On September 29, 2022, the traditional printed circuit board seminar of the Swiss Society for Surface Technology (SGO-SST) took place in Uetikon. PLUS was on site and collected impressions of the event [1].
The coffee break provided time for discussion. Here André Bodegom and Markus Widmer in conversation, next to them Philip Schmid (in the foreground from right to left)After the welcome address by Peter Weber, President of the Board of Directors of the Lake Zurich Shipping Company and former Head of Technology at GS Swiss PCB, Remo Fischer (Operations Manager at Hofstetter PCB AG) ventured a market analysis of European PCB production. He referred to figures from the previous year and current surveys. The ranking of the largest PCB manufacturers comes as no surprise: Würth (Germany), AT & S (Austria) and KSG (Germany and Austria) topped the list in 2021, followed by Schweizer Elektronik (Switzerland, 4th place), Mektec (Germany, 5th place), Unimicron (Germany, 6th place), Elvia PCB (France, 7th place) and Somacis (Italy, 8th place). Swiss companies were again ranked 9th and 10th: Dyconex and GS Swiss PCB. The trend of growing sales of HDI PCBs also continued in 2021.
Philipp Schmid (Head Research and Business Development, CSEM) spoke on a vibrant topic: The opportunities of artificial intelligence for the industry. Schmid traced the development of AI applications since 2015 (when AI was able to defeat human grandmasters in the previously seemingly unconquerable ancient strategy classic 'Go') and showed innovative AI applications for quality assurance in PCB production ('Predictive Quality'). AI can recognize and assess classic errors (e.g. soldering errors) with ever finer and more precise diagnoses - and is getting better at it thanks to deep learning processes [2].
Supply chains are still rattling
Another important topic was then presented by Markus Widmer (Ocean Freight Switzerland and Schenker Switzerland). He dealt with the persistent problem of disruptive supply chains, showed how the situation has changed, how the shortage situation has changed, which known and newly emerging disruptive factors can be identified and which strategies can help to deal with them. Widmer made one thing very clear: "'Just in time' was yesterday." PLUS will be addressing this very topic in the upcoming issue 02/2023.
Benno Uennigmann (Biotronik) spoke about the new 'Medical Device Regulation (MDR)'. Regulation (EU) 2017/745, introduced by the European Council in 2017, poses regulatory challenges for medical device manufacturers and the supplier industry. New classification rules and stricter requirements for product documentation and the evaluation of clinical data are increasing the pressure on small manufacturers in particular, as more documents need to be created. The MDR also affects Switzerland: although not part of the European Economic Area, the Swiss Confederation introduced corresponding regulations (CH-MDR) based on the Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA).
Improving overall process control
The audience's attention was fully focused on the presentations - and PLUS was on hand for the breaksAcomprehensive presentation was given by André Bodegom (Managing Director of Adeon Technologies). He spoke about the necessary integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in design, PCB production, IC substrates and EMS. This requires improved overall process control with the aim of greater traceability and self-learning algorithms.
The successful seminar concluded with a keynote speech by extreme sportsman Dani Arnold, who reflected on danger, adrenaline and decision-making - with impressive images of his conquests of mountains and glaciers [3].
Did Arnold want to encourage the European PCB industry to be more daring and make clearer decisions? One could almost interpret his contribution that way. The SGO-STT event ended on a suitably lively note, once again demonstrating its keen sense for current issues in the PCB industry.
www.sgo-sst.ch/home-de.html, www.daniarnold.ch
References
[1] Photographs, unless otherwise stated: Alfred Kraft (Leuze Verlag)
[2] A two-part research article on this topic was recently published by the Center for Microtechnical Production (TU Dresden), see PLUS issues 10/2022 and 11/2022
[3] Dani Arnold: www.daniarnold.ch. Image with kind permission
