Review of the 2017 IPC Reliability Forum

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IPC continues to lead our industry by example with their inaugural Reliability Forum, held in Chicago in April. The event was focused on manufacturing high-performance products and featured industry royalty from both a speaker and audience standpoint.

Event Background

The event steering committee charged with developing the forum was headed by Program Chair Michael Carano, and included Don Dupriest, Michael Jawitz, Craig Hillman, Gary Ferrari, Jack Fisher, Denny Fritz, and Sanjay Huprikar, VP of the IPC Member Services. Mike Carano, VP of RPB Chemical Technologies, served as the forum’s ringleader, host and emcee. I was fortunate enough to have been asked to participate and speak at the event, and I feel an obligation to let those who were not able to attend this year know what an invaluable educational opportunity this ongoing forum presents for our industry moving forward.

The Audience

The forum was well attended, with a veritable who’s who of our industry’s supply chain, including raw material and equipment suppliers, PCB fabricators, contract manufacturers and OEMs. Companies represented included: Amphenol, Atotech, Aurora Circuits, CTS, DfR Solutions, Dow Chemical, Dow Electronic Material, DuPont–RTP, Embraer S.A., Extreme Engineering Solutions, FTG Circuits, HDP User Group International, Holaday Circuits, Intrinsiq Materials, Inventec Performance Chemicals,  IPC, KEMET Electronics, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Lockheed Missiles and Fire Control, MacDermid Enthone, MED-EL, Minco, Motorola,  Nexteer Automotive, Northrop Grumman, NSWC Crane, NTS, Orbital, Park Electrochemical, Penn State University, Precision Analytical Laboratory, Prismview, Raytheon, RBP Chemical Technology, Rockwell Collins, RollsRoyce, SAIC, Summit Interconnect, The Right Approach Consulting, ThingWeaver Solutions, TTM Technologies, Ventec, and ZESTRON.

The Topics

The Steering Committee did a wonderful job of assembling a lineup of topics that were both relevant to the forum’s theme of manufacturing high-performance products, and presenting insight from our industry’s brightest technological minds. What follows is a brief highlight of each speaker’s presentation.

To read the full version of this article which appeared in the July 2017 issue of The PCB Magazine, click here.