Introduction

In the North American market there are some dramatic changes in landscape, as we see the migration of manufacturing to the Far East particularly to China. Most of the big runners are made overseas. There are certain categories of products that remain in North America. These are primarily the prototype boards, the large backplane (>40 layers), and the boards for military use. These boards are classified as high value added. The prototype boards require very elaborate front-end engineering to bring the part to its final configuration in a reasonable time frame. Prototype boards are never made in numbers, but they may go through a series of iterations before finalization. These boards cover wide range of complexity with some being highly sophisticated with high layer count, small holes, and buried and blind laser drilled vias. Less than 3 mil lines and spaces and “Via Fill” are first encountered here.

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