Dr. Jennie Hwang to Deliver Courses on AI, High Reliability at IPC APEX EXPO 2024

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Dr. Jennie Hwang will deliver two Professional Development Courses on “Artificial Intelligence Era—Opportunities, Challenges, Possibilities” (PD21), and “High Reliability Electronics for Harsh Environments” (PD7) at IPC APEX 2024 on Sunday, April 7 and Monday, April 8, respectively.

Hwang, chair of the AI Committee of National Academies/DoD AI study, Panel of National AI Institute of NSF, and Committee of Strategic Thinking for Engineering Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence of NSF, brings broad-based information and insights through an integrated perspective to the AI course. A pioneer and long-standing leader in SMT manufacturing and lead-free implementation, brings deep knowledge and broad experiences to high reliability electronics course through both hands-on and advisory capacities in commercial as well as military applications. Her comprehensive and discerning knowledge has solved the toughest reliability and production issues for Class 3 and mission-critical and safety-centric electronics. Both courses provide working knowledge and pragmatic perspectives to all who are concerned about the product reliability under harsh environments or interested in understanding the present and future of AI.

Monday, April 8, 9 a.m. to noon
PD21: “Artificial Intelligence Era—Opportunities, Challenges, Possibilities”

As we move into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era, the new AI tools and platforms are remaking our daily lives and every aspect of workplace including design, research, engineering, manufacturing and management across all industries—from semiconductor and printed circuit board design to life sciences and new material design. Even not being an AI technologist, staying in the core knowledge zone is a viable strategy to remain proficient and competitive in the workplace. This course will bring an up-to-date and a holistic overview of AI with the goal to spur innovative ideas and inspire new vistas to timely capitalize the sound benefits of AI to maximize on-job efficiency and effectiveness as well as business profitability and productivity.  The recent emergence of ChatGPT and Generative AI makes use cases and “possible” future become more crucial to the on-job performance. The ability to balance between the AI’s omnipotent power and its downsides is key to leveraging AI as virtuous tools. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use the tools and how reliable and safe the designed tools can deliver.  This course maps out AI landsacpe including the current and future of AI development/deployment, demystifies prevalent notions, and outlines the prerequisite to win “AI game.” The key components behind AI technology including machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), Neural Networks (NN), Internet of Things (IoT), digital twins, Large Language Model (LLM), AI with justified confidence/trust, ChatGPT industry use-cases will be highlighted along with tips and recommendations.

Sunday, April 7, 9 a.m. to noon
PD7: “High Reliability Electronics for Harsh Environments”

Electronics/microelectronics industry increasingly requires high reliability products that are capable of consistently delivering reliable performance under harsh environments. This course dissects what it takes to perform in harsh environments and the rationale behind it including most critical and discerning factors, and offer ten (10) imperatives to ensure product reliability under harsh environments. Key players in PCB assemblies including component, PCB, solder joint and manufacturing process will be outlined. The causes and prevention of likely product failure categories and failures induced by time, voltage, and external environments, such as intermetallic compounds, electro-migration, creep corrosion, tin whisker will be highlighted. Backward compatibility of Pb-free BGA solder-ball and solder paste, the heightened impact of solder joint voids, and the relative ranking among new solder alloys including “low temperature solder” will be summarized.  With the objective to design and produce reliable products under harsh environments, the course is created to provide a holistic approach to eschew knowns and unknowns of likely failure modes by fusing test data, real-world performance and scientific, engineering and manufacturing principles.