As 2019 draws to a close, I’d like to take a moment to thank our customers, suppliers, and colleagues for a great year. Every year, I wonder what the new year will bring. It’s a dynamic marketplace and it takes strong relationships to leverage the opportunities and mitigate the challenges. Thank you for your continuing support.
May you have a very enjoyable holiday season with your families. I wish you the best in 2020.
Patrick
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- Fabricators Shout Out about Insulectro & Its Amazing Materials
- Twin Cities PE Seminar Smoking Hot
- How DuPont Pyralux® Handles Both Ends of the Thermometer
- Excess Squeeze Out Got You Down? You Need Pacothane!
- Cyber Threat is Real! Time to Step Up Your Security
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“The Insulectro team does an
outstanding job on partnering
with ASC to solve a variety of issues – technical, supply chain and customer design concerns.”
Anaya Varda
President & CEO
American Standard Circuits
West Chicago, IL
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And Another FAB SHOUT OUT!
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Mark Lynaugh
Purchasing/Scheduling Manager
MultiCircuits
Oshkosh, WI
“
Thank you to Insulectro for
consistently delivering quality materials
and for being
such a reliable company to do business with
. We appreciate your partnership!
”
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Ken Parent Speaks Out!
Insulectro -
Enabling Future Circuits
As another year and decade rolls to an end, I want to reflect on the success we have experienced at Insulectro in 2019 due to the
hard work of our teammates, our customers and our suppliers
. It is because of you that Insulectro looks forward into the next decade and we know we have
many reasons to be optimistic about our future
.
Many of the customers and suppliers that I speak with talk about great times ahead in North American Printed Circuit Board and Printed Electronic Manufacturing markets. I agree as I see
evidence everywhere of plans being made for growth
. I see people being hired, equipment being purchased, increased capacity, improvements in technical capabilities and automation of processes and systems.
These are some of the best times I have witnessed in the business.
We, too, are planning for success. Insulectro
continues to hire and invest in our people and processes
to better support you - thanks largely to the support we count on and receive from you.
I look forward to meeting with you at
IPC 2020
and invite you to stop by our booth to talk about what you see impacting your business. I am anxious to
learn about your future
and how we can
help you achieve your 2020 goals
. Insulectro and our suppliers have big plans for IPC 2020, and we want you to join us. Thank you for trusting us with your business.
I wish you all the best Holiday Season!
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Ken Parent
VP of Sales & Product Management
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It’s beginning to look like Christmas!
Isola is awaiting delivery of their new, state-of-the art LCM laminate presses this month. The supporting equipment
has been delivered and construction is in full swing
proving a home for the newest investment being made by Isola – Group. The
three, ten-opening presses will have the capability to produce the 48”X54” sheet sizes in demand
for the High Speed Digital back plane market. Isola expects that this QTA facility will
operational second quarter 2020.
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Oh by gosh, by jolly, it's time for mistletoe and holly!
Norm Berry
Director of Laminates & OEM Marketing
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HOT
SEMINAR ON PRINTED ELECTRONICS IN
FREEZING
TWIN CITIES DECEMBER 11
Insulectro Printed Electronics held a full-day technical seminar on PE to a capacity crowd at its Eden Prairie, MN location
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
. The seminar was presented by key DuPont, Coveme, and Hytek executives as well as Insulectro technical teammates who specialize in PE.
The program, which focused on
conductive inks, IME, wearables, and substrates
as well as Insulectro's newly rolled out
Design & Education Services,
attracted OEMs and fabricators during a frigid Midwest winter's day at
8
degrees
.
Insulectro plans future Technical Seminars on a variety of topics in various locations. Contact Cheryl Woodbury -
cwoodbury@insulectro.com
- to stay on the list.
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Kevin Miller
VP of Sales, Printed Electronics
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Pyralux® FR Handles the Heat
Pyralux® FR offerings are the answer to
flame retardant demands
for Flex applications which require adhesives. The flame-retardant properties of the FR adhesive partnered with a high decomposition temperature are the reasons for its
successful track record in thermally demanding environments
. Pyralux® FR Acrylic adhesives offer great adhesion to Kapton®, 2 years of shelf life and most importantly
maintain dynamic flex capabilities
. The acrylic adhesive is specially formulated for a variety of products including bond ply, coverlay, sheet adhesive and copper clad laminates (RA copper or ED copper).
