Latest Articles

Culture by Design: Building a Winning Team from the Start

If you want to attract top talent and achieve great results, your organizational culture is key. It’s hands-down one of the most important elements in your business and it’s quite possibly one of the best predictors of your long-term success. Studies have long shown the tie between strong cultures and higher productivity and revenue. So, it needs to be created and nurtured carefully. Your hiring practices need to support it.

Sigma Mecer: Turning Copper ‘Green’

Andreas Littorin is CEO at Sigma Engineering AB. The company has been manufacturing equipment for the PCB industry for 45 years, mainly a mature product for copper recycling of alkaline and acidic etchants in the PCB manufacturing process.

GreenSource Engineering: An Eye on Design

Schweitzer engaged the services of GreenSource Engineering to assist in the initial design of the facility, along with handling automation equipment. Nolan Johnson met with the GreenSource team— Michael Gleason, Marco Mirkovic, James Brown, and Rick Nichols—representing GreenSource Engineering and GreenSource Fabrication (GSF), to better understand their working relationship for the build-out of the new facility in Moscow, Idaho.

USPAE, DoD Launch $10 Million Defense Business Accelerator

In a major initiative to innovate how the Department of Defense (DoD) spurs commercial technology development, the U.S. Partnership for Assured Electronics (USPAE) and DoD launched a Defense Business Accelerator (DBX) to open doors for industrial base growth and stimulate private investment.

Schmoll: Pushing Drilling Forward

Automation is everywhere, and nowhere is that more evident than the machines from Schmoll used in the new captive facility for Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Schmoll Maschinen GmbH Executive Director Stephan Kunz, and Evan Howard, service manager for Schmoll products, Burkle North America, discuss how their machines are perfectly suited for SEL’s production lines.

Book Excerpt: 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Designing for Reality,' Introduction

Based on the wisdom of 50 years of PCB manufacturing at Sunstone Circuits, this book is a must-have reference for designers understanding the PCB manufacturing process as it relates to their design. Designing for manufacturability requires understanding the production process fundamentals and factors within the process that often lead to variations in manufacturability, reliability, and cost of the board.

The SEL Supply Line: An Introduction

During my recent tour of SEL’s new $100 million PCB factory in Moscow, Idaho, I spoke with Engineering Director John Hendrickson specifically about the partnerships they formed with the many equipment suppliers it took to build a new factory. I wanted to know when he’s choosing a supplier in a critical aspect, what is he looking for?

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

This week’s must-reads cover a little bit of everything: advanced packaging substrates, rigid-flex design, the potential loss of tribal knowledge, ultra HDI processing, and the need for fabricators to begin utilizing Smart systems. In a few weeks, we’ll be attending SMTA International in Minneapolis, and then productronica in Munich. We hope to see you on the road!

Rigid-flex Design Guidelines 

Rigid-flex circuits are unique structures; part rigid board and part flex, they’re increasingly working their way into many of the electronic devices we use every day. There have been many advances in rigid-flex lately as more companies find themselves exploring this technology. So, before I started writing this article about rigid-flex design, I double-checked a few things. Fortunately, there is plenty of rigid-flex information available on a variety of great websites that we all know and trust.

Pivoting on Substrates

Oved Shapira is CEO of PCB Technologies, the Israeli-based printed circuit provider. PCB Technologies has recently invested in facilities and expertise to design, fabricate, and assemble substrates, a key component for advanced packaging technologies. Oved spoke with Barry Matties and Nolan Johnson about how advanced packaging will influence the industry. He said it will shift everything, including design, fabrication, assembly techniques, and capital equipment development. Some of these shifts might be subtle, and others more seismic. Whatever the changes, Oved says it’s coming.

Cutting-edge Inspection Challenges

Koh Young’s Brent Fischthal explains how UHDI and advanced packaging are challenging inspection systems. He says the shift toward larger components and advanced packaging brings a host of challenges that impact the industry. These challenges include complexity, density, package diversity, and inspection methodologies, all of which necessitate a more innovative approach.

The Honest Truth About Founders and Investors: An Author Interview

I was so impressed with "Founder vs. Investor: The Honest Truth about Venture Capital from Start up to IPO" by Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann that I just had to reach out to them. In my interview with the authors, they share how the book came about, how they often didn’t agree, and how vital that was to the integrity of the story they hoped to tell. I know this interview will be just as valuable for you as it was for me.

Towards a Silicon to Systems Industrial Strategy

"Electronics systems are at the heart of almost all modern technology. The performance and functionality of these systems have increased at breathtaking speed, chiefly as a result of advancements in semiconductor technology. Semiconductors do not function in isolation," writes Alison James, IPC senior director of government relations, in a 2023 report for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship. "These electronics systems feature prominently in key sectors like defence, aerospace, space, automotive, medical, and high-performance computing, but electronics are vital to every industry and are central to a variety of EU priorities, including the twin digital and green transitions and Europe’s technological sovereignty."

