Q. Could you tell us about your company?
A. Reliant EDS is an EMS (electronics manufacturing services) company, which involves
itself in PCB Designing, Manufacturing, and Assembly. We started off as a PCB Design company in the year 2005 and in the year 2011, we started providing complete services in PCB layout, PCB Bare-board Fabrication and PCB Assembly work.
Q. Do you handle all these operations in-house?
A. For PCB Manufacturing, we have developed an integrated global supply chain by having our company network stabled in Hong Kong, from where we are procuring our PCB Blanks. As far as PCB Design and Assembly is concerned, we are completely doing it in-house in India. We are providing high speed PCB design work using tools from Zuken Redac, Cadence and Pads. We are also probably the only PCB design service company in India to offer Layout work on CR5000.
Q. Different sectors have different requirements. What kind of challenges do you face often?
A. PCB Manufacturing faces a host of challenges. If PCB Design, Fabrication and Assembly are considered, they may sound as three totally independent business units but all of them are closely linked. If manufacturing is considered, being a design house allows inspection of any possible problem during manufacturing. These can be done during a complete analysis like acid trash and possibility of cross-talk between different signals which are going through the PCB. There can be manufacturing issues like an incorrect placement done on the board. So ultimately once the board is manufactured, good yield is obtained and the finished product has a longer life. Hence, manufacturing wise, cost is low. These things help the customer and we are able to lower the cost, increase reliability, and yield. Being an integrated company really helps the customer and us.
Q. Could you talk about a technical challenge that you faced recently and how you managed to solve it?
A. Technical challenges are plenty in this field. We are generally not into energy meters and consumer electronics. Consider PCB assembly where we are essentially targeting the higher end segments like Telecom, Defence and Medical sectors. So the biggest challenge we have in the Defence or Telecom Sector is dealing with huge varieties of components on the board and while assembling, an adequate solder profile should be provided. An adequate solder profile is one in which we ensure that a correct solder bond is formed between the component and PCB. For this, the correct on-board temperature must be achieved and temperature variations should be minimised because of different types of components on the board. We are also giving a lot of stress on giving the correct temperature profile to a board, which results in close to 100 per cent, even for the most complex board.
Q. So what do you have to go through to get the right profile for a board?
A. To make such kind of a board with the right profile, the time spent ranges from 2 hours upto 3 days. By temperature profile, I mean increasing the temperature from a particular level (which is room temperature) to a particular maximum temperature, which is specified in the assembly guidelines of the component. Consider a big board of dimensions 200mmX200mm where there are temperature variations across the board because of the different types of components. So a way has to be found to balance it in a manner that solderability of different components is not compromised and also right results are achieved. We are looking at 3 things in our business which is customer satisfaction, 100 per cent repeat business from the existing customers and setting up a bench mark in the industry.
