Recorded conversations and interviews on electronics design and manufacturing with the editors of PCD&F/Circuits Assembly, brought to you by the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA)
Episodes
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Reshoring has been a buzzword for a few years now. But when supply chains are undergoing dramatic disruption and inflation is raging worldwide, what is the reality?
To answer those questions and more, we are turning to Dr. Matthew Dyson, senior technology analyst at ID Tech Ex. Dr. Dyson just coauthored a white paper titled "Factory of the Future." He discusses what that looks like, explaining the key trends in industrial manufacturing -- sensors, additive manufacturing, automation and flexibility -- and the timeline for adoption with PCEA president Mike Buetow.
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Is there a broad consensus on what "smart manufacturing" is, and more specifically, its application in electronics assembly?
Brian Morrison, vice president of engineering for Vexos, a mid-tier multinational EMS with manufacturing facilities in the US, Canada, China and Vietnam and more than 900 employees worldwide, gives his take on smart manufacturing and its relationship to AI and Lean to PCEA chief content officer Chelