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The CPCA 2008 Show: An Environment for Change
Written by Kathy Nargi-Toth
Thursday, 20 March 2008
SHANGHAI - The CPCA 2008 Show was held for the
second year at the Shanghai New Expo Center. It did not
disappoint. Over 500 exhibitors filled three halls with products
and services related exclusively to the PCB fabrication market.
Equipment dominated halls E1 and E2 as is typical for these events.
Over 44 % of the booths featured equipment. From drilling machine
manufactures like Timax Electronics & Machinery out of Hong Kong to
laboratory measurement tools from the Fischer Asia-Pacific
Group.
The Fischer booth featured a number of
measurement tools, all available in the booth for hands-on evaluations
by the attendees. It was an interesting approach to exhibiting
and the visitors were seen going from machine to
machine, measuring the gold thickness on a PCB or using one of the hand
held tools to check for lead in components to insure RoHS compliance.
It took the concept of interactive exhibits to a new level.
As
in previous years, the first hall was dominated by a handful of large
PCB equipment suppliers. WKK, Mania, Hitachi, Schmoll and Schmid
occupied over 1000 square meters of prime floor space. There was this
year an increased number of local Chinese equipment manufactures as
well, supplying a variety of PCB fabrication tools for cleaning,
plating, etching, scrubbing and even testing. The improving quality of
construction and competitive cost from some of the local manufactures
has increased the utilization of this equipment in the past
12 – 18 months.
This year 12 % of the exhibits
featured products for clean water, air and improved environmental
conservation. Companies like Duraflow from MA in partnership with a
local company are bring state of the art environmental management
solutions from water treatment to full water recycle equipment into
China to meet the increasing stringent waste water treatment demands.
The theme of environmentally friendly processing permeated the event,
and was a carry over from the 11th Electronics World
Convention earlier in the week that also spotlighted environmental
responsibility. Laminate and process chemical companies alike touted
environmentally aware messages, from lead-free and halogen-free
materials to semi-additive and fully additive fabrication
processing.
One interesting new process that
was introducted this week is from Fuji Film. It is a semi-additive
process that provides increased adhesion to epoxy and polyimide films.
According to the literature and information presented in
a technical paper given at the CPCA conference sessions on March 18th,
the process can produce 20 micron lines and spaces, using electroless
copper followed by patterned copper electroplate process and flash
etching using no metallic etch resist. There were a number of papers
also given that the 11th Electronics World Convention on
similar manufacturing methods. The reduced waste aspects and improved
fine line capabilities make these ideal candidate technologies for HDI
manufacturing.
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