PCB Manufacturer, Domestic Circuit Board Production and Prototype

G R O W T H & F I N A N C I A L S T R E N G T H

Production & Prototype Saturn Electronics Corporation, is a Top 30 domestic PWB Fabricator managing the nuances between Quick-Turn Prototype Boards and High-Volume PCB Production while offering industry-leading Lead Free circuit boards that meet RoHS compliance.

Financial StrengthSaturn Electronics Corporation keeps bank debt at a zero balance. Our building and equipment are fully paid. Our financial strength has resulted in relationships with the largest suppliers in our industry-- as we are able to meet their latest demands through the continuous reinvestment of technologically-advanced equipment.

Growth Saturn Electronics Corporation owns controlling interests in three PCB facilities (Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta), which enhances purchasing power and safeguards production.

Industries ServedWe service a wide variety of customers with needs that vary from 5 pieces to tens of thousands of pieces. Our customers’ needs range from medium to fine line technology with delivery requirements from one day to three weeks. We have provided solutions for the following industries:

l Aerospacel Automotivel Defensel Gamingl High-Precision Scalesl Gamingl Membrane Switchesl Medicall RF-Microwavel Telecommunications

Company ContactsNagji Sutariya President/QC Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected] Sutariya VP Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected] Sutariya VP Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected] Sutariya VP Corporate Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected] Salam Customer Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

C E R T I F I C A T I O N

AS9100 Saturn was one of the first PCB Fabricators to attain AS9100 Certification.

ITAR Saturn recently became a registered ITAR PCB Manufacturer ensuring that documentation, training and proper procedures are employed in the handling, use, and transfer of sensitive information com-plies with the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).

ISO9000 & TS16949 Saturn was the first printed circuit board manufacturer in North America to achieve TS16949, which is a world-wide quality standard that replaced QS9000 in 2006.

ISO 14001:Environmental This Certification states that Saturn Electronics Corporation complies with the requirements of BS EN ISO 14001:2004 for the scope of Manufacturer of PC Boards for Automotive, Commercial, and Heavy Equipment Industry.

MBE Saturn is a Minority Business Enterprise certified with the Michigan Minority Business Development Council as defined by the National Minority Business Development Council for NAICS Code 334412, bare printed circuit board manufacturing.

Saturn

Production/TS16949 Certified Domestic Facility as backup.

We audit and approve our suppliers in person per TS16949 audit procedures.

Offshore product is shipped out to customers under our TS16949 flag.

All product is automotive certified, regardless of end use.

Saturn guarantees all offshore product with our unmatched 5x guarantee.

Saturn has personnel on-site in Asia to oversee our and our customers’ interests.

Saturn performs all engineering work domestically prior to sending files for offshore manufacture. This ensures customers’ requirements are properly communicated.

Saturn will keep inventory at Romulus, MI and ship to releases.

Competitors

Many don’t even have a facility, just an office and/or warehouse. Those with facilities are not production/TS16949 certified.

Many have not even visited their suppliers. Those that have aren’t certified themselves to audit to particular standards.

The vast majority of our competitors lack this certification.

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No published guarantee matches Saturn’s.

Majority do not have any staff whatsoever in Asia.

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Customer is required to purchase and take delivery on entire quoted quantity.

O F F S H O R E S O U R C I N G

Materials

In order to be a full service supplier to our customers, we also offer offshore sourcing for higher volume projects where cost constraints prevent domestic manufacture. We take pride in that we offer a great deal more value add than traditional overseas brokers, and even other domestic PCB fabricators offering the same services. Below is a table outlining just a few of these benefits.

Supply Chain Management

P R O D U C T I O N C A P A B I L I T I E S

Technology RoadmapOur technological capability is totally customer driven. The following roadmap does not project bryond 2008 because it can change at any time.

Materials

Features

Laminate Nominal Tg

Laminate Nominal Td

Maximum Layer Count

Min. Finished Thickness

Min. Core Thickness

Maximum Panel Size

Current Capability

260° C

N/A

24

.014”

.005”

18” X 24”

Future Capability

260° C

350° C

24

.014”

.004” - .002”

20” X 24”

Today’s Products

CEM-1

CEM-3

.FR-4

170Tg FR4

Lead Free

Fabrication

Features

Minimum finished hole size

Blind/Buried Vias

Routed Part Tolerance

Scoring Tolerances

Current Capability

.006”

.006”

+/-.005”

+/-.003”

Future Capability

.006”

.003” - .002”

+/-.005”

+/-.003”

Today’s Products

Drilling

Routing

Scoring

Punching

Imaging

Features

Minimum Lines/Spaces

Min. Quad Flat Pack Pitch

Minimum Pad Size

Soldermask Registration

Soldermask Tolerance

Current Capability

.004”

.016”

.005”/side

.003”

.002”

Future Capability

.003”-.002”

.016”-.012”

.005”/side-.004”/side

.002”

002”

Today’s Products

Photo Print

Plugged Hole

Peelable Mask

Plating & Surface Finishes

Features

Finished Copper Thickness

Hot Air Solder Leveling

Lead-Free Solder (HAL)

Full Body Hard Ni/AU

Immersion Gold/Silver

Current Capability Future Capability

Today’s Products

Selective Finishes

RoHS Compliant

Heavy CU

Multilayer

20 OUNCE

YES

YES

YES

YES

3 Image Room Enclosed room. Saturn has a Class 10,000 Clean Room.

The environment in this room minimizes foreign material from creating com-mon shorts in the imaging process. Also, strict temperature and humidity controls prevent distortion in the customer artwork.

4 Imaging / Exposure Customer artwork is aligned manu-ally by eyeballing the registration of the film to the drilled panel.

Light source is a single point light source, making it not possible to use on fine line images run on production panel sizes.

Standard: Saturn uses MultiLine equipped drawers for imaging. MultiLine tooling removes the human factor involved in lining up the bottom film to the top film. This results in significantly reduced off-registration issues.

Advanced (inner layers): Saturn also employs the use of an Olec AX-28 automatic exposure unit that uses two cameras to align the top and bottom artwork. This machine can hold registration as tight as +/- .0005 mils front to back for inner layers.

Industry-Leading (inner and outer layers): Saturn has purchased and installed three Olec AT-30 automatic alignment exposure units. These units use four cameras to align artwork top to bottom, and then use panel motion systems to automatically adjust the panel position to a best fit to the artwork. Furthermore, these units have hybrid-collimated light units that ensure expo-sure light attacks the panel at 90 degree angles to the artwork, which is critical for fine line resolutions.

5 Plating Through Holes (PTH)

Manual dip tanks. Saturn employs two automatic electroplating lines and, as such, PTH is a two-step process. Saturn has built a custom automatic plating line that has been designed and constructed primarily in-house. The intent was to minimize plat-ing variation, which is the main goal of production plating. This was accom-plished by including the following:

1. It houses racks that only allow panels to be plated one-high.

2. Anode-to-anode distance is 28 inches (maximum allowable distance for plating).

3. Water-submerged positive cathode contact.

4. Chemical-submerged anode bars for positive contact.

5. Eductor system. This utilizes a highvolume chemical flow parallel to the pan-els instead of air to accomplish chemical agitation.

6. Mechanical agitation to allow chemical to flow through holes.

7. Vibration to remove air from microvias and blind microvias.

8. Dual-sided rectification to equalize copper plating from one side of the rack to the other.

9.State-of-the-art rectifiers (two per rack) with 0.5% maximum ripple effect.

10. Panels are now being plated at 15 amps per square feet (ASF), versus an industry standard of 45 ASF. This will result in more uniform plating, albeit lowered production.

11. High ductile plating process that meets C7000 specs for 1,000 hour cycle tests.

12. Chemistry has been revised so that high-aspect ratio plating can be per-formed. Both lines are calibrated to plate 10:1 aspect ratio as a standard.