Pyralux® LF Keeps it Cool
For colder demanding operating environments Pyralux® LF has a
proven track record in cryogenic environments with low outgassing
. Also offered with a specially formulated acrylic adhesive, the Pyralux® LF composites are offered in bond plys, coverlays, sheet adhesives and copper clad laminates (RA copper or ED copper). Pyralux® laminates are
the only choice to enable high reliability, high density circuitry for flex applications
.
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I'm bending over backwards to keep you flexible.
Geoffrey Leeds
Flex Product Manager, Insulectro
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Industry Veteran Kevin Barrett Hired as Insulectro Technical Account Manager for Chicagoland
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Insulectro has announced it has
hired Kevin Barrett as a Midwest TAM based out of Chicago who will also manage the Dallas accounts, Indiana, and some local accounts as well.
For the past 5 years he had worked for Technica as Midwest Regional Sales Manager and National Service and Parts Manager. In addition to managing all products in the region for Technica, in his National role he managed all new Wise equipment sales (and former IS pre 2003), equipment Rebuild/PM’s, and spare parts so he knows just about every shop in the country.
Prior to his time with Technica Kevin spent 14 years at Hamlett and Smith out of Milwaukee covering the Midwest. Prior to the previous outside sales roles he worked inside local Chicago PCB fabs including his brother Craig’s shop Tek-Tronics.
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Canada Style!
Insulectro Technical Seminar
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On November 21
st
, Insulectro held their
first Canadian Technology Seminar
in Toronto Ontario, showcasing key suppliers
Pacothane, JX Nippon, TADCO and LCOA
, as well as an introduction to
Design & Education
.
Participants were
welcomed by Insulectro President & CEO Patrick Redfern
who stressed that Insulectro is a multi-generational, family business and its
long-term commitment to supporting the Canadian electronics market is unwavering
.
With expected growth in the Canadian market, Insulectro will host further seminars as just
one of our commitments to bring the latest technology and products to our customers
. Canada is an important and valued market that Insulectro is delighted to be a part of. We look forward to growing our business through the assistance of our valued customers and suppliers.
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Geraldine Arseneau
Insulectro Drill Product Manager
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Manufacturers are continuing to
drive phosphorus out
of their manufacturing process.
ILC-PF
allows you to get
excellent surface cleaning and chromate removal of your inner layers before dry film lamination while eliminating phosphoric acid
. The proprietary formulation also creates better adhesion between the dry film and the copper than typical cleaners. This can be very helpful especially on shinny foil product. This is not a micro-etch, so it is
ideal for maintaining a smooth copper surface
for high speed and RF applications.
I'm pretty serious about this. If you would like to see how we could improve your inner-layer pre-cleaning process, please contact me.
Jeff Johnson
Product Manager - Dry Film/Chemistry/Paste & FAE
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The People Behind the Puma
Meet Jose Garcia
Insulectro Field Application Engineer - Silicon Valley
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Personal Comment:
My full name is
Jose Alonzo Garcia
and I am from a 4.6 square-mile town of Lamont, California that holds about 15,000 people.
I am the
first natural born US Citizen of a 7-person household
. My family originates from Michoacan, Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 1985. I
started working at the age of 14 harvesting grapes
up until I was about 17 years old.
Soon after, I
began going to community college and eventually graduating from San Jose State University
while supporting myself by working various jobs over the years. These jobs included: A watermelon packing shed, Subway, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and eventually
landing my first engineering job at Streamline Circuits
in Santa Clara, CA as a Wet Process engineer.
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Jose has a great story to tell. . .
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What do you find to be the most challenging part of being a FAE?
The most challenging part about being a FAE is time management between customer-to-customer needs. There is no telling when your assistance may be needed and at times you are needed at multiple locations at once. So, knowing how to juggle time is definitely very challenging at times.
If you had to pick among attending a ballet, a football game, a bike ride, a great dinner, or a night of Netflix as a perfect activity, which would you pick, and why?
I grew up playing organized football as a kid up until my late teen years, which is why I would choose a football game as a perfect activity.
What is your “go-to guilty” food?
McDonalds is most definitely my go-to guilty food.
What did you want to be when grew up?
As a kid, I wanted to be involved in the entertainment industry.
Who has been the most influential person in your life, and why?
My dad has been the most influential person in my life. In a quick snapshot of his entire life, he grew up in an extremely poor environment in Mexico and sometimes had to sleep on park benches. Throughout his life he was approached with offers to make a quick dollar. Being the man that he is, he never took the shortcut and always found a way to provide for himself and his family while maintaining his moral principles.
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Do you have any favorite stories from school?
