Latest Articles

Best Practices: Footprint Design and CAD Library Management

The I-Connect team spoke with Altium’s John Watson about the hurdles surrounding footprints and footprint design. John talks about how being proactive and improving the CAD library can better QC processes and help protect against footprint difficulties.

Joe Fjelstad's Book Review: The Innovators

"The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution" by Walter Isaacson is the best technology history book I have ever read, and at the same time one of the most engaging and entertaining. It is a forte of Isaacson to write biographies of great people. I have read his other books on DaVinci, Steve Jobs, Ben Franklin and Albert Einstein and found them equally brilliant. Isaacson has a number of other titles I have yet to get to in the future. He is a singularly great storyteller.

Orbotech Flex Equipment Introduction

Barry Matties speaks with Meny Gantz about the challenges for flex manufacturing, what’s driving the complexity around it, and how Orbotech’s new products will help their customers produce flex in much more effective way.

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

Another active news week in the electronics industry! February is launching with a high-G burn, to be sure. And if you’re a fan of The Expanse, like I am, then you’ve probably already watched through to the Season 5 finale; this means you have attention to spare for industry news all of a sudden. And if you haven’t reached the current end of the line for The Expanse, then today’s list is just what you need while you catch up.

Catching up With Nano Dimension

Dan Feinberg spoke with Valentin Storz, Nano Dimension’s general manager of EMEA and director of marketing, about how the pandemic has affected their business this past year and what they have planned moving forward.

Kemmer Praezision Partners with Insulectro

In this interview, Nolan Johnson and Gregor Dutkiewicz discuss Kemmer Praezision, their new working partnership with Insulectro, and some of the recent market challenges in mechanical drill bit technology.

Dan Feinberg's Favorite Career Moments

During a recent conversation on industry topics, Nolan Johnson asked Dan Feinberg, PCB fabrication pioneer, businessman and IPC Hall of Fame inductee, about his favorite career moments. In this clip, we proudly share with you two of Dan’s highlights. Both of these memories speak to Dan’s role as a trailblazer in electronics manufacturing—first in the U.S, then across the globe.

Making the Most of a Virtual Event

Nolan Johnson speaks with Alicia Balonek, senior director of tradeshows and events at IPC, about how both attendees and exhibitors can best prepare for this year’s virtual IPC APEX EXPO and breaks down some of the events you can look forward to at this year’s show.

Seven Tips for Your Next Stackup Design

Rarely do we have the luxury of designing a board just for connectivity. When interconnects are not transparent, we must engineer them to reduce the noise they can generate. This is where design for signal integrity, power integrity and EMC—collectively high-speed digital engineering—are so important. Eric Bogatin offers seven tips for stackup design.

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

This week, we have a variety of news and articles to share, and it’s all positive. We have a new president, and he’s pledging to help American businesses. December PCB sales were up 4.5% over the same period a year ago. Atotech is just about ready to launch an IPO. Sunstone has tweaked its free CAD tool, PCB123, to make it even easier for designers to receive their Gerber files. And columnist John Watson breaks down what we all learned during the chaos that was 2020.

Book Review: The Timeliest Read of 2021—The Business of WE

It’s only January, but this may be the timeliest book of the year, as well as the most important. Why? Because it deals with the issues that we are facing right here now. The gap that Kriska refers to is the one between black and white, men and women and as the title suggests “we and them.”

IPC’s Alicia Balonek Talks Trade Show News

Nolan Johnson discusses IPC APEX EXPO 2021 with Alicia Balonek, senior director of trade shows and events at IPC. Alicia provides an update on how IPC APEX EXPO will be structured in a virtual format, overviews the programming changes, and new additions designed to make IPC APEX EXPO the best virtual event possible.

5 Keys to Smart Process Success

Smart factories require the core underlying processes to be connected and “talking” to generate the data necessary to make real-time process decisions, that is, the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things). In a truly connected factory, an ongoing continuous dialog between machines, business processes, suppliers and customers is happening in the background. This dialog is not only interactive, but proactive, as a constant stream of real-time data is tweaking and adjusting processes to drive improvement. It also provides time-critical information on how processes are operating, supply chain pipeline, and delivery status updates—all based on data.

The Future of Imaging and Inkjet Printing

We recently spoke to Ed Carignan of Technica, who outlines the current landscape for both direct imaging and inkjet printing and describes how the technologies have evolved over the years. He also details what’s next on the horizon.