2 Drilling Drilling machine that requires tools to be changed manually. Maximum panel sizes are typically 18” x 24”. No control in Z-axis, +/- 0.002” hole position accuracy/

Saturn’s lowest-end drilling machines are Excellon System 2000 and Century 2001 CNC drillers. All of these machines are equipped with automatic mea-surement systems that measure drill bit length, diameter, spindle runout, and broken drill bit detection. Essentially, these capabilities remove the human element from these drilling issues, thereby minimizing the chance of operator error. Saturn also has three Mania Micronics 86 drilling machines. These machines incorporate the industry’s latest linear motion technology and 180k RPM high speed spindles. The use of linear motion increasing hole position accuracy from an industry standard of +/- 0.002” down to +/- 0.0005”, including in the Z-axis, which makes these ideal for controlled depth blind via drilling.

1 Copper Laminate (base material)

Standard sheet sizes that are sheared to size in-house.

Standard panel sizes with saw-cut edges.

This significantly reduces contamination in subsequent processes (e.g., imag-ing, testing, etc.)

7 Cleaning prior to LPI Manual dip tanks or small conveyor-ized chemical cleaning line.

Instead of using a chemical cleaning process that may increase ionic contami-nation and compromise the surface finish, Saturn utilizes an Aluminum Oxide Jet Scrubber. This process uses an aluminum oxide slurry that is sprayed on the panels to remove copper oxidation.

6 Strip-Etch-Strip Conveyorized line that is capable of producing 7 mil line/spacing.

In 2008, Saturn installed a new Hollmuller SES line. This line incorporates the latest in spray technology that minimizes chemical puddling. This is line capable to accurately and uniformly etch down to 2 mil lines and spaces.

8 Liquid Photo-Imageable Soldermask

Manual tables or AutoRoll machines. Saturn uses 2 DP- model LPI applicators to be used in lieu of AutoRoll solder-mask applicators.

For standard colors, Saturn also employs the use of two Argus spray coating lines. This will result in less soldermask within holes and eliminates dimple marks on the board surface. Furthermore, they will result in a much more uniform soldermask thickness across the product surface area.

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Process Description Industry Standard Saturn Electronics

www.saturnelectronics.com

Saturn Electronics Corporation 28450 N

orthline Rd., Rom

ulus, MI 48174 (734) 941-8100 Fax (734) 941-3707

15InspectionVisual inspection by personnel using a light table.

Saturn augments its visual inspection process by utilizing automated optical inspection equipment. This equipment (hole checker) checks for holes that have been plugged by the HASL and LPI processes, incorrectly plated or non-plated holes, and drilled with incorrect drill bit sizes.

14HASL Post-cleanerLPI Cleaning line is also used as a post-cleaner.

Saturn has custom fabricated a high-pressure, high-temperature post-cleaner for use after the HASL process.

This is a stainless steel post-cleaner unit that runs at 150°F, sprays regular and D.I. water at 1 to 1.5 gallons per minute at 50 psi using 7.5 HP pumps (1/2 gallon per minute, 20-30 psi, 1.5 HP is the best available on the market). Fur-thermore, the cleaner uses 8-1” wide toothbrush-type agitating brushes versus an industry best of 4-0.5” brushes. This custom process has been proven to remove ionic contamination from the surface of PCBs to well below industry standards.

12CleaningManual dip tanks.Saturn installed a Hollmuller conveyorized cleaning line in 2009, in line with the other major wet process upgrades we have made since 2007.

11Final BakingManual convection box ovensSaturn has installed a Bassi Tunnel oven to perform final baking. Since heat is uniformly applied to the boards and the machine controls the cycle time, qual-ity is improved dramatically.

10LPI DevelopingStandard conveyor that is separated from baking and cleaning lines.

Saturn has conveyorized the developing, final baking, and cleaning processes into a single production line. This should improve quality through reduced handling and utilizing higher-end machinery.

Our developing line is constructed of a single-chamber, stainless steel devel-oping line.

9LPI ImageCustomer artwork is aligned manu-ally by eyeballing the registration of the film to the drilled panel.

Standard: Saturn uses MultiLine equipped drawers for imaging. MultiLine tool-ing removes the human factor involved in lining up the bottom film to the top film. This results in significantly reduced off-registration issues.

Industry-Leading (inner and outer layers): Saturn has purchased and installed three Olec AT-30 automatic alignment exposure units. These units use four cameras to align artwork top to bottom, and then use panel motion systems to automatically adjust the panel position to a best fit to the artwork. Further-more, these units have hybrid-collimated light units that ensure exposure light attacks the panel at 90 degree angles to the artwork, which is critical for fine line resolutions.

16Electrical TestingEither clam shell tester or single fly-ing probe.

Saturn offers a variety of testing alternatives. First, Saturn has 5 Mania double-sided, double-density grid testing machines. The fixture cost for these testers is half the cost or less than those used in more traditional clam shell testers since we build everything in-house.

Also, Saturn utilizes six flying probe testers for smaller and prototype orders. This allows the customer to forego the cost of a hard testing fixture and, in-stead, pay a modest testing fee.

18Duplicate ProcessesDue to cost constraints, many PCB shops will not have duplicate pro-cesses.

All of Saturn’s processes incorporate duplicate equipment so that in the case of an equipment failure, Saturn’s production capabilities will not be compro-mised.

Furthermore, Saturn has controlling interests in three other domestic PCB fab-rication facilities so that in the event of a catastrophic event, the supply chain will not be compromised.

21Minimum Line/Spacing.007” / .007”.003” / .003”

13Hot Air Solder Leveling (HASL)

Vertical SnPb HASL. Pb-Free HASL typically outsourced.

Saturn has installed three Lantronics TT-30 vertical hot air levelers. These ma-chines were designed with the intent of using this finish on finer pitch devices than in the past. They hold the panels at 45° angles so that SMT pads are not at 90° or 180° angles to the air knives.

Saturn uses two of these units for SnPb HASL, and the third for Nihon Superi-or’s SN100CL lead-free solder finish process.

17Cleaning after RoutingWasher using city water.Saturn has installed a washer in its shipping department that uses de-ionized (D.I.) water to clean the boards. D.I. water results in a cleaner board, but more importantly it further removes ionic contamination that may have occurred after HASL.

19Advanced CapabilitiesMinimal / OutsourcedSaturn has grown from a technology standpoint exponentially since 2003. In-house capabilities include laser drilling, laser routing, PTFE plasma prepa-ration, Plasma treatment and etchback, and special project groups to assist customers with critical and technologically demanding products.

20Minimum Hole Size.015”.002”

22Surface FinishesHASLHASL; Lead-Free HASL; Immersion Silver, Immersion Gold

23Quality CertificationNo certification is viewed as stan-dard.

ISO 9000, TS16949, Delphi C7000, ISO14000; AS9100

24Financial LiabilitiesNo standards available.$ 0 Bank Debt$ 0 Accounts Payable$ 0 Lease obligations

Process DescriptionIndustry StandardSaturn ElectronicsBU

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HOW SATURN DISTINGUISHES ITSELF FROM COMPETITORSOur commitment to quality allows us to offer our unmatched product guarantee of up to 5 times the cost of the PCB to cover components and labor applied to products with opens or shorts!

Certified MBE (Minority Business Enterprise)

$26 Million Annual Sales

Debt-Free PCB Manufacturer

Board Manufacturing History

PWB Technology Roadmap

IPC-1710-A

PCB Fabrication Flowchart

Corporate Presentation

CORPORATE

TS16949

ISO9001:2000

AS9100

ISO14001

Minority Business Certification

ITAR Certification

UL USA Certification

PCB CERTIFICATIONS

UL Canada Certification

Up to 24 Layers

3 mil line / space

Heavy Copper PCB

Thermal Management Board

Blind / Buried Vias

Open Cavity PCB

Internal Cavity Board

PRODUCTS / CAPABILITIES

PTFE / RF-Microwave Board

Quick-Turn Prototype PCB

Quick-Turn PCB Production

Small-High Volume PCB Production

Certified Offshore PCB Sourcing

PCB FAB SERVICES

28450 Northline Rd., Romulus, MI 48174Phone: (734) 941-8100 Fax: (734) 941-3707