My most favorite would be giving my mom my SJSU Bachelors degree.
What are three pet peeves for you?
1) People not taking ownership for their actions, 2) Rude people, and 3) People chewing loudly
If you weren’t in the electronics industry, what would you be doing?
I would probably be working in the Oil and Gas industry
Have you had a role model at any stage of your life?
Family-wise, my dad. Outside of family, I would say Cesar Chavez (
Latino American civil rights activist) since we share a similar background.
If you were born an animal, what kind would you be?
A tiger.
What is your favorite music?
Any genre that I feel has great rhythm and great lyrical content.
Name three words that describe you?
Dependable, resilient, kind.
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What’s your favorite television show or movie?
My favorite movie is
Goodfellas.
What surprised you the most when coming to Insulectro?
The various products we work with.
What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started work at Insulectro?
Best thing that happened was learning a lot of information I had not known about circuit boards outside of my initial Wet Process engineering background.
What advice would you give a “new-hire” at Insulectro?
Ask a lot of questions and do not try to learn everything in one day. It is a marathon not a sprint.
What is your earliest memory?
Being picked on by my older siblings.
How would you like to be remembered?
I would like to be remembered as someone who impacted people’s lives for the better
What are your hopes for the future?
To bring awareness to friends and family about positively impacting themselves which in turn leads to helping others. This involves having long-term goals versus making short term decisions for instant gratification.
What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?
The most embarrassing thing I have ever done was going to my first day of work at a watermelon packing shed as a teen and awkwardly falling in front of the entire staff on my very first day and everyone laughed at me
.
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What would your work teammates and customers be surprised to know about you?
That I was a very good Saxophone player.
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Insulectro Design & Education Educates Designers on Materials Sets
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Insulectro VP of Technology Chris Hunrath put on a great materials presentation to the
Cascade IPC Designers Council in the greater Seattle area
recently. Insulectro continues to focus on educating designers throughout the country to ensure they
understand different materials sets
they are designing with.
As Printed Circuit boards become increasingly more complex, the
material becomes more than just an outlet to place copper circuits on
. The attributes of the dielectric being used become important with respect to
signal and power integrity along with thermal needs
. Insulectro wants to become a resource not just to fabricators but also
during the design stage to ensure revision one works and is easily manufacturable
. If you want to schedule a materials presentation or have any materials questions please reach out!
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Dryfilm Product Manager & FAE Jeff Johnson has worked with
Bella Lapitnsky and David Carmody of San Diego PCB Design
to come up with a
dryfilm donut ring adhesion test vehicle
. One of the struggles in testing dryfilm adhesion is we typically rely on our
fabricators' tough panels
to quantify any process or dryfilm changes.
These types of designs will vary shop to shop
and make it difficult to quantify best practices.
Essentially Jeff and Bella have
gerber files with donut pattern of varying sizes to determine the ‘break point’ in the process
. With this, it will be
easier to quantify the results of any DOE
being completed at your fabricator house. If you’d like this design please reach out to Jeff
<jjohnson@insulectro.com>
.
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Megan Teta
Design & Education - Product Manager, FAE
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From the Frontlines of Cybersecurity
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They say that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out. I wonder, if the average business owner knew twenty-five years ago what was coming with respect to
cyber threats
for “connected” businesses, would they have remained disconnected?
Cybersecurity breaches are increasing in both severity and quantity every day. An FBI cybersecurity professional stated that for
every cyber-criminal that they find and take down, three more appear
. Cybersecurity Ventures reports that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015. Beyond these statistics,
cybersecurity issues are becoming a day-to-day struggle for businesses
. 57% of companies experienced social engineering or phishing attacks, and the average cost of a data breach in the United States is now $8.2Million.
At Insulectro, we took
numerous steps in 2019 to improve our cybersecurity posture
. We made substantial investments in security awareness training, process improvements, as well as modern security systems that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect and protect our network from threats. We know that in the current cyberworld,
no one is ever 100% protected
, but we are taking a
strong, proactive stance with respect to cybersecurity.
Has your email address (personal or professional) been compromised
by a known cyberattack? Find out for yourself
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
- this is a legitimate webtool that will alert you to any breached databases that might have your information.
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Kathy Linares
VP of Information Technology
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Entrapment, voids, or
too much squeeze out?
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Do you suffer from air entrapment in your flex coverlay, voids in your laminations, too much squeeze out from your via holes?
