely used, and digital cameras are merging into cellular phones. Home and office functionality is being added to automotive products. RFID systems are being used for security and increased efficiency of commerce. The needs of the telecommunication and data communication infrastructures are converging. With the move to all digital communications and storage we see the convergence of a number of markets, namely medical-consumer, automotive- entertainment, communication-entertainment and computing-entertainment.This convergence is fueling the development of a number of technologies. For example, RF system-inpackage (SiP) applications have become the technology driver for small components, packaging, assembly processes, and high-density substrates; and SiP continues to be one of the fastest growing packaging technologies (although still representing a relatively small percentage of the unit volume). LCD and plasma displays are taking over the CRT market, while OLED (organic LED) has the promise of providing thin, lightweight — even roll-up — display technology that could compete with LCDs. A number of alternative approaches to today’s established data storage technologies will develop over the next decade, including magnetic random access memory (MRAM), probe-based, molecular, fluorescent multilayer optical, near-field optical, and 3-D holographic storage components and systems.These developments and more are discussed in the 2007 iNEMI Roadmap, which will be released to industry in early March. With the completion of the roadmap, we now begin the process of "mining" the information through a series of gap analysis meetings. We use these open industry meetings to identify key technology gaps and prioritize research needs, and will publish our Research Priorities report toward the end of 2007.iNEMI is also changing its organizational structure so that we can be more responsive to the needs of industry. The dramatic movement of manufacturing and manufacturing support services to China from North America, Europe and other Asian countries continues, and in response to this migration iNEMI plans to open an office in the Shanghai area during the first half of 2007. We are excited about this development and think it is quite telling that our first international location will be in China.2006 has been a year of high growth here at Kyzen. New product development from the past 2 or 3 years targeting lead-free materials and advanced packaging developments is fueling that growth. Kyzen allocates very large resources to technology research & development, and the results in 2006 prove that this is a wise approach.This R&D requires outstanding staff of course, and we have long employed a strategy of attracting the best and the brightest to our technical staff. We then provide them with the best tools and laboratories, and allow them the creative freedom to innovate, and innovate they have done!The success our newest Aquanox materials have experienced has been broad-based. From new aqueous products designed for lead-free solder to advanced packaging opportunities to routine stencil and maintenance cleaning, the Aquanox line continues to be a successful cleaning technology throughout the world. This success is due to a few key reasons.First, these modern materials simply work better than technology designed years ago to clean RMAs. No real surprise there, ask yourself how many operations in your facility are the same as they were 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago.Second, like almost everything else in our industry, these newer materials provide a lower cost of operation (or ownership) when compared to older, legacy technology and competing modern materials. These lower costs are always attractive, especially to the leading contract assembly houses.Each of these products is supported by our field sales and technical support team. Based throughout the world near our customers, our team of industry veterans provides the in-depth technical support to improve their operation. During 2006 we have made several additions to our global team, and expect more to come next year.2007 looks to be a very exciting year. Kyzen Asia is growing very rapidly, and is already adding staff to support this growth. More additions are likely next year as Kyzen Asia enters it 12th year of supporting our many customers in East Asia while we celebrate the second anniversary of our East Asia Headquarters in Singapore.Rapid market acceptance of our cleaning materials is expected to continue throughout the year, as East Asia customers continue to demand only the best, modern technology to develop their manufacturing operations around. This includes advanced packaging operations, which are also expanding in every market in East Asia.R&D is expected to continue at an accelerated pace in 2007. Our challenge is to continue the innovation of our technology to meet tomorrow's cleaning needs. It will be a great challenge, and an exciting year!Milara will mainly be focusing on special tight tolerance applications regarding both SMT and semiconductor wafer printing industries. We have a special niche regarding our vibration technology that allows us to print very small apertures with the approximate size of 20 microns yielding nearly 100 percent throughput. We are also looking forward to the advent of 300mm wafer printing and bumping industries. Several of our overseas clients will be making the production shift in which we already have the products developed for their special needs. Substrate printing will be another hot market for us entering 2007. We are currently engineering the rollout of our new substrate printer system that will focus primarily on not only accuracy but volumetric displacement as well. Many potential clients' specific needs are not just alignment of a printed circuit board to a stencil but also accurately controlling the amount of solder paste actually displaced through the stencil onto the substrate. This we see as a viable challenge to our patented technology.We see a resurgence of higher demands put on our semi-automatic printers in which clients are demanding higher resolution for their finer pitch component standalone batch printer needs. For this, we will incorporate automatic vision alignment to remove operator error and ensure robotic alignment for these specific types of applications. We are focusing on making this technology more affordable to these high-mix, low-volume clients.We are also planning to step up the manual printing technologies by creating new semi-automatic auto-vision alignment systems. We have currently developed our new SemiTouch STAV system which is a stand-alone batch printer with automatic vision alignment and have plans in 2007 to apply the same technology to our SemiTouch wafer printing system.Finetech is driven by continuous innovation and is dedicated to improving existing solutions as well as designing new products to keep pace with new developments on the market and at customer sites. Our electronic word is getting smaller, more crowded, vertically integrated and has a higher value per unit area than ever before. Central to these challenges is the need to provide a rework-and-repair process that will achieve the following: (1) Deliver heat only where it is needed. It does no good to rework one component, only to disturb neighboring devices during the process; (2) As area-array features fall below 100 micron, demand for high accuracy in rework systems that provide sub-10-micron placement accuracy will increase; (3) Provide reproducibility from system to system. Surface mount processes are being stretched to their limits and errors will multiply. Rework volumes will increase, multiple units will be necessary all running identical profiles and expecting identical results; and (4) accomplish all of the above in a lead-free environment.In 2007, we will continue to focus on and develop "add-on" modules that address specific rework application needs.As rework becomes more integrated into the workflow, we will further develop newly created workflow software that allows defect data from X-ray inspection equipment to be directly ported to our systems. This allows for quick identification of the defective component without the need for supplemental identification. We expect to work closely with X-ray equipment companies in this endeavor.Rework of the latest advanced package, Package-on- Package (PoP) with its compact size and extremely tight component proximity, makes it difficult to rework without disturbing the many adjacent devices. These devices vertically combine logic and memory packages for additional space savings on PCBs (ideal for use in mobile phones, digital cameras, PDAs and MP3 players). Our custom tooling designs and advanced thermal management will continue to evolve in 2007 to meet these new packaging challenges.In early 2007, we will introduce a new sub-micron placement accuracy bonder that will offer automatic vision alignment and the ability to accommodate larger sized substrates. This system was developed based on current demands, particularly for optoelectronics component placement, such as laser bars, laser diodes, etc.RMD determined that our previously developed technology, using Co57 as the energy source for X-rays, was a superior technology (vs. tube-type energy) for RoHS applications and by adding new features and capabilities, was what the industry was looking for.Aside from the actual XRF (X-ray fluorescence) energy technology used, there were a number of features that we assessed were needed for our new product. Many customers were interviewed and almost every one preferred a scanning area that was not fixed, but could be adjusted by the user. Consequently, we have applied for a patent for what we call the "adjustabeam" feature. The end user can adjust the scan area from very small or large if the application requires it. This is an industry first for a portable, handheld XRF analyzer.Customers also told us that they wanted a product that could give them more than just a surface measurement analysis. So we stayed with our Co57 technology, because it is the only XRF technology that allows for a quantitative measurement of the scanned area. Next we felt the new platform would have to walk-the-talk and itself be RoHS compliant. We heard from many customers that they were concerned about ESD issues and have made the plastic housing ESD-safe. And last we wanted to ensure the new technology was truly portable and could be "brought-tothe- parts." All other XRF scanners require the parts to be brought to the instrument.XRF as a technology application for the electronics industry was very new in 2006. With the onset of end users now taking advantage of a technology that was not previously available to the RoHS initiative, end users have embraced this XRF technology with open arms. We have helped the pioneering effort this past year for the advancement of XRF technologies that are applied to RoHS component screening for electronics manufacturing applications.Because the screening of electronics components by the use of XRF is relatively new to the electronics industry, we see the biggest challenge for us in 2007 is in educating the industry that not all XRF technology is the same.We have always invested in new research and we are actively pursuing other applications of our technology for our electronics business unit. We are in the development stages for additional XRF technologies that go beyond just incoming RoHS inspection.Our marketing and engineering research teams see an exciting opportunity for our technology for all of Asia in 2007.At VJ Electronix, we witnessed a shift from learning and experimenting with lead-free process to early stages of volume production. It is nice to see the fruit of many man years of effort invested by both VJ Electronix and our customers. 2006 has been a year of refinement. With reduced process windows allowed in rework, we focused on optimizing profiles and tightening up machine tolerances even further than before. Features that were once only applied to a few difficult rework operations have become part of standard process.More and more new processes are now originated in centralized NPI (New Product Introduction) centers and later rolled out to multinational production sites. We have worked with several of our customers to assist this progression through central data storage and distribution. Processes and profiles may now be stored on a host (either network PC or rework system). Run-time operations are then validated against data from the host.Our Customer Service group has fielded unprecedented numbers of requests for field upgrades for software and enhanced heating technology. Periodic maintenance and calibration have been required on a more frequent basis to assure optimal performance. We have looked to offer these services as well as to train our customers to be self sufficient.Coinciding with rework was an increased demand for X-ray inspection. The demand was driven by both process control requirements and post-rework inspection. One of the best ways to gage reflow of difficult area array components is to verify consistency in solder ball shape and diameter.X-ray inspection of all BGA, CSP, CCGA and flip chip rework is a necessity. This is especially the case with leadfree alloys. Lead-free alloys have a reduced tendency to self align during reflow. Xray inspection allows alignment verification as well as inspection for solder bridges, insufficient solder and poor wetting.We are anticipating that the challenges from 2006 will be amplified in 2007 with higher demands for throughput, greater challenges for high-mass components and continued emphasis on process control.Early success in lead-free rework process has come with painstaking effort. To compete and become cost-effective, rework must be an integral and reliable part of the manufacturing process. Speed and efficiency of the rework system is not only tied to productivity, but also to reliability of the reworked solder joints. High throughput is only achieved when the process is successful the first time. From an equipment supplier's perspective, it appeared that there were fewer changes in components in the last year (perhaps we were too focused on process). We now see a number of new components from large packages, both CuCGA and PBGA, CPU sockets, and ultra-low impedance connectors. We are forecasting a substantial increase in demand for large field of view systems and upgrades. We have also introduced a high-energy top heater to address thermal challenges of greater mass components.Creative Automation has continued to focus on developing products and techniques for depositing highly repeatable fluid geometries that require extremely small volumes dispensing. The demand for such dispensing continues to grow as package and product sizes become smaller and smaller while features are added. The cornerstone of this capability lies in the patented Piston Positive Displacement Pump that enables the digital dispensing approach. Fluid structures are created pixel by pixel as opposed to the common extrusion valve technologies. We have achieved single pixel volumes of less than 1/4 of a nanoliter. The pump can fire pixels at a rate of up to 90,000 pixels per hour to create highly defined fluid structures and remarkable repeatability.This pump is only half of the story, however. To take advantage of the very small volume dispensing, we have developed exceptional motion control. A height mapping technique is employed to create a detailed topographic map in computer memory of the target dispensing surface. The resolution of the map is determined by the number of height measurements taken before the map is drawn. Height measurements are taken by touch probe or laser measurement. This process allows highly accurate positioning of the pump head in the Z-axis to allow fluid transfer to the substrate without "spitting" material. No fluid satellites or unnecessary spreading of the material is caused.New opportunities for digital dispensing are surfacing each year and we are excited by the potential of our evolving technology. We will continue to search out the most challenging and interesting applications and we will target our research and development to meet those demands.KIC offers technologies that enable electronic manufacturers to better manage their thermal applications such as reflow, wave solder, curing and rework. The applications span from simple product profiling via process optimization to process monitoring and traceability.2006 was a watershed year for the thermal process segment. The implementation of RoHs in Europe forced thousands of electronic manufacturers around the world to improve their thermal process tools and routines. Some of them, who previously had done no or very little product profiling, implemented periodic profiling. Others, who had relied on "trailing wire" profiling, transitioned to the more convenient "wire free" profiling. Many of these also purchased process optimization software that enabled them to position their process deep inside the more narrow lead-free process window, and to do this very quickly. They did this in order to save production downtime and to improve quality, or for the shear convenience of not having to trail the wires.Our process optimization software essentially "googles" the billions of alternative oven recipes for each new product design. It ranks all of these recipes to select the single best oven setup. The user can choose one of three priorities, or a combination thereof: (A) The oven setup that best positions the process toward the center of the process window; (B) Optimize throughput by selecting the recipe with the fastest conveyor speed that still yields an in-spec process; and/or (C) Fastest oven changeover resulting in lower energy consumption of the reflow oven.Other manufacturers moved toward automatic profiling or continuous process monitoring with full-process traceability. Much of this was driven by more demanding customers as well as the lead-free conversation. In other words, lots of electronic manufacturers moved up one or two notches in terms of sophistication to manage their thermal processes. Two trends and technologies within the thermal process segments deserve special attention.The first is what we call automatic profiling. This capability relies on installing a number of sensors directly into the reflow oven. These sensors will measure the thermal profile on a periodic basis (e.g., once every 8 hours). The system runs automatically in the background without any human intervention. Let's face it, the manual task of running all these profiles is one of the least popular and productive tasks for the entire production line. They tend to interrupt production, be labor intensive and error prone, and be expensive in terms of ruined PCBs, TCs, etc. Modern technologies are perfectly suitable to automate these tasks, hence eliminating these negatives. It also fits perfectly with the trend toward more frequent profiling. Because the automatic profiling systems are narrowly focused on this one task, they are very affordable. As a matter of fact, they cost little more than a manual profiler.The second technology is what can be categorized as data intelligence tools, which offer significant value over data acquisition tools. Data acquisition tools are profilers that capture, record and store data, while not concerning themselves too much with how users might take advantage of the data. These tools are software-driven products that not only capture the data, but manipulate, format and present or communicate the data in such a way that they enable customers to better take advantage of the data, and hence they create significant value added.The electronic manufacturers' relentless strive for better quality, lower cost and better customer service (e.g., full-process traceability) will drive the need for data intelligence tools in 2007 and beyond.Practical Components is forecasting continued strong growth in its Asian electronics market and has restructured and streamlined product delivery and customer service for its existing and future customers in the region. We will now service these emerging markets through its office and warehouse facilities in Singapore and an expanded distributor network in the region. We specialize in dummy components, test boards and practice kits that are designed to help engineers qualify their technology and processes, train and grow their business and continue the worldwide migration to lead-free. Practical Dummy Components is the exclusive distributor of mechanical samples for Amkor Technology as well as distributing components from most other leading SMD manufacturers. We distribute both SMT and throughhole components. These components are used in assembly process evaluation, calibration, qualification, thermal profiling, training and other situations where only the mechanical characteristics not the functioning components are required.Mechanical SMT samples can now also be ordered assembled with "dummy" silicon chips inside and can be used successfully and economically for thermal testing applications. These chips have no circuitry or metalization (for wire bonding) and are not electrically connected inside the package to the leadframe or substrate, making them the substrate for cost-effective testing. The dummy die simulates the CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) of a live part without the expense of a functional part.Significant product trends in components include "stacked" packages like PoP stacking allows the OEM greater device, supplier and time to market flexibility by sourcing the bottom and top devices from their preferred logic and memory suppliers and then stacking the devices in the PWB surface mount assembly flow.Hand solder practice kits offer a low-cost, effective method for training and testing employees and are especially useful during the transition to new processes and profiles. Each item is individually bagged and tagged for easy identification making low cost kits suitable for classroom training and practice. Many are IPC compliant.In test boards, there is continued interest in Cookson/ Practical Lead-Free Process Capability Validation Kits that consist of lead-free components and test boards from Practical Components, with Cookson Electronics’ analytical evaluation and process capability validation services to the IPC and J-STD requirements. With RoHS-type legislation coming online in China during 2007 there is a renewed interest in this type of kit.RoHS and WEEE hit with full force during 2006 as expected. Although Polyonics had been teaching and discussing the product marking and labeling issues in the Asian market since 2000, many label companies were still complacent about the impact these mandates would have on label performance. We worked closely with thermal transfer printing companies and ribbon companies to ensure that the printed bar codes would survive the new chemicals and cleaners that would be used in the lead-free manufacturing processes.Many companies are identifying the new compliant products with colored labels, while still using standard white labels to identify standard, non-compliant products. We expect that more companies will be using these colorcoded labels in 2007 and beyond, and see this as a marketing opportunity to differentiate themselves. The larger electronics manufacturers expect specific colors to be available according to their manufacturing specifications.Finally, in response to our customers' needs and requirements, we opened an additional sales office in Shenzhen, China. We plan to offer increased technical service and support for label printers and converters across China through training, seminars and engineering-oriented presentations with applications assistance.In 2007, the space available for marking components, subassemblies and products will continue to shrink, as boards and assemblies do, presenting challenges for label manufacturing and printing operations. Markings must contain ever increasing amounts of information per square inch of allocated space, requiring the use of special highdensity codes such as micro PDF417 and Datamatrix symbologies. These codes are more difficult to print and require the use of high-density printers. Not only is it necessary for the image