Background

This customer was a major manufacturer of HIFU medical devices and equipment. Because we were already working with this company, the DARPA grant required it to seek other vendors for its circuit. The company issued a sincere RFP, but every other vendor returned a no-bid response.

Services & Solutions

The customer’s design called for a fine line (under 2 mil) and very tight registration. These elements, along with the high number of traces, thin total stackup, and required flexibility made it extremely hard to manufacture.

Using an iterative approach, we produced a number of small runs. After each run, we worked closely with the customer to evaluate features and provide recommendations on changes until they had a product they could use. Our team provided a considerable amount of DFM support to the customer to streamline the manufacturing process.

Results

We succeeded where others could not in developing this challenging fine-line circuit, exceeding the customer’s specifications. The success of this project hinged on our ability to find and use the best materials. The Kapton® material we used was an ultra-thin copper. We later learned that we were the only vendor to successfully use this material!