EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Revolutionizing Screen Printing: Stentech’s BluePrint Technology with President & COO Brent Nolan
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Discover the game-changing advancements in stencil manufacturing with Brent Nolan, President & COO of Stentech Holdings as he explains the thinking behind their award-winning BluePrint technology. Learn how Stentech is tackling long-standing screen printing challenges with precision engineering and innovative solutions.
Join Brent and I as we explore the evolution from traditional polymer coatings to Stentech’s groundbreaking metal coating technology. By utilizing ion sputtering and vapor deposition, Stentech has developed a metal coating that is just 200 nanometers thick, setting new standards for accuracy and durability in stencil applications. Brent shares the journey of creating BluePrint, a product that is transforming the assembly process and winning awards. Brent underscores how Stentech’s commitment to problem-solving and technological excellence is paving the way for the future of screen printing, thanks to their large experienced engineering team.
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I am here at SMTA Guadalajara 2024, and I'm on the booth of Stentec Talking to Brent. Nolan Brent, great to chat to you, great to chat. I wanted to start with a quick introduction to Stentec, and then I wanted to get into a couple of the products, particularly the one that you've won a couple of awards for recently, sure, so give me a quick intro.
Speaker 2So Stentec is North American based. We're focused on North American manufacturing and supporting the EMS market generally. We do outside of that, we also have semiconductor support and other but I would say our focus is North American SMT and we're really focused on and you know we're really focused on technology and stencils, tooling and parts across the board, Stencils in general and what we're going to talk about. Today. The market is so segmented that it's very hard. You know, a guy buys a laser, puts it in a place and he's in the business, but there's so many problems that need to be solved in our industry and so our real focus is and really one of our core values is we need to be able to solve problems. So we are the largest in North America, but it's really about the girth to have the resource to go and be able to do that, Because it costs money and the technology to be able to solve those problems.
Speaker 2So that is our focus. We have 18 facilities across Canada, us and Mexico. We have roughly 330 people, 90 of them are engineers.
Speaker 1Okay, so the core of our business is about solving problems. Yeah, and it's listening to the customer and understanding those problems and solving them. And I think what's fascinating is we've known for a long time that screen printing is where most of the problems start so resolving those is important. Tell me a little bit about Blueprint, the new product. You've got a Mexico Technology Award, but you also got the Circuits Assembly NPI Award.
Speaker 2Yes, absolutely, and the same award in the US. So you know again solving problems, and I was part of the development of really the first polymer coating that came out, which was a great advancement, right?
Speaker 2I mean, okay, we can get more volume and it's a, it's a ceramic polymer coating, yeah. And then we move to what we have now advanced nano, which is a modified silicon yeah, so that we could thermally cure it right where the customer basically, yes, it's great, but I need it faster. So, so we could thermally cure it right when the customer basically, yes, it's great, but I need it faster. So we developed that. But at the end of the day, they all have, they're very susceptible to the harshness of the assembly process, the cleaning process and everything else. So what we saw is you know, they're great, they would start out, but then you would start to see the CPK and degradation of the product.
Speaker 2So we really started looking at what's next and so we focused on, you know, ion sputtering, vapor deposition. You know, really taking a solid metal and reassembling it on to the stencil and that's what Blueprint is. It's roughly about 97% metal. Okay, and it's done in a vacuum, high heat, so the purity of the substrate is done. It's fully automated. There's no process to manage. But, and not only that, the thickness of it was always an issue. Right, you have to make modifications in CAD and things. So the old polymer coatings are roughly three to five microns. This is 200 nanometers.
Speaker 1Wow, right, so it's a thousand times thinner, yeah, and does that mean you can successfully put it on the inside edges of the aperture as well as on the surface of the stencil?
Speaker 2That's the other. So, the way that all of the polymers are done and we've gone through ultrasonic spray heads and all the other stuff but an aperture or the aspect ratio, you're always going to get a taper. If you're spraying a liquid, you can spray, but it's always going to taper down, which was the thicker the metal, the greater the taper. This is assembled, it's self-assembled. This is assembled, it's self-assembled. And so the surface thickness, the knee and all the way to the bottom of the aperture, is the exact same thickness, which makes a difference for consistency and everything else. The hardness of this is roughly nine times the hardness of Teflon. It's very hard. It was developed. The material that we're Applying was developed for downhole drilling right, so I figured yeah.
Speaker 1We're going to the center of the earth, yeah so it should be okay.
Speaker 2We launched roughly two and a half months ago. With this product we've been serving the semiconductor and our customers there Obviously went through a long process to qualify and the robustness of it through all of their harsh processes never degraded. So you know it's a little bit different, so you know, you've got a product that works.
Speaker 2It works. So let's figure out how to put it on the SMT stencil, which we've done, how to put it on the SMT stencil, which we've done and, like I said, we launched. Customers are getting the product in their hand, seeing the difference in not just the performance of that but the longevity and the CPK numbers. Just don't change, yeah.
Speaker 1Well, that's great. And these days they're getting that real-time feedback from the SPI system. They can see exactly what the performance is. They could see that degradation they were having before. You could reduce those clean cycles and reduce the time for replacement sensors.
Speaker 2It makes a big difference. Like you were saying, we all know what the problems are, but nobody's stepping forward to solve them, and so that is our core focus. We have a group that does nothing but innovation and progress.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's why you've got, you know, a third of your team, or more than a third of your team of engineers, brent. It's a great product. It's an interesting business. We're here in Mexico. The Mexican market is important in the Americas at the moment. You know, in CapEx it's probably 50 or 60 percent of what goes on in North America. How is that? In terms of stencils, a similar level of yes.
Speaker 2So in North America it's MPI. We know every new MPI project is going to lead to multiple revisions before it gets to limited rate and goes through the gates, so we don't consume on a new product anywhere from six to 12 stencils. Yeah, so that it's a dynamically different they may be printing three right, and that's it, and that's it.
Speaker 2In the Mexico market. It's different. It's it's production. There is some MPI that's happening here now, which is good, but but most of its production, so this product really resonates with that group here in Mexico. So, yeah, it's a good market. We love it. We love participating in it and helping solve some of the problems.
Speaker 1Yeah, brent, congratulations on the product, congratulations on the award and thanks for talking to me. Thank you.