WASHINGTON— The U.S. Patent Trademark Office has issued Endicott Interconnect Technologies patent no. 7,084,014, describing a method of making a circuitized substrate. 

It brings to 27 the the total U.S patents granted EI since it spun off from IBM four years ago.

The EMS company isn't finished. The Patent Office has also listed applications for the following:

*An electronic package that includes a circuitized substrate having at least two electrical components positioned on it (application no. 20060255460). The package includes patterns of contact sites, each for having one of the components coupled thereto. The patterns of contact sites in turn are electrically interconnected by a grouping of conductive lines which, to substantially prevent skew, are of substantially the same length. The application further describes a method of making the package. The applicant is Irv Memis

* A method of plating a circuit pattern on a substrate (application no. 20060255009). The concept uses a dual step metallurgy application process in combination with a dual step photoresist removal process. Applicants include Norman A. Card, Robert D. Edwards, John J. Konrad, Roy H. Magnuson, Timothy L.  Wells and Michael Wozniak.

* A method of making a circuit board which includes a multiple contiguous open segments along a side edge portion of the at least one electrically conductive layer, with the open segments isolated by a barrier of dielectric material which substantially fills the open segments, e.g., during a lamination process which bonds two dielectric layers of the substrate to the conductive layer (application no. 20060248717). Applicants include John Lauffer, James Larnerd and  Voya Markovich.

EI ranks 13th among the top U.S. PCB companies in revenues, according to Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture. Just three of those companies have more PCB-related patents, however.

The firm’s impressive patent portfolio covers innovative substrate designs and manufacturing processes and is strong evidence of EI’s technical expertise in this very competitive area.

EI’s top 11 patent holders account for over 700 patents, topped by Voya Markovich with 171 and Kostas Papathomas with 154.

“EI is committed to developing new processes, technologies and techniques that enable progress in the electronics industry. This technical leadership has been accomplished through the creativity and invention of our talented personnel,” said James J. McNamara, president and CEO in a press release. “This innovation is a key to EI’s success in the advanced packaging arena and clearly differentiates us from our competitors."

EDITOR: This story was updated on Nov. 30 to correct certain reporting errors.