Latest / Force Tech Talks / Force Tech Talk Ep25: Why We Built a Sovereign Anti-Counterfeiting Test Lab For Semiconductors In The UK
Transcript
- 00:00:16:06 - 00:00:41:27 Charlotte Hughes Hello and welcome to force TikTok, Charlotte Hughes. And today I'm joined by our CEO Karen. Good morning. Good morning. And because we can talk about some very exciting news, finally, that we've kind of been teasing for a little while. And it's it's out there now. We've we've launched it. So we're going to talk about our sovereign Tesla today which is very excited about. 00:00:41:28 - 00:00:52:24 Charlotte Hughes Yeah. So yeah, we that's what we've been been working on haven't you mean all summer and kind of the beginning of the year has been quite, quite a busy one isn't it. Yeah. 00:00:52:25 - 00:01:02:23 Karen Salmon That's probably why I look so tired. Charlotte. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's been a dream of mine for so long to have our own lab in the UK. 00:01:02:25 - 00:01:35:16 Karen Salmon In the past, we've, you know, we've had bits of equipment lying about that we've, we've played with over the years. But the opportunity came up just before Christmas, to take a couple more units in our block of, of facility. So we took it and, we knocked through walls with sledgehammers, which was very satisfying. We pulled up floors, we pulled down pillows, we put false ceilings in. 00:01:35:20 - 00:02:02:21 Karen Salmon We put a win. Our builder worked all over Christmas. And then we started the interesting stuff. So we spent time putting ESD flooring down. And yeah, it's it's really, really been satisfying. Obviously it's taken a little while to get all the equipment in there because they were on lead times, but it's there now. We had our open day. 00:02:02:27 - 00:02:04:16 Karen Salmon Yeah, that was good fun, wasn't it? 00:02:04:16 - 00:02:26:25 Charlotte Hughes Yeah, that was really good. So we yeah, we had our open day in June. Right before the, the I am meeting. And that was a really good day apart from the weather was perfect and yeah, it was really good. Kind of have partners, customers on site seeing the fully renovated Tesla or so you had the title long term storage that everyone could go and have a look in. 00:02:26:25 - 00:02:35:06 Charlotte Hughes And yeah, it was just a really good day of celebration and a finally being able to talk about and show, you know, what we've been we've been working on, which was amazing. 00:02:35:09 - 00:02:42:29 Karen Salmon Yeah, because we've kind of hinted at it, but I didn't want to I wanted to do it properly, and I wanted to make sure that everything was up and running. 00:02:43:00 - 00:03:05:19 Karen Salmon And before we launched it, there's no there's no point in doing it half halfway and, and, and not having it ready to go because we've started testing now. We've, we've had parts in from customers. So we didn't want to do it falsely. Yeah, but the open day was great. I mean, yeah, I really enjoyed that. And I loved showing everybody around. 00:03:05:19 - 00:03:27:25 Karen Salmon And obviously the Titan building, which we'll talk about in another podcast and explain why it's called tighten, but it's your favorite place. It is my favorite place. I love being in there when everything's just too much squirming on the floor. And very nice ESD tiles in the cool. But no, the test facility is is a very exciting development for force. 00:03:27:27 - 00:03:42:01 Karen Salmon It's definitely part of our growth as say, I've wanted to do this for such a long time. And I'm really I'm very proud of the team. They have worked tirelessly. Absolutely. Tirelessly. Yeah. To all get it together. Yeah. 00:03:42:03 - 00:03:48:21 Charlotte Hughes They have, I think one of the a couple of the questions that we got asked on the actual open day is why now? 00:03:48:25 - 00:03:54:13 Charlotte Hughes Why have. Why have we chosen to do it now? So we're going to build the strategy around that. 00:03:54:15 - 00:04:15:03 Karen Salmon Yeah. I think, you know last year was a very turbulent for the semiconductor industry. Apologies to any Americans watching this, but Trump is very volatile when it comes to his opinions on semiconductors and tariffs etc., etc.. So a lot of our customers I mean, it was we were pushed by our European customers. 