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

This week has been chock full of news about upcoming trade shows and conferences. Clearly, the season is upon us. This week, I-Connect007 reported on PCB West in Santa Clara (often referred to as the show which kicks off trade show season) and the topic of artificial intelligence was everywhere. By the looks of it, not just at the conference, either. For months now, the mainstream media has been gobbling up all sorts of news about generative AI engines, painting the picture that we’ll all lose our jobs to these tools, while also reporting on situations where the results from AI have gotten progressively worse over time.

What is Ultra HDI?

Ever since high density interconnect (HDI) was created in 1982 by Hewlett-Packard to package its first 32-bit computer powered by a single chip, it has continued to evolve and provide the solutions for miniaturized products. The leading edge of HDI technology became the process used for organic flip-chip packaging for the semiconductor industry. The two distinct markets—IC substrates and product-system integration—are now colliding and utilizing the same ultra-HDI manufacturing processes.

The Drive Toward UHDI and Substrates

Panasonic’s Darren Hitchcock spoke with the I-Connect007 Editorial Team on the complexities of moving toward ultra HDI manufacturing. As we learn in this conversation, the number of shifting constraints relative to traditional PCB fabrication is quite large and can sometimes conflict with each other.

Rigid-flex Stackup: It’s a 3D World

Z-zero founder Bill Hargin has been studying stackup design techniques for years. He developed the company’s PCB stackup planning software, and he wrote an I-Connect007 eBook, The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to… Stackups: The Design within the Design. In this interview, Bill shares his thoughts on designing rigid-flex stackups, the challenges they bring, and what rigid board designers need to know about designing stackups in 3D. “Flexperts” Mark Finstad of Flexible Circuit Technologies and Nick Koop of TTM Technologies also offer insight into the many tradeoffs that rigid-flex designers face.

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

We’ve had a hot week in this industry. In my picks for this week, we introduce a new SMT007 columnist, and we have a look at the CHIPS Act one year later. We have a great article about sourcing diversification, and a look at the latest electronics news coming out of India. And columnist Vern Solberg explains DFM best practices for flexible circuits.

Women’s Leadership Program at SMTA International 2023

The Women’s Leadership Program is a popular, annually recurring event hosted during SMTA International. This year’s event is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 9, at the Minneapolis Convention Center and is free for all participants at SMTA International. The theme for this year’s program is “Personal Branding: Creating an Authentic and Sustainable Perception.”

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

As I looked over the news and stories of the week, I noticed "firsts" from Insulectro and Lockheed Martin, plus a historic transition in leadership at Foxconn. There’s also financial health from KLA, and upbeat market data from IPC. With the start of a new school year, and often a fiscal year, September brings a sense of newness and change for many of us.

10 Steps to Outstanding

So often when I talk to PCB shop owners, they ask me how they can be outstanding. How can they position their own company to stand out from the crowd? That’s because one of the issues PCB shops face these days is they all seem to be alike. While they used to be judged and differentiated based on performance, now they all have very good quality.

Developing a Fabrication Business Strategy

Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about business strategies for PCB manufacturers here in the pages of PCB007 Magazine. But let’s back up a bit and look at the process for developing a new strategy. Where should you even begin? What’s your strategy for developing a strategy, if you will? We asked Chris Chapman, a Lean/Agile leadership coach and publisher of the Digestible Deming newsletter, to share his thoughts on developing successful business strategies and how the management philosophy of W. Edwards Deming can help leaders in our industry take their companies to the next level.

A Labor Day Holiday Notice

Today is a national holiday in both the United States and Canada (though the Canadians spell it Labour Day). The U.S. Labor Day has been federal holiday since 1894, and honors both the American labor movement and the contributions of laborers in the creation of the United States. Labor Day falls on the first Monday of September and is often considered the last day of summer in American culture. This is likely because the American school schedules resume around the beginning of September.

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

As we head into the Labor Day weekend, we have a variety of articles for this week’s editor’s picks. Hannah Nelson discusses the onboarding process she went through when she started a new job. Gaurab Majumdar explains why tech companies should consider hiring workers from India. Happy Holden details the importance of great sensor technology and why sensors are a critical ingredient in Smart manufacturing processes. Mike Brask discusses the new IPS ENIG line installed at the SEL facility in Idaho, and Chris DeMartino explains how Modelithics works to provide simulation models, primarily for the RF/microwave community.

IPC Day Comes to Romania

When IPC staff wanted to showcase the latest industry developments to a European audience, they made an obvious choice: Timisoara, Romania. The dramatic economic expansion here over the past 30 years has resulted in a large concentration of manufacturing and technology businesses. Long-term planning by authorities positioned the city as a business-friendly and diverse cultural hub on the western border, providing easy access to Central Europe.
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