April 1, 2008 — Seven months after public introduction of its Organic Metal Nanofinish, Ormecon International says that mass production of printed circuit boards using the coating has begun. According to Ormecon its first customer for the product began mass production on March 26, 2008 with a small number of boards, but in a continuous mode on a regular daily production basis. The production amount will reach 10,000 ft² per month during April and is expected to increase thereafter, eventually to about 100,000 ft² per month.
Ormecon has installed or is in the process of installing seven lines worldwide, in the USA, China, Germany, Korea, and Canada. More than 55 evaluation projects are ongoing, out of which 14 are with OEMs, six with assemblers, and more than 35 with PCB manufacturers.
The majority of the projects is focussed at replacing ENIG (with “OM Nanofinish Top Grade”) or to reduce the Tin thickness in established Immersion Tin processes (using “OM CSN Nanofinish”). These are the two of the in total four different processes which are part of the Nanofinish process family. The other 2 processes are “Common Grade” and “OM Silver Nanofinish”.
The Nanofinish Top Grade is 55nm thick; it promises a much more powerful oxidation protection and solderability preservation than any other established metallic finish — even though, according to Ormecon, traditional finishes are between 6 and 100 times thicker.