Over 40 leading representatives of industry and academia recently gathered at the National Metals Technology Centre, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, to attend a seminar entitled New Developments in PCB and Interconnect Manufacturing. The event was hosted by EY, and supported by IeMRC and the ICT.

After welcomes and introductions from Dave Williams, Business Development Manager of EY, Dr. Darren Cadman, Research Coordinator of IeMRC and Steve Payne, Chairman of ICT and Professor Martin Goosey introduced the keynote speaker, Professor David Selviah (pictured left) of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London, who explained the objectives of the IeMRC Opto-PCB Manufacturing Project and gave an overview and update of the results and achievements of the project partners: three universities and eight industrial collaborators.

Driven by the need to reduce loss and eliminate crosstalk between copper conductors on high-data-rate backplanes by the use of optical waveguides, but accepting the reality that optics cannot transmit electrical power, the project sought to develop techniques of integrating optical and electronic interconnect into functional structures using processes compatible with those established in printed circuit fabrication. The focus of the OPCB project was to produce a 19-inch PCB with multi-mode waveguides working at up to 10 Gb/s with in-plane butt-connections to VCSEL transmitters and detectors. A variety of techniques and materials had been used in fabricating optical waveguides, including direct laser-writing with a 325 nm Helium-Cadmium laser on photo-polymerisable acrylic resin, laser ablation using Excimer, Nd-YAG and CO2 lasers on acrylic or polysiloxane resins, inkjetting with UV-curable polymer, and photolithography.

In addition to the work on fabrication techniques, methods had been developed for characterisation of waveguide performance, by modelling and by measurement, to enable design rules to be formulated for incorporation into PCB CAD systems. Professor Selviah showed several examples of demonstrator assemblies together with their performance data: crosstalk, optical loss and misalignment tolerance.

Pete Starkey, on behalf of EIPC, gave an introduction to the EU-funded SurfEnergy, IONMET and ProSurf projects. Against a background of the European PCB industry having contracted over the last decade to leave approximately 400 manufacturers producing about 7% of world output--most of these manufacturers being small-to-medium enterprises--the future of the industry lay in innovation, cost reduction and environmental safety. The European Commission had made funding available through FP6 and FP7 Framework Programmes to promote scientific excellence, improved competitiveness and innovation in the field of research and technological development.

The EIPC was involved in three Framework projects: SurfEnergy, a new project to provide advanced tools for surface finishing processes to optimise energy efficiency;  IONMET, a project nearing completion focused on radical new developments in metal finishing using ionic liquid solvent technology; and ProSurf, a recently completed project promoting and supporting SME research and innovation in the surface finishing and printed circuit manufacturing sectors. One outcome of the ProSurf and IONMET projects was the PCB Technology Roadmap report, which was available from EIPC.