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Advice From a Young Professional

As I reflect on my opportunity to as the IPC Student Board Member, I'm eager to share three impressions with our wonderful community: Executive leaders of IPC value the input of students and young professionals; the electronics manufacturing industry is undergoing a changing of the guard, and many of the most experienced players are looking to share their hard-earned wisdom. I've been exceptionally fortunate to receive invaluable career advice that I wish to pass on to anyone else beginning their professional career.

Munich Opening Its Doors to productronica 2023 This Week

Messe Munchen's productronica 2023, one of the world’s biggest electronics manufacturing trade shows, begins Tuesday in Munich. The key topics for this year’s forums and live demonstrations are power electronics, AI, and sensors in electronics production. The show features more than 1,300 exhibitors occupying nearly 90,000 square meters in eight halls of the massive 200,000 square meter venue.

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

This week's edition focuses almost entirely on young people. This in itself is quite a feat as not long ago, there were no young people coming into this industry. Now, we have a small but steady stream of young folks entering the industry, and we’re focusing on providing them with the latest training and education. Our industry, for a variety of reasons, is now attractive to people born in this millennium. Didn’t see that coming!

Simplifying Your Design

For this issue on simplifying PCB designs, the I-Connect007 Editorial Team spoke with IPC instructor Kris Moyer about ways that designers can avoid over-constraining their designs and making them needlessly complex. As Kris says, streamlining your design comes down to having a solid understanding of fab and assembly processes and the silicon tradeoffs that can simplify or overcomplicate your design, as well as the need to start working with fabricators early in the cycle.

PCB Carolina 2023 Breaks Attendance, Exhibitor Records

Call it a good problem to have. PCB Carolina 2023 was so big that that exhibitors were literally spilling out of the show floor at NC State’s MacKimmon Center for Continuing and Lifelong Education. This year, PCB Carolina drew 1,200 attendees and so many exhibitors that some “overflow” booths had to be set up in a classroom near the show floor, as well as in the registration area. Where did all these attendees come from? The line for lunch and dinner looked what you’d see at DesignCon

Meet the New Workforce at IPS

I recently visited IPS in Cedar City, Utah, which has been manufacturing wet process equipment for printed circuit boards fabrication for more than 30 years. While there, I conducted candid one-on-one interviews with several of the team members. They shared their views on manufacturing, their roles and challenges, their burgeoning passion for what they do, and valuable advice for others looking at manufacturing as a career.

AI Revolution Reshaping the Future of PCB Manufacturing 

In the rapidly evolving landscape of PCB manufacturing, the integration of machine learning (ML) in the context of smart factories is ushering in a new era of efficiency, adaptability, and competitiveness within the industry. This article explores how ML is revolutionizing various facets of smart factories, including predictive maintenance, quality control, production, and inventory optimization.

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

When I use our analytics to see what’s of most interest to our readers, what comes to the top of list are topics such as sustainability, materials, reshoring, upskilling, and high reliability. It makes sense, doesn’t it? In today’s business climate, we must be ever aware of the impact we’re having on the environment while maintaining a high-quality product that supports our national economic and security interests.

New Materials Simplify Fab and Design Processes

During PCB West, Andy Shaughnessy and Kelly Dack met with Paul Cooke, senior director of business development, Ventec International Group. In this interview, Paul discusses some of the global trends he’s seeing in new materials that address the issue of stacked microvia failure, and his drive to educate North American designers about the use of pure resin and no-flow materials. 

Financial Risks of Ignoring Copper Grain

The topic of intrinsic copper structure has been largely neglected in discussions regarding the PCB fabrication quality control process. At face value, this seems especially strange considering that copper has been the primary conductor in all wiring boards and substrates since they were first invented. IPC and other standards almost exclusively address copper thickness with some mild attention being paid to surface structure for signal loss-mitigation/coarse properties. 

Planning, DFM, and Inspection: Key to High-reliability Fab

At PCB West, Andy Shaughnessy and Kelly Dack spoke with Marc L’Hoste, VP of West and South Americas for ICAPE Group, a company that supplies and manufactures high-tech PCBs at locations around the world. We asked Marc to share some advice regarding high-reliability fab. In this conversation, Marc is clear that planning, pre-work, and inspection are the key ingredients to high-reliability success.

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

I don’t know everything, but I know one thing: This job is never boring. Here’s just a sample of what we’ve published online in the last week: an article on zero liquid discharge technology, an interview with a flex fabricator about avoiding DFM issues, a feature on the use of AI in smart assembly processes, a news item about investment in advanced substrate development in the U.S., and a story about one woman’s journey in electronics, starting when she learned to solder at 11 years old.

With Flex and Rigid-flex, Ask the Right Questions

I recently met with Tony Plemel, senior applications engineer with Flexible Circuit Technologies. In this interview, Tony discusses when flex designers need to break the rules, when they can’t break the rules, and why it’s so important for fabricators to ask designers the right questions to ensure a successful build.

