I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

June 21 marked the first official day of summer, and it’s the longest day of the year. I’m wearing by best Hawaiian shirt right now. But we’ve been too busy to hit the beach yet. 

There’s a lot going on in our industry right now. In this week’s Top 5, we have our coverage of the recent SMTA Oregon Expo & Tech Forum, a show that drew a good crowd of technologists. There’s some good news about PCB sales, but the book-to-bill ratio is still below 1.00. A group of fabricators share their thoughts on the PCB design challenges of today—you may see your views reflected in this article. 

We have a great piece on rigid-flex circuits and a few less costly options that just might do the trick. And this week we published our final On the Line with… podcast with Siemens’ Jonathan Fromm, who discusses sustainability from a global and local perspective.

We’ll get to the beach soon. I hope you do too!

Oregon Plays Host to Popular SMTA Expo
Published June 19

Our I-Connect007 editors covered the recent SMTA Oregon Expo & Tech Forum in Wilsonville, Oregon. Speakers and exhibitors came from around the country to this show, which turned out to be a healthy sized tabletop event. These little shows are more popular than ever now. Don’t miss our cool SMTA Oregon photo gallery.

PCB Design Challenges—From the Fabricator’s Viewpoint
Published June 22

When we set out to discuss the most common PCB design challenges of today, we knew that we had to ask fabricators to share their two cents’ worth. In this article, the fab folks don’t hold back their opinions about mistakes, missteps and miscues that they witness on the PCB design side, and they offer some helpful tips that address these issues.

It’s a Team Effort: Final Episode in Sustainability Series Out Now
Published June 21

Everyone is talking about sustainability, but how do you initiate a process this wide-ranging at your company? Check out our latest—and final—On the Line with… podcast with Siemens’ Jonathan Fromm, who discusses the “eight R’s” of sustainability from a predictive analytics viewpoint.

North American PCB Industry Sales Up 6.7% in May
Published June 23 

We had some good news this week: North American PCB sales rose 6.7% YoY in May. But May shipments were down 1.9% from the previous year and the book-to-bill ratio is 0.89. A book-to-bill of 1.0 is a sign that demand is ahead of supply.

Rigid-flex, Rigidized Flex, or Hybrid Flex?
Published June 22

Sure, rigid-flex is a hot topic now, and this construction is popping up in more consumer devices than ever. But rigid-flex isn’t exactly cheap. As our contributor Mike Morando PFC Flexible Circuits points out, there are several potential options that may serve a customer as well as rigid-flex, without the cost. I expect we’ll be seeing more rigidized flex in the future.