-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueSupply Chain Strategies
A successful brand is built on strong customer relationships—anchored by a well-orchestrated supply chain at its core. This month, we look at how managing your supply chain directly influences customer perception.
What's Your Sweet Spot?
Are you in a niche that’s growing or shrinking? Is it time to reassess and refocus? We spotlight companies thriving by redefining or reinforcing their niche. What are their insights?
Moving Forward With Confidence
In this issue, we focus on sales and quoting, workforce training, new IPC leadership in the U.S. and Canada, the effects of tariffs, CFX standards, and much more—all designed to provide perspective as you move through the cloud bank of today's shifting economic market.
- Articles
- Columns
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
Darwin AI Evolving the Islands of Automation
March 20, 2023 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

When Canadian artificial intelligence company Darwin AI was founded in 2017, machine learning and deep learning were still relatively new terms. In the past five years, CEO Sheldon Fernandez and his team have been working with this technology to develop some foundational IP to simplify implementation. About a year ago, Sheldon took a “part happenstance, part deliberate” opportunity to develop a vertical offering for EMS manufacturing. Here’s what happened.
Sheldon, it’s nice to meet you. Would you briefly introduce your company?
Sheldon Fernandez: We’re based out of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and we're organically connected to the University of Waterloo, which is kind of like Canada's MIT. Two of our co-founders are professors at the institution, including Professor Alexander Wong, Canada’s Research Chair in AI and Medical Imaging.
We’ve been working on foundational machine learning and deep learning technology for the past five years. A couple of years ago, our large industrial and aerospace clients were telling us about their supply chain challenges during the pandemic and reshoring sensitive electronics manufacturing work back to North America, specifically printed circuit boards (PCB). We thought that created an opportunity for us.
When we looked at PCB manufacturing, it became apparent that while the SMT placement workflow was highly automated, there was a need in automating back-end production and final assembly. This laborious part of the process was where EMS companies and OEMs were still employing manual inspection. These inspection tasks are tough to crack from a traditional machine vision perspective, and we wondered, “Can AI bring anything to bear on this problem?” We spent about a year developing a hardware and software solution which fits into the typical assembly line for PCB manufacturing. It also does post-assembly analysis, and what's really fascinating is how quickly an operator can program our product.
We often hear that AOIs are good at what they do but are laborious to program and maintain. With our system, there’s not a lot of manual work. You give the system a good (i.e., golden) board—or a couple of good boards if there's a union of different components—and our AI system creates a map of where components should be in less than a minute; away you go. You can tweak it after that, and it’s striking how quickly you can configure the product.
We brought our mini system to IPC APEX EXPO, and the response was fascinating. So many companies were intrigued by finally automating back-end production, and we're really excited about becoming a part of the community.
To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the March 2023 issue of SMT007 Magazine, click here.
Testimonial
"The I-Connect007 team is outstanding—kind, responsive, and a true marketing partner. Their design team created fresh, eye-catching ads, and their editorial support polished our content to let our brand shine. Thank you all! "
Sweeney Ng - CEE PCBSuggested Items
SEMICON Europa 2025 Spotlights Global Collaborations for European Economic Resilience
08/28/2025 | SEMISEMICON Europa 2025, co-located with productronica, will return to Munich from November 18-21 to mark its 50th anniversary, bringing together global industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers to strengthen Europe’s position in the global semiconductor landscape. Registration is open.
North American EMS Industry Shipments Down 4.1% in July
08/27/2025 | Global Electronics AssociationThe Global Electronics Association announced today the July 2025 findings from its North American Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) Statistical Program. The book-to-bill ratio stands at 1.23.
SIA Statement on Semiconductor Tariffs Announcement
08/27/2025 | SIAThe Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released the following statement from SIA President and CEO John Neuffer regarding President Trump’s semiconductor tariff announcement.
SMTA Elects New Board Members
08/27/2025 | SMTAThe SMTA is pleased to announce its election results for the Global Board of Directors for the term beginning October 19, 2025. Elizabeth Benedetto, HP Inc.; Pratish Patel, Electronic Interconnect; and Sutharshan Suppiramaniam, SMT Elite Corporation, have been newly elected to the Board of Directors for the term 2025-2028.
L3Harris Begins Sensor System Manufacturing in Poland
08/26/2025 | L3Harris TechnologiesL3Harris Technologies has begun manufacturing electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor systems at a 2,000-square-meter facility in Katowice.