Advanced Materials Update with John Andresakis

At PCB West, I sat down for an interview with John Andresakis, the director of business development for Quantic Ohmega. I asked John to update us on the company’s newest materials, trends in advanced materials, and the integration of Ticer Technologies, which Quantic acquired in 2021. As John explains, much of the excitement in materials focuses on laminates with lower and lower dielectric constants.

Forecasting the Wind: IPC's Expert Economist on the Impact of Inflation Rates

In the enchanting world of Shakespeare's plays, prophecies often set the stage for unforeseen twists and turns. Just as Macbeth could not have anticipated the tumultuous journey that lay ahead after encountering the three witches, the financial markets and policymakers find themselves in a similarly uncertain terrain. Take prices, which rose sharply in 2022. The Federal Reserve was slow to respond. Although the rate of inflation has declined since reaching its zenith last year, it continues to exceed the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation goal. “Higher for longer” is likely the mantra for interest rates. This prolonged period of higher interest rates will have a ripple effect on various sectors of the economy.

Reducing Waste Makes Good Business Sense

Alex Stepinski, president of Stepinski Group, and Mike Brask, president of IPS, announce a new partnership to bring Alex’s latest generation zero liquid-discharge (ZLD) waste control systems to market. Alex first developed the ZLD concept 10 years ago at a state-of-the-art PCB manufacturing facility. Over the years he refined and improved the entire system to increase efficiency and lower cost, and different versions of the system are currently used in several facilities around the world. 

Alex Stepinski on High-reliability Fabrication 

Alex Stepinski, principal and president of Stepinski Inc., and principal of Smart Process Design, has designed leading-edge PCB facilities and introduced a variety of novel systems and technologies into PCB manufacturing. We asked Alex to share his thoughts on high-reliability fabrication techniques, where manufacturers go wrong, and what fabricators need to do to step up their reliability game.

PCBflow Fosters Collaboration Between Design and Manufacture 

During PCB West, I spoke with Susan Kayesar, program manager for PCBflow, a business unit of Siemens that provides a collaboration environment for designers and manufacturers. We discussed the intent behind PCBFlow and how this platform helps to improve pre-manufacture communications. 

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

My must-reads for this week all seem to be forward-looking: an introduction to Factory 5.0, an interview from the floor at SMTA International on rework stations, announcement of a merger of two components suppliers, board of directors news, and an insightful PCB CAD tool market projection report.

Got Questions? Standards Have the Answers

The I-Connect007 Editorial Team recently spoke with Gerry Partida, vice president of technology at Summit Interconnect, and co-chair of the IPC-6012 committee. Gerry has been involved with standards development for years, and he believes that adhering to IPC’s standards and specifications has been a big part of Summit’s success. In this interview, Gerry explains how Summit utilizes standards, manufacturing data, and information to reduce re-spins and scrap while increasing yield and profitability. He also discusses the repercussions that can occur when designers don’t follow IPC standards. As Gerry points out, everything you need to know is in the standards, so why not follow them?

A Gap in Capability in the Defense Industrial Base

The U.S. Partnership for Assured Electronics (USPAE) recently announced information about developing a public-private venture to catalyze advanced U.S. circuit board manufacturing capabilities. To learn more about the program and how industry can take part, we spoke with Joe O’Neil, who is directing the development effort for the partnership.

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

In this week’s Top 5, we start with a conversation with Mike Soble, who explains why SEL and Chemcut have such a great partnership. We have a review of SMTA International, which took place this week in Minneapolis. We also have a conversation with the design team at Monsoon Solutions; they explain how they geared their documentation process to the requirements of IPC standards. Mike Morando explains how to qualify your rigid-flex manufacturer. And we have an announcement about the IPC Checklist, a very useful document that I-Connect007 recently published.

Insulectro Flex Materials Showcase Offers Tips for Technologists

Insulectro continues its drive to educate PCB designers about the ins and outs of advanced flex materials. On Sept. 19 the company hosted an all-day seminar on flexible and printed electronic materials at its San Jose, Calif., facility.

MKS' Atotech: More Horizontal Panel Plating in the U.S.

Recently, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) opened its new $100 million captive printed circuit board manufacturing facility in Moscow, Idaho. The new facility features state-of-the-art PCB equipment from MKS’ Atotech, one of the leading providers of advanced PCB and IC substrate horizontal manufacturing equipment for the electronics industry. This type of equipment is normally delivered to Asian markets and is not usually seen in North America.

Notion Systems: The Arrival of the ‘Jet Age’

Notion Systems is a German-based company and one of the leading suppliers of industrial inkjet systems for functional materials. Antonio Schmidt, senior vice president of sales and marketing, explains that by applying the solder resist fully-digitally, Notion gave Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) the opportunity to save time, investment, space, and labor in their new printed circuit board manufacturing facility.
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