00:04:15:04 - 00:04:40:13 Karen Salmon We were here to to do something in the UK because they don't want to send product to the US. And apart from couriers who shall not be losing product. It's the time scales and the tariffs. You know, one day it was we were going to charge you 10% next day. We're not I mean, nobody nobody knows until you get your, your bill in which we've had on many occasions. 00:04:40:16 - 00:04:44:00 Karen Salmon And it's just customers doesn't want to do that anymore. 00:04:44:03 - 00:05:03:18 Charlotte Hughes Unknown isn't it. It's the uncertainty of of this situation just and I guess part of the reason you can go more into the name, why we called it what we've called it, but a kind of real on shoring and everyone focusing a lot on sovereign capabilities and still relying on outsourcing certain aspects because defense and aerospace. 00:05:03:18 - 00:05:11:09 Charlotte Hughes So we are a small industry really. But yeah, the sovereign aspect of it was really important to us to so 00:05:11:09 - 00:05:22:01 Karen Salmon sovereign is a big I mean, you know, a big it's a big it's a big buzzword. Now last year when we talked about it, I mean, the reason we named it sovereign is for that very reason. 00:05:22:01 - 00:05:50:24 Karen Salmon It's a UK based, UK owned UK facility. That's that's the bottom line. There's no other way of describing it. It's privately funded. The we have privately funded. It's been funded by the company. Fortunately, a lot of the government grants and investors a moment looking for innovative products you've got in UK testing old components isn't innovative. 00:05:50:27 - 00:06:17:01 Karen Salmon Yeah. So unfortunately, but in hindsight, do you know what? That was actually a good thing, because I know it's ours. It's UK, it's ours. I've said this before. We're a family owned company. It's our test lab, so we don't owe anybody anything. We can do what we like, when we like, which is. Which is good for customers because we're not beholden to governments or anything like that. 00:06:17:04 - 00:06:38:05 Karen Salmon If we have to do some small prototype testing for a customer, we're going to do it. And I like that. I like that flexibility. And I think customers do as well. They appreciate the effort we've put, especially when we've shown them around, because it is quite spectacular. I go down there and, and I love it when I see them doing this, doing the work down there. 00:06:38:07 - 00:06:54:00 Karen Salmon And so do customers. So and they appreciate that and they appreciate the effort we've gone into and to make it like that because they trust us. And if you're going to be testing something that is going to go on an airplane, you have to trust the person who's doing it. 00:06:54:03 - 00:07:02:17 Charlotte Hughes Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think in terms of what it means for our customers, in a wider sense it is the, the certainty and the trust. 00:07:02:17 - 00:07:28:03 Charlotte Hughes And in a time where the semiconductor industry is it is volatile at points. But also I mean, we talk endlessly about counterfeit. That's not a new topic for us to discuss or anyone in, in the obsolescence world to be discussing. But in a time where counterfeits are still very much a threat and making their way into the supply chain, it just gives another level of, you know, you testing, testing the parts that our customers need. 00:07:28:05 - 00:07:36:22 Charlotte Hughes But it's not just the aerospace and defense industry. There's big talks about the drone industry and allocation and things like that. And but rail and other long life sectors. 00:07:36:23 - 00:07:54:01 Karen Salmon Exactly. But it's you know, the counterfeiters right at this moment are going fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Because the demand for semiconductors is going to go up. And AI and Microsoft and the drone manufacturers and the missile manufacturers, dare I say, are all going to take the semiconductors. 00:07:54:04 - 00:08:16:10 Karen Salmon But people in the rail industry or other industries, the meters in meter industry, medical industry, they're not going to get the components. So they are going to be forced to start looking around the marketplace. And that's when the counterfeiters go. Happy days. Yeah. Happy days. The industry cannot cope with the volume right now. So those are the kind of fits and that's what's going to happen. 