WATERLOOVILLE, UK – Jiva, a sustainable materials business in Waterlooville, has enjoyed a busy start to the year.

The company has raised £245,206 through an oversubscribed online crowdfunder to drive development of Soluboard – the world’s first recyclable laminate for printed circuit boards (PCBs), a key component in electronic devices.

Following a rigorous audit, Jiva also recently achieved the prestigious ISO 9000:2015 accreditation – testament, says CEO Steve Driver, to “our team’s relentless commitment to quality, innovation, and operational excellence.

Steve Driver“This achievement sets a strong foundation for growth, enhancing trust and credibility with our partners and clients.

“Huge congratulations to the team for making this happen!”

These are just the headlines for a busy month at the company, which has also seen them meet with representatives from motor maker Daimler-Benz and Germany’s Wurth Electronics to explore integration of Jiva’s materials into their respective manufacturing processes.

Meanwhile, Jiva has welcomed two new team members – quality manager Alan Green, who brings 57 years of experience in PCB manufacturing, and marketing and IT specialist Alina Costrasel.

“With Alan as the wise sage of the team and Alina as the youngest trailblazer ready to revolutionize our digital strategies, we now have the perfect blend of experience and youthful creativity,” Steve added.

“Together, they’re bound to keep us balanced – whether it’s ensuring top-notch quality or shaking things up with cutting-edge ideas.

“Welcome to the team, Alan and Alina – we’re thrilled to have you both on board.”

Last year, Jiva inked a knowledge transfer partnership with the University of Portsmouth to test natural fibres – such as jute, flax and hemp – for use as potential laminate materials.

LEOBEN, GERMANY – Apprenticeship Day on January 22 at AT&S in Leoben was a complete success. In the morning, school classes with a total of 140 pupils and specialist teachers visited the Styrian microelectronics specialist’s company headquarters. At the public event in the afternoon, all other interested parties were given the most important information – more than 60 young people and their parents and families took advantage of this opportunity.

The complex world of high-quality IC substrates and printed circuit boards, which have essential functions in smartphones, laptops, drones and smartwatches, among other things, was explained in simple language by AT&S experts: in “Erlebniswelt”, during lectures, at the stations of the individual apprenticeships and during line tours through production – high-tech up close. The award-winning copper recycling plant was also visited, as waste water technology will be a new and highly interesting apprenticeship at AT&S from September.

Eduard Lackner, HR Manager Austria: “We have a wide range of apprenticeships and want to use apprenticeship training to ensure that we have the best-trained specialists after the apprenticeship to support us in our further development as a company.”

Applications are now open in the career portal on the AT&S website www.ats.net. There you will find detailed descriptions of the apprenticeships currently being sought, including the apprenticeship with Matura model.

Advanced Chip and Circuit Materials, Inc. (ACCM) will be showing its high-performance circuit materials, including its Celeritas Series laminates and prepregs at the DesignCon 2025 exhibition (Santa Clara, CA). The US-based manufacturer will be on hand January 28-30, 2025, at Booth #901 with samples of its Celeritas SF and Celeritas BU products in support of PCIe Gen 6 & 7 multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs) with data rates reaching 224 Gb/s per channel.

ACCM’s Vice President Marketing, Michael Gay, explained the importance of circuit materials with such high performance and outstanding stability, even in hostile operating environments: “We are confident that PCB designers will find that our skew free Celeritas SF material solution will enable use of on board copper channels to achieve 224 Gbps data rates.” The materials feature halogen-free, PFAS-free composition with minimal skew and low z-axis coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and can be processed with standard FR-4 circuit material processes and equipment. They are engineered high reliability in HDI and UHDI applications requiring superior thermal cycling capability.

For further information about ACCM and its product lines, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Press Contact:

Jaime Leger

Leger Communications

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(m) 401-487-8566

Register now for PCB East, The Electronics Industry’s East Coast Conference and Exhibition. Coming April 29-May 2 to the Boston suburbs. pcbeast.com

KEMPEN, GERMANY – Peters has put the second SUSS LP50 ‘Pixdro’ inkjet printer into operation. This machine enables the application of solder resist in digital additive technology by means of the inkjet process, thus providing Peters Research, in this relatively new segment, with more possibilities in research and process technology, in addition to the conventional coating processes (screen printing, curtain coating and spray coating).

By means of this second inkjet printer, the R&D department of the ink manufacturer from the Lower Rhine is able to simulate projects from industrial customers in their own laboratories, push forward the qualification process and make reliable recommendations. “Its print head is the same, so a laboratory project will also work on industrial printers equipped with several print heads of this type,” says Kevin Poth, ELPEPCB® Project Manager at Peters, describing the benefit of a purchase.

“Thanks to the precise positioning and small droplet volumes, inkjet printing is suitable for a variety of applications, such as printed electronics, printed circuit boards or semi-conductor assembly,” explains service engineer Leon van Lieshout from the Eindhoven-based manufacturer SUSS MicroTec. Among the main features of the Pixdro there is robustness, process control, user-friendliness and precision, says the Dutchman who has just set up the printer at Peters with a team of three engineers.

Electrical properties optimised

The bottom line is that with the solder resist for digital inkjet printing, Peters is highlighting its decades of expertise as a supplier of high-quality electronic coatings, and is now continuing to focus on this new card. By means of the Samba Dimatix print head, the ink is sprayed in the same way as with an inkjet printer and selectively applied to the circuit board. Besides protecting against corrosion and mechanical damage, the solder resist optimises the electrical properties of the PCB. The solder resist has already withstood solder processes without any problems and has therefore already fulfilled its first essential service.

Inkjet printers and the ELPEPCB® solder resists from the Elpejet® IJ 2467 series enable new PCB layouts and interesting resist geometries. By the so-called “digital drop-on-demand” technology, the solder resist is applied selectively. Compared to conventional application methods such as screen printing, spray coating or curtain coating in conjunction with exposure and development steps, the process is simplified and accelerated, which reduces the material consumption significantly.