Book Excerpt: ‘Thermal Management: A Fabricator's Perspective,' Chapter 3

Conceptually, a metal-core board is exactly like it sounds—the metal is in the middle of the PCB sandwiched between layers on both sides. Just about any PCBA that will contain active heat-generating components can benefit when designed on a metal-core PCB. On a conventional PCB, the standard FR-4 layers are relatively poor thermal conductors, and heat is normally dissipated from active components using vias and thermal pads, as discussed earlier.

EIPC Technical Snapshot: Business Outlook

A headline in a Sunday newspaper had caught John Ling’s eye as he composed the invitation to this fourth EIPC seminar: “Now, more than ever, we need to talk.” Thus, it is that EIPC decided to run another technical webinar, which was just like one of their in-person conferences, except no one had to travel—or got to enjoy a beer or excellent food with convivial company.

What’s Driving Price Increases for CCL and Prepreg?

Demand for copper foil is increasing from both PCB and battery production for e-mobility, leading to an upward price pressure for copper foils as post lockdown pent-up demand starts to exceed capacity. Lead times are stretching and prices increasing, particularly for heavy copper foils (2 oz./70 micron and above) as capacity is repurposed to maximize square-meter output for lightweight foils to increase capacity for lithium battery production.

Tech 2 Tech: KYZEN’s Short Technical Sessions a Big Hit

Nolan Johnson gets an update from Tom Forsythe on KYZEN’s Tech 2 Tech sessions. These brief 15-minute sessions were set up during the pandemic by KYZEN for customers, prospects, and new engineers around cleaning, and have since found traction with their manufacturers, reps and distributors.

Your Greatest Competition is Yourself

It really doesn’t matter who you think your external competitors are, because the only competitor that really matters is you. Of course, you will look externally to stay on top of latest trends, but when it comes to competition, just competing with yourself is a win. When you look at yourself as your greatest competitor you will start with a huge advantage: you already have great intel on how “your competition” thinks. Ask yourself, “What can I do to displace my ‘competitor’ and create something much better?”

Book Excerpt: Thermal Management With Insulated Metal Substrates, Part 5

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of "The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Thermal Management With Insulated Metal Substrates," written by Ventec International Group’s Didier Mauve and Ian Mayoh. In this free eBook, the authors provide PCB designers with the essential information required to understand the thermal, electrical, and mechanical characteristics of insulated metal substrate laminates.

MivaTek’s New Technology and Market Drivers

I recently spoke with Brendan Hogan about the upcoming new product releases from MivaTek. The conversation flows naturally from the new product’s market drivers to the X=Xc – 1 idea that is at the core of the market drivers.

CES 2021 Coverage: A Virtual Show Floor

I write this on the final day of CES 2021, and I expect CES will never be the same. It will not revert back to what it once was. I also cannot imagine it stays a totally virtual show; in doing so, I feel it would fail. Does that mean I think the 2021 show was a failure? No, not at all. In fact, it was a very good event, particularly in light of the medical and political pandemic that we have been enduring.

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

Hard to believe that a year ago, I was getting ready to attend DesignCon and IPC APEX EXPO and wondering if this Novel Coronavirus was going to cut into attendance from the Pacific Rim. Now, we’re accustomed to virtual trade shows. They’re not ideal, but they’re the best we can do while meeting in person is not possible. We’ve learned to adapt.

Bruce Mahler Discusses Ohmega Technologies' Acquisition by Arcline Investment Management

I-Connect007’s Nolan Johnson catches up with Bruce Mahler, vice president and general manager at Ohmega Technologies, about Thursday’s announcement that Ohmega Technologies has been acquired by Arcline Investment Management. Mahler outlines the new opportunities this presents for Ohmega Technologies and discusses how this change in ownership will benefit existing customers and markets as well.

My View from CES 2021: Day 1

What a difference a year makes. One year ago, those of us who cover and attend CES were going from one press conference to the next; this year, we are at home going from link to link. Confusing and challenging, yes, but there are some advantages: no masks, only five steps to get to a restroom, being able to have three of four events or more displaying on your screens at the same time and being able to download press kits as needed. So far, many new devices are being introduced, but of course, they are all online, so you wonder if some of them really exist or are truly operational as yet.
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