00:08:16:11 - 00:08:38:01 Karen Salmon So they're going to start flooding the market more certainly over the next 2 or 3 years. Yeah. For sure. And you know, there aren't the, the labs in the UK with the capabilities that we have now, we are doing our as 6171 accreditation stuff now with our new processes. 00:08:38:04 - 00:08:42:27 Charlotte Hughes Yeah. We should maybe get more specific in terms of the actual the testing that we're offering. 00:08:42:29 - 00:09:13:19 Karen Salmon Well, it's a full 61616171. I think it's called medium risk. But, you know, we invested in an X-ray machine. We've got jet edge machines, we've got very powerful microscopes. We've got XFXF machine to check what the composition of a component is, how much leads in there, how much gold is in there, how much of the the nasty chemicals that we keep being asked for, you know, the reach chemicals, the things like that. 00:09:13:22 - 00:09:31:07 Karen Salmon So we can do all of that. So it's a full process. And, you know, Ed is very keen on lean, so everything is lean. So when I'm showing customers around, I'm doing the process. We moved from this bench to this time. That's the way we set it up. Low of the low flows. It flows. Same with with the new storage, to be honest. 00:09:31:10 - 00:09:54:05 Karen Salmon Which we built as well. So that is all flowed and it's all lean as well. So you know, the goods come in, they get inspected and then they're put on the microscope. They're fully inspected for cracks and scratches, etc., etc. for all the process. We then take the top off. We take a sample batch as per 6171. 00:09:54:09 - 00:10:14:00 Karen Salmon Take the top off with our jet age machine again, great big cabinet, all chemicals, etc. then it goes into the extra machine because the counterfeiters also counterfeit die whether we like it or not. They do. So we need to make sure that the marking on the dye is correct. And that's what the X-ray machine does. Yeah. Take pictures of that. 00:10:14:03 - 00:10:38:21 Karen Salmon Then it goes into X-ray machine to check the composition of the part. And then it goes on to electrical test bench where we test the, the DC characteristics. We will be doing next year more in depth testing, probably AC characteristics, maybe some temperature testing. But we're just doing it gradually and properly. That's the plan strategy for next year. 00:10:38:23 - 00:10:45:14 Karen Salmon But right now is the air 6171 test, which will have been asked for quite a lot. Yeah, yeah. 00:10:45:16 - 00:10:53:15 Charlotte Hughes And you say we were pushed quite heavily by some of our key European and UK customers to, to do this and set this up. So I think there. 00:10:53:17 - 00:10:55:00 Karen Salmon Even some US customers to be fair. 00:10:55:01 - 00:11:15:25 Charlotte Hughes I know. Yeah. Those are the that was a bit surprising obviously. Yeah. Make a point that it's not just for UK and Europe European customers, but yeah it was kind of pushed by driven by them, supported by us. But it is for, for other areas. So yeah, I think they were they were pleased on the day to see exactly what had been set up in response. 00:11:15:27 - 00:11:37:10 Charlotte Hughes It's just listening to what, what what they wanted, what they needed from us on top of the other the other core pillars that we do. So, yeah, in terms of what the testing will kind of gone through, the testing, what it looks like the secret is now finally out and being talked about. So I think we'll probably be doing some more podcasts. 00:11:37:10 - 00:11:44:11 Charlotte Hughes We'll probably get some of our, our test engineers and technicians in here to talk about it in more depth than. 00:11:44:13 - 00:11:59:01 Karen Salmon Yeah, I think yeah, I think the test guys will do another podcast. Yeah. Because although I roughly know what it's doing, I don't know the the intricacies of it. Yeah. I'm just really excited it's been done and I'm so proud. Looking forward to showing your customers. Charlotte. 00:11:59:03 - 00:12:13:15 Charlotte Hughes Yeah. Me too. So yeah, that is everything for today on this episode of Force Tech Talk. And join us for the next one. And yeah. Any questions about testing or the Tesla or arranging a visit, please just get in touch. Thank you very much.