Interview with BTU’s Peter Tallian
BTU International is a global supplier and technology leader of advanced thermal processing equipment and processes to the electronics assembly and high-temperature manufacturing markets. BTU is celebrating its 70th anniversary and has a unique set of capabilities, know-how and experience supporting precision temperature and atmosphere applications up to 1800˚C. The company has operations in North Billerica, Massachusetts, and Shanghai, China, with direct sales and service in the United States, Asia and Europe. Our editor recently spoke with Peter Tallian, BTU International’s General Manager, to find out how far the company has come since it was founded in 1950.
We understand BTU is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Congratulations on this milestone! How far has the company come in 70 years?
The advent of the electronics age was enabled by BTU. Founded in 1950, only three years after the invention of semiconductors, we focused on the emerging transistor market, then later thick-film processing. Today, our furnaces and reflow ovens are used for some of the most advanced and demanding applications such as direct bond copper and semiconductor packaging. Over the years, we have been on the forefront of technology innovations in direct response to our customers’ needs, most recently our patent-pending Aqua Scrub flux management system.
In the past year we’ve added a new division, Bruce Technologies, which is also part of the Amtech group. Bruce is a leading supplier of horizontal furnaces for front-end semiconductor applications. Interestingly, Bruce was part of BTU in the 1980s. The addition of the Bruce team adds to our thermal expertise and broadens our market reach.
Our organization is going strong and we look forward to meeting the challenges of the industry for many decades to come.
In your opinion, what has been the biggest, single change in the past 70 years for the electronics manufacturing industry?
When we started, in 1950, we had a very local customer base. Often furnaces shipped within the same zip code as where they were produced in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now, our equipment is produced on multiple continents and is shipped all over the world. We went from the small operation in Cambridge, MA on the second floor of a building, to having a footprint in more than 30 countries worldwide and having shipped well over 10,000 units. Our customers are multinational companies manufacturing all over the world, which drove BTU to also become a global organization.
Ironically, one thing that is the same in both 1950 and 2020 is the pandemic. In 1950 it was the height of the Polio outbreak. Theaters and schools were closed as they are now. There is certainly some symmetry and inspiration there for the BTU team today.
How have your customers changed and evolved over this period?
Automation and software protocols now control factories. We had to strengthen our software and controls groups over the years to support these industry standards and customer needs. We have a full suite of offerings to support all the components of Industry 4.0. As we look at our product development roadmaps we no longer look at the hardware as the offering, but also how it interacts with the overall factory environment. Building intelligent systems, which interact with the factory controls into the oven – such as our Profile Guardian tool – is an area that we plan to expand on every year.
What sets you apart from your competition?
We are staffed by technical industry experts with decades of reflow and high temperature expertise. The sales team is backed by engineering and applications professionals who are recognized leaders. BTU’s worldwide service support network has earned widespread recognition for its excellence, adding enormous value to our customers.
As for the BTU furnaces and ovens, they embody unrivaled thermal performance. Not only do we beat the competition under similar process conditions, but we typically outperform at higher production speeds – enabling greater output and lower Cost of Ownership.
For those unfamiliar with your technologies, can you provide a brief overview of BTU International’s Thermal Processing Solutions?
Since 1950, BTU International has been the trusted name for high-tech customers with a need to solve high-volume thermal processing challenges. BTU’s products excel in processes where precise control of atmosphere and temperature are critical to product yield. Our Pyramax convection reflow ovens are used in the production of SMT printed circuit board assemblies and in semiconductor packaging processes. We’ve leveraged the Pyramax platform to solve some specific customer needs. For customers that are dealing with very thin substrates, and have failures associated with warpage, we introduced the Pyramax TrueFlat which holds substrates flat throughout the entire reflow process. For customers dealing with yield loss due to solder voiding we have the Pyramax Vacuum which has a fully integrated vacuum chamber with controlled heating, enabling the industry’s lowest liquidus times for a vacuum system. As for the foundation, the Pyramax reflow oven, it’s always been the benchmark for thermal performance and repeatability. Our closed-loop convection control ensures that our customers have the same profile, oven-to-oven, line-to-line, location-to-location regardless of where those ovens are in the world.
BTU also specializes in precision controlled, high-temperature belt furnaces for a wide range of custom applications, such as brazing, direct bond copper (DBC), diffusion, and aluminum sintering. Our thermal expertise doesn’t stop at 400°C, but goes all the way up to 1800°C.
Is Mexico a successful market for BTU International? Why or why not?
Yes, it certainly is! The robustness of the performance of our Pyramax reflow ovens is a great fit for the high-volume production environment in Mexico. Furthermore, our agent SMarTsol is a very strong partner for us. They take great care of our mutual customers, which enables the success not only of their customers, but also of BTU. SMarTsol has proudly been serving the Mexican market for the past eight years and has been building strategic relationships with key automotive and contract manufacturers. They recently added a new facility in Querétaro, featuring training rooms, an auditorium and a demo room with BTU equipment. Additionally, we recently added to our direct sales personnel to increase BTU’s focus on the Mexican market. Current interest by major customers in moving electronics manufacturing to North America could promise further expansion in the future.
Has BTU been deemed an essential company by the government? If so, what role has BTU played in helping to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? We dialed back operations as much as we could to secure the safety of our employees, and follow local guidelines. Nonetheless, we’ve had teams working to accelerate and, in some cases, generate nearly instant shipments of reflow ovens used to produce key lifesaving medical equipment. The passion and ingenuity of our teams to step in and solve these critical issues during such a tense time was great to be a part of.
Do you think the pandemic will change the way we do business moving forward? How so? How will BTU adapt?
We are going to need to think about the flow of information between BTU and our customers. In this case, I’m referring to both new customers whom we haven’t met and customers where we have active business. In the case of new customers, it may not be that we will meet them at tradeshows or industry events, but rather that they will “meet” us online as we share technical information on our website or at an industry webinar. In the case of existing customers, they may want to minimize the flow of outside service personnel into and out of their facilities. They may value support by video or video conference over in-person visits for some time. The breadth and quality of our support and training tools will be an important asset. We are working to maximize our impact in each of these cases.
What can we expect on the horizon from BTU International?
We are proud that our culture of innovation has resulted in lower cost of ownership, less downtime and higher production for our customers. Going forward, our focus will remain on continuous improvements not only from a technical point of view but also in the way we conduct our business. We are constantly scrutinizing how our products and business practices can impact our customers’ success. Our global product development teams did not skip a beat due to the Corona virus pandemic. You can expect a steady stream of new products and innovations both large and small over the next 24 months.