Choosing the right 'option' for Mass Lam

Outsourcing is all about partnership, reliability and trust, so there are few options for mass lam that work as well as having your own in house service. At Ventec Option the mass lam offering has developed and grown to suit the needs of the market and to reflect the high service levels that Ventec customers have come to rely on.

The mass lam market is one of those outsourced sectors of the PCB fabrication process that requires flexibility, agility, and most of all a real understanding of what the customer needs. My three decades of experience as a multilayer engineer have helped define what we provide to our customers.

We're a solution provider first and foremost, with the expertise to handle high layer counts, fine lines, small holes, exotic materials and complex stack-ups. The market demands quick turn around: from one working day for Europe, and two working days for North America. Three days is pretty standard and occasionally we provide eight hours if customers are really under pressure. Customers need to know that a vendor won't take on what they can't deliver, and that they can achieve tight tolerances and high yields while saving them time and trouble. Volume demand is variable too. Fabricators need to order from one panel upwards and still be able to get a good price on orders of more than 500 panels. They need to be assured that those higher volumes, typically beyond local capacity and cost models, can be done seamlessly, with the tooling, engineering and pre-production done regionally, before the higher volume is bought in from Asia, as in the partnership between Ventec Option and Ventec Taiwan, all with continuity of supply, materials and approval.

Having drilling and lamination from one vendor is also important. If the supplier takes responsibility for drilling what they have laminated, the customer can be confident that the drill-to-pattern registration is right. You need to insure that with real-time X-ray inspection and 100% AOI of inner layers. I don't think any domestic US laminator provides that service. Without it, it's hard to guarantee 100% good boards, with no X-outs.

A good outsourcing partner needs to be good at what they do and properly set up to provide the service you require to feel like a seamless part of your supply chain. They need to understand the technology and be able to communicate at the engineering level as well as at a commercial level. The number and complexity of set-ups continues to increase, so the best in front-end technical expertise and CAM facilities are essential. The whole process needs to be scaled and engineered for small-batch, high-mix, quick-turn production, with the right controls and quality systems in place. The North American market's characteristics are similar to those of the European customers with perhaps modestly higher order quantities, but with the same technology and reliability demands.

I'd want me vendor to be part of a bigger group. We were purchased by Ventec as part of their strategic plan to broaden their integrated supply chain concept. It gave us not only security and consistency of supply and material quality, but also has an impact on cost as there aren't multiple margins to contend with, so we can be more price-competitive on small volumes. We also gained global access to the skills and expertise of the Ventec network, as well as full sales and technical support and local presence through Jack Pattie's Ventec USA team.

For more information about Ventec Option, please visit www.option.co.uk