Calumet Electronics Invests in New Equipment to Produce HDI PCBs for Aerospace and Defense Applications

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Calumet Electronics Corporation, one of America’s most reliable and innovative printed circuit board suppliers, is committed to advancing technologies that are critical to the nation’s aerospace, defense, and commercial markets. In support of that mission, the company is making significant capital investments in equipment to produce high-reliability, high-density interconnect (HDI) printed circuit boards. The new equipment started arriving in September 2024 with deliveries continuing through March of 2025. All equipment is expected to be in service by the middle of this year. 

With the growing demand for miniaturization and increased functionality, PCBs are being designed with more compact features to provide better signal integrity and greater versatility, especially when weight and space are key considerations.  

“Calumet Electronics is on track to offer the capability at capacity for complex features used in defense applications,” said Rob Cooke, Chief Business Officer at Calumet. “These are investments not just in our company, but in the future of domestic HDI manufacturing. Keeping this kind of technology development here in the US boosts efficiency and national security while reducing the chance of supply chain delays.” 

Calumet’s new equipment will add several capabilities and improvements, including: 

• Precision etching that improves consistency, accuracy, and yield for fine feature designs on both sides of the panel
• Improved dry film developing consistency for fine lines and spaces, which allows for increased design density
• Better metallization capacity with direct impingement for higher aspect ratio designs
• All-digital processing to improve capacity for high-resolution solder mask
• Trace repair to increase yields on increasingly dense features
• High-speed, high throughput drilling of sub 8 mil drills, including automation to decrease handling damage
• High-accuracy, high-speed optical routing to increase capacity for routing throughput
• Automated microsection prep to increase capacity for inspection and measurement of HDI features
• Improved hole wall preparation for metallization of high aspect ratio and small-size drills 

Click here to Calumet Electronics’ current and future HDI PCB capabilities.