Yield...Yield...Yield - An Alternative Approach To Enhanced Profits

Guest Editor: Richard DeSantis
Sabin Metal Corporation

The benefits of increased yields are obvious both for producers of hybrid micro-electronic materials, circuits, and packages as well as for their users. And we all do what we can to maximize yields. But if you can stretch the word a bit, you could say that increased yields might also he obtained by methods other than reducing waste at the materials formulation stage by printing and firing only perfect thick film circuits, or by producing hybrid packages that always meet precise performance specifications.

In fact, if you equate "yield" with profitability, we can look at another approach to increasing yield that has nothing to do with production efficiencies. And that is the ability to recover the lost dollars from the precious metals contained in hybrid circuits, ICs, interconnects, ceramic packages, and thick- and thin-film materials.