to be created and available for scanning, but this printed image must also survive the rigors of the manufacturing processes downstream from the labeling operation. A new generation of face sheet materials must emerge for successful marking.In addition to decreased size in the X-Y dimension, labels will become thinner (Z-dimension). These thinner labels will be more difficult to cut by the label manufacturer. The cutting operation will be prone to the label production tooling "nicking the liner" of the release layer, thereby exposing a few paper fibers, which will hinder a label from properly dispensing onto an automatic application device. These thinner materials may also be more costly per label because the films used are not in high-volume production. The new, higher thermal profiles encountered for leadfree soldering may have adverse effects on the current labels and identifiers used in the standard, traditional markings. New cleaning chemistry may wash off the printed image, or even destroy the coating that was so carefully engineered to withstand the rigors of lead-based (lower temperature) soldering processes. Moreover, some of the new soldering chemistry is more acidic than that of the prior generation, exacerbating the degradation of ink and coatings.Different-colored labels (other than white) are being introduced in process to differentiate between the new RoHS/WEEE compliant "green" products or assemblies, and those that are still produced by lead-based soldering. Many companies are identifying the new compliant products with these colored labels, while still using standard white labels to identify standard, non-compliant products. Producing the colors required in the context of the new cleaning technologies cited above presents an ongoing challenge.As we expected, Asia and China in 2006 was still the fastest region of worldwide electronic assembly industry. However, the market is also growing and changing, transiting from a single-variety and large-volume model to a multiple-variety, fast and flexible market. With the advance of this process, Universal Instruments' patented linear motor and Lightning head enable our equipment to provide comparable speed to any high-speed equipment available on the market, while our equipment can place a wide range of components without needing to change placement heads. A platform-based concept enables us to provide a full range of solutions and produce more variety of products without stopping the machine or adjusting the production line.On the other hand, there was a significant characteristic of the market in 2006–more attention was paid to process problems. Electronic technologies are developing very quickly and product updates are continuously increasing the requirements for process. In China and even in Asia, however, the organizations supporting process research are few. Our process lab offers technical support and our various training lectures include the research and solution of reliability and yield problems in traditional process, and the applications of emerging and advanced processes like lead-free, PoP (Package on Package) and Sip (System in Package).In conclusion, 2006 was a strong growth year. Although the growth rate was slightly slower than several years ago, the transition and adjustment of the entire market model is going in a more advanced direction. We can not only keep pace with the market, but also make efforts to lead technology and equipment R&D trends. Therefore, as the market matures, our advantages are embodied more clearly as are the accelerating cyclic growth of our business.In 2007, we expect more fierce competition. For EMS enterprises, whether they can provide more varieties of new products in a reasonable cost range (which may involve a variety of new processes) may prove to be a bottleneck. Smallvolume and multiplevariety of product structure will challenge their ability to adjust their production lines. Many EMS enterprises will review equipment selection standard and principles. Whether equipment and service providers can work with EMS enterprises together to meet these challenges will become a measure of selecting equipment and service providers.We intend to provide full range of solutions rather than pure equipment and products. As our mission, providing process support is what we are good at while supporting flexible production lines is our long-term direction.In 2007, we will introduce our Genesis GC-120 to the market, which is the latest addition of the Genesis series. It is our fastest quad-gantry high-speed machine which can place up to 120,000cph with support of components from 01005 to 30mm square. Its four Lightning heads provides a wide range of component handling capability and it can combine with other models of placement equipment from Universal Instruments to form a full range of solutions meeting the most demanding requirements for throughput from customers.In addition, we shall further drive research on fundamental technologies and prompt the industry by means of technical lectures, application demonstrations and research cooperation with universities.Lloyd Doyle launched IBIS (Interferometric Bump Inspection System) in 2006. IBIS targets the inspection of solder bumps on the die-attach side of chip carriers. The system represented a new departure for the company, being aimed at a different sector of the electronics industry than their range of Automatic Optical Test systems.There are two major technology breakthroughs that make the IBIS system stand out, namely the combination of accurate 2-D and 3-D imaging systems and our ability to process the massive amount of data derived from the interferometry in a short space of time to give the results immediately after scanning.In 2007, we will be focusing their efforts on new developments in the substrate manufacturing arena. This high-technology sector of electronics manufacture is poised to undergo an explosive expansion in Japan, Taiwan and China. With its technology and ability to function at production scale, the IBIS system is well placed to capitalize on this growth. EM