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What happens when the rule book is no longer useful, or worse, was never written in the first place? In today’s fast-moving electronics landscape, we’re increasingly asked to design and build what has no precedent, no proven path, and no tidy checklist to follow. This is where “Design for Invention” begins.
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From the growing role of AI in design tools to the challenge of managing cumulative tolerances, these articles in this issue examine the technical details, design choices, and manufacturing considerations that determine whether a board works as intended.
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DfR Solutions Wins IPC APEX EXPO Innovation Award
March 6, 2018 | DfR SolutionsEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
DfR Solutions' newest version of its Sherlock Automated Design Analysis Software version 5.4 with temperature-based FEA has been awarded an IPC APEX EXPO Innovation Award. The IPC APEX EXPO Innovation Awards have been created to honor outstanding products and services for the electronics industry. The award was presented to DfR Solutions at IPC APEX EXPO during John Mitchell’s keynote on Wednesday, February 28, 2018.
About Sherlock’s Temperature-Based FEA
In extreme environments like aerospace and automotive, electronics reliability is critical to the performance of the product and the safety of its users. Available this March, the new temperature-based FEA capability, will enable users to simulate boards experiencing thermal and vibrational stresses sequentially, modeling to real-world conditions where products are exposed to many stressors simultaneously.
As part of the award submission, DfR Solutions answered the following questions:
How is this product innovative?
Sherlock Automated Design Analysis Software is the only physics of failure (POF) based electronics design reliability analysis tool that analyzes and predicts product failure before it happens. Continually evolving, this version of Sherlock allows users to predict not only board-level but component-level reliability and make critical lifetime predictions based on real-world conditions. This is crucial to industries like automotive and aerospace that operate in extreme environments.
How is this product impacting the industry?
Sherlock is being used by Fortune 100 companies across all industries to streamline and accelerate new product development, saving time, money, reducing cost, and increasing customer satisfaction. Sherlock is quickly becoming the tool that is required by major manufacturers throughout their supply chain.
"We are thrilled to be receiving this prestigious award from IPC APEX," said Dr. Craig Hillman, CEO of DfR Solutions. "Technology is everywhere, and it keeps getting smaller, hotter, and faster. As that happens, traditional standards-based reliability methods are becoming obsolete and modern physics of failure tools are becoming more important. The Sherlock team here is continuously working on new ways to expand its capabilities and address the ever-changing and increasingly complex challenges in electronics design," stated Hillman.
About the Innovation Awards Program
The IPC APEX EXPO Innovation Awards program recognizes two levels of honorees among the following categories:
- PCB Design
- PCB Fabrication
- Assembly
- Test & Inspection
- Services
Products and services are reviewed, rated and scored by a panel of industry experts. There are two award designations: Honoree: A product or technology that scores above the threshold set for a specific category and Best of Innovation: Given to only the highest-rated product or technology in each category.
About Sherlock Automated Design Analysis Software
Sherlock is the first-of-its-kind Automated Design Analysis software for analyzing, grading, and certifying the expected reliability of products at the circuit card assembly level. Based on the science of Physics of Failure, it is used by the electronics industry across all markets. Sherlock continues to evolve, incorporating new innovations and enhancements allowing users to manage increasingly complex analyses faster and more efficiently than ever before. To see sherlock in action, attend the 2018 Design for Reliability Conference, March 19-21, in Baltimore MD.
About DfR Solutions
DfR Solutions has world-renowned expertise in applying the science of Reliability Physics to electrical and electronics technologies and is a leading provider of quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) research and consulting for the electronics industry. The company’s integrated use of Physics of Failure (PoF) and Best Practices provides crucial insights and solutions early in product design and development and throughout the product life cycle. DfR Solutions specializes in providing knowledge- and science-based solutions to maximize and accelerate the product integrity assurance activities of their clients in every marketplace for electronic technologies (consumer, industrial, automotive, medical, military, telecom, oil drilling, and throughout the electronic component and material supply chain). For more information regarding DfR Solutions, click here.
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Simon Khesin - Schmoll MaschinenSuggested Items
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