Company Profile
General Electric Company, also known as GE, is one of the world’s largest multinational corporations providing technology and services. Its history can be traced back to Thomas Edison, who founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. In 1892, the Edison Electric Light Company merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form the General Electric Company (GE). Its business areas range from aircraft engines and power generation equipment to financial services, medical imaging, television programming, and plastics. GE ranked 20th on the Forbes 2020 list of the world’s 100 most valuable brands.
The cooperation partner for this project is the French R&D department of GE, focusing on the medical industry.
Product Introduction
Flexible printed circuit board for medical ultrasound transducers.
What we did
Not only did we meet the client’s stringent requirements for board materials, thickness, and complex processes, but we also explored the most cost-effective solutions, earning their trust and recognition.
Customer pain points
Special processes are difficult to implement
The customer’s new product requires a unique gold plating process. They need a direct gold plating (150-200nm) on the outer copper layer without any nickel underplating between the gold and copper layers. The customer’s company is unable to complete this process.
High material thickness requirements
The customer has meticulously calculated the specific materials and thicknesses for each layer of the board, and therefore has strict requirements for each layer’s material and thickness (with a tolerance of no more than 1 micrometer).
Strict control of laminate thickness
The customer requires strict lamination following the sequence of Cu 12um – Ka 75um – Cu 12um – LCP 50um – Cu 35um, with no adhesive between layers.
Solution
Dedicated project team
A dedicated project team was established specifically for this client. Our engineers have been working closely with the board material suppliers, gathering information and discussing implementation plans. We have mobilized all available resources to prioritize this project.
Solving difficult processes
Our engineers conducted extensive experiments and successfully achieved direct gold plating on the copper layer without nickel underplating. Through these experiments, we discovered the optimal solution by changing the dimensions to 300*500 mm, providing the client with the most cost-effective option.
Strictly control all data
Production strictly adheres to the client’s specifications. Before shipment, we carefully clean the edges of the cut layers and re-measure the thickness of each layer to ensure multiple confirmations.
Cooperation process
The customer’s engineer proactively reached out to our English website, expressing their inability to achieve a specific process and urgently seeking a supplier to develop a sample for them. We informed the customer that this requirement presented a challenge for us as well, but we were very interested and excited about it, and hoped the customer would give us a chance.