WNIE TV Interview with Dr. Subodh Kulkarni at Productronica 2019

Iain Hazelwood from WNIE TV catches up with Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, President and CEO, CyberOptics at Productronica in Munich, Germany

IH: We’re at Productronica 2019 in Munich, Germany and I’m joined by Dr. Subodh Kulkarni from CyberOptics. Thanks for joining us.

SK: Thank you for the opportunity.

IH: This a massive international show. It’s often one of the biggest shows that companies do. Have you brought anything new for the show this year?

SK: Absolutely, we take advantage of Productronica to showcase our best and newest technology. So fundamentally, CyberOptics is a high-precision sensing technology company. We make different kinds of sensors for the SMT, as well as semiconductor markets. What we have brought to the show, which is really new and unique, is not only a multi-purpose system, which can do SPI and 3D AOI, but in addition to that, it can do in line coordinate measuring machine functionalities. So it’s really the world’s first in-line CMM that in 10-15 seconds it can not only inspect an object, but can measure all the dimensions of the object and report to you in real time. So we are really proud of bringing inline CMM functionality to the SMT show.

IH: And that is presumably not a hard sell to customers because there is something that is really useful.

SK: What is exciting is there is a merging of SMT and semiconductor markets going on. The whole area of advanced packaging, so stacking of chips, fan-in, fan-out, embedding the die is beginning to merge with the SMT markets right now. Many of the customers who are at the cutting edge of that merging of SMT and semiconductor markets need measurements in addition to inspection. That’s really where we are taking our technologies to at the show. We have what we call Multi-Reflection Suppression, which is a unique way of doing 3D non-contact optical sensing technology. It gives us higher speed, resolution, and accuracy than most other competing 3D non-contact optical sensing technologies, but in addition to just doing the sensing and inspecting, we are also doing the measurement at the same time. That really is unique. Customers like that because their advanced applications need to do the measurements, in addition to inspection.

IH: Presumably that is something that you identified as an issue. Customers were asking for it. How long does it take to develop something like that?

SK:  It has taken some time. It is a significant investment on our part. We started hearing about the need for measurements a couple years ago, actually, at a previous Productronica. Many of our leading cutting-edge customers were starting to ask us questions at that time – is there any way to enable measurement functionality in addition to inspection, so we started focusing on that area about a couple years ago. It took us some time to get it to perfection but here we have on the show floor, a fully functional in-line CMM too right now. We are getting good traction. We have already sold a bunch of them to many customers and that is one of our fastest growing businesses right now. We are probably the only inspection company right now on this show floor who’s actually doing double-digit growth this year when the market is relatively soft. Our primary success behind our a double-digit growth is the in-line CMM functionality.

IH: That’s fantastic! Development like that takes a lot of know-how in-house. I mean, its something CyberOptics has got, you’ve got that knowledge there.

SK:  It comes down to the fundamentals of your sensing technology. Unless you have a good sensor, you do not get good images. Unless you have good images, you cannot do inspection, and without inspection, measurement is a futile task. So, the foundation is really the sensor, and that’s what we are really good at. We have this unique proprietary sensing technology that we call MRS. It stands for Multi-Reflection Suppression and that’s what enables us the higher accuracy, resolution and speed all at the same time. It comes down to the heart of the sensing technology and how we do 3D non-contact optical sensing compared to other conventional technologies.

IH: Which of your customers are the ones that are driving the real cutting edge the most? Is it the defense side, automotive or you know the areas where electronics tend to get smaller and smaller?

SK:  I would say it’s the merging of the semi and the SMT markets the advanced packaging customers. And really, the people who are driving it are the high-end smartphone companies or the high-end electronics manufacturing companies. When you take the latest iPhone or a Galaxy and open them and you will see that they are using multi stacked dies, they are using fan-in, fan-out packages and that’s really where we are getting the best traction with those kinds of applications, those kinds of customers. And they are the ones who are driving us to the next advancements that we are making right now.

 IH: If you’re coming to Productronica with the answer to some questions you were being asked at this show two years ago, you’ll be listening to the questions you this year the next two years. The industry is changing quicker now than it’s ever.

SK:  Absolutely and as I said the one of the main drivers of the change is the merging of the semiconductor and SMT. Stacking is creating significant challenges as well as significant opportunities. So a couple years ago stacking had just started. Now we are already at around a four or eight layer stack and the road map is calling for as many as a thousand 24 layer stack. So every two years you are going to see significant changes in the industry, both on the chip side as well as the electronic side, but it’s the merging of the two that’s driving a lot of the needs right now. So clearly customers are here and the show just started today, so we will hear more over the next three full days but I won’t be surprised if customers keep asking us to do higher resolution higher accuracy than what we have already. They always want higher speed, so that is the challenge. Surprisingly, one area where historically we always got pressure, which doesn’t seem to be as much of a pressure point, is price. Usually customers want higher speed, higher accuracy, but at lower price, and they realize that to drive these super advancements they have to give up on price and they’re actually willing to pay higher prices for systems so long as they can enable the higher accuracy, resolution and speeds.

IH:  Let’s say if you’ve got the higher accuracy there, that’s going to generate cost savings down the line for them. It’s a cost effective return on investment, and that is HUGE!

SK: Customers are doing return on investment calculations and they realize that if you can catch the defects early, if you can see where the yield problems are, where the productivity problems are, the value they get by inspecting it early far outweighs the losses that they incur later on in the processes. And it’s good to see customers understand the whole ecosystem and do a true ROI analysis, not just look at the system price and worry about it.

IH:  It’s interesting times.

SK: Absolutely, exciting time to be part of the Semi and SMT industry.

IH:  I hope the show goes well for you. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions and have a lot of people in your stands as well.

SK: Thank you.