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PACOTHANE offers a
wide selection of conformables, release films and pads
to help you make
void-free flexible and rigid circuits
! See our new product selection guide (above) to help decide which of our products would work best for your application. Or you can always call me – I love to help you with solutions to your tough problems!
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To learn more about Pacothane's exceptional line of lamination assist products, contact me!
I'd be tickled to talk to you.
Joe Bevan
Product Manager, Pacothane Products
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Ormet® Paste for Z-Interconnects
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We are seeing a
rise in interest
in Ormet® for z-axis interconnects. This is being driven by the usual suspects including
aspect ratio, plating capacity as well as process time.
Being able to
electrically link layers during lamination
can be a game changer, not only in processing, but design. There are some things that are
difficult or impossible with traditional laminate and plate processes
.
As we work though the needs of a certain designs, we have found that
I-Tera® MT40 prepreg
has the right flow and fill characteristics for proper adhesion while tolerating the tacking process. (see picture below). I-Tera® MT40 has the added benefit of low signal loss, 10x lamination cycle capable and low moisture absorption.
We are looking forward to working though some of these new designs.
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Let's get you pasted!
Chris Hunrath
Vice President of Technology
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Slash Your Drill Room Costs to the Bone!
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Our premium product line of SlickBack® and Bullseye® should be looked at in every drill room for
improving quality and reducing the OVERALL cost to manufacture a PCB
. With high speed laminates, sub-lamination processing, blind/buried via layers, quick turn, prototype and MUST ship orders, the
need for a premium Entry and Exit system in drill is essential
to success in every factory.
Adding Bullseye® to your process, the best entry material available, will
improve hole location across the full diameter range
. Adding SlickBack® to your process, the best exit material available, will
improve hole wall roughness, reduce wicking, reduce glass fracture and improve the overall quality of the drilled hole.
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LCOA wants to prove that our material will
improve throughput, yield, quality and reduce the need to start that REMAKE order
. We want to come in and prove that our premium products will improve your drill process and improve the performance of every process after drill.
Are you interested?
Combining these two premium products in your process will provide a wider process window, minimizing opportunities for problems created at drill.
Let us bring our technical team to your shop and PROVE to you that our products will make your drill room run better and lower your overall cost by getting it done right the first time!
CALL US TO SETUP YOUR PROCESS REVIEW AND FIND OUT WHAT WE CAN DO TO PROVE OUR CLAIMS!
Geraldine Arseneau
Insulectro Drill Product Manager
Paul St. John
LCOA Director of Sales
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Isola Sees Surge in I-Tera® MT40 Demand
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Isola has recognized the
surge in demand
for I-Tera® MT40 and the QTA demands of the North American marketplace in 2019 and has responded by
lowering manufacturing lead times
and
building a substantial, standardized inventory available for immediate shipment
.
I-Tera® MT40 is
suitable for many of today’s high speed digital and RF/microwave printed circuit designs
and features a dielectric constant (Dk) that is stable between -55°C and +125°C up to W-band frequencies.
In addition, I-Tera® MT40 offers a lower dissipation factor (Df) of 0.0031 making it a
cost effective alternative to PTFE
and other commercial microwave and high-speed digital laminate materials.
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Call me! You know you wanna.
Norm Berry
Director of Laminates & OEM Marketing
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Everyday Materials You Need, On Our Shelves Every Day
Insulectro recognizes the importance of maintaining adequate inventory to begin work.
Designers know when you need it, you need it.
Using the link
getpumafast.com
, you can see what PumaFast™ and standard materials we stock to get you up and running.
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We are taking our ACT!
to another level!
Insulectro and our partners are moving the chains to
help our customers exceed performance goals
. Our team of professional and technical resources are now offering our customers access to design and education services.
This is a Game Changer!
Our ACT! Initiatives combined with our design and education services provide our customers a
total solutions package with a one-stop-shop option
.
Our
customers now have total access
to not only our Insulectro foot print, best in class products, materials on the shelf when you need them; but also the expertise to
deliver solutions from design to delivery…FAST!
Come ACT! With us!
There's a reason I'm smiling.
Ron Murdock
ACT! Manager & Technical Account Manager
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To be the easiest company to do business with. . .
Insulectro has a program for
continual improvement
, all designed to make ourselves as
user-friendly as possible to our customers, their customers, and our suppliers
. Speed Matters, so we focus a lot of attention on getting you the materials you need as quickly as possible.
Our
PumaFast™ Program
lists current inventory of everyday materials you need every day.
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Best-in-Class Materials
from our Premier Suppliers
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