AGY Introduces Two New Ultra-Fine Yarns For PCB Subtrates

The two new yarns, BC2250 and BC3000, join the existing lineup of ultra-fine yarns C1200 and BC1500 to give AGY the most complete offering of yarns in the high-end PCB market. “As the next generation of electronic devices become smaller in their packaging and include more functionality, the need for PCB’s to offer increased layer count in the same thickness also increases,” explained Drew Walker, President of AGY. “In order to accomplish this, glass fabric reinforcement must become even thinner and this requires finer and finer glass yarns. This is an area in which AGY has specialized and continues to work on the development and manufacture of ultra-fine yarns specifically for the PCB market with input from all the PCB fabric producers and end users.”

Ultra-fine yarns are on the cutting edge of glass fiber yarn development and is made possible by AGY’s proprietary manufacturing technology. “As an example of how unique these yarns are, AGY’s new BC3000 yarn, which is used to produce fabric style 1017, consists of only 50 filaments of 4 micron diameter and is the finest yarn available in the market,” said Walker. “1 kilogram (1 pound) of BC3000 yarn has a length of over 500 kilometers (150 miles).”

Used as a reinforcement and dielectric, ultra-fine yarn is woven into fabric and then laminated with epoxy resin and copper foil to produce copper clad laminate - the building block of PCBs. “The yarn’s E-Glass composition makes it an excellent electrical insulator and provides thermo-mechanical stability to the PCBs,” said Walker. “Reinforcement with glass fiber fabrics results in excellent dimensional stability which means the board will not warp and twist under stress and heat.”

Ultra-fine yarns are now routinely used in smartphones, where more functionality in the same form factor is expected in the new generation of smart devices. These ultra-fine yarns will are currently being evaluated in other hand-held devices such as tablet PCs.

AGY has been a major supplier of fine yarns to the PCB sector for decades and is a recognized leader in the quality and breadth of its product line. Adding further ultra-fine yarns to its portfolio is a major achievement for AGY’s technology team explained Walker, “The finer the glass filaments, the more difficult they are to produce. AGY’s new ultra-fine yarns will enable the continued development of more sophisticated electronic devices to satisfy the demand for smaller and faster products that deliver more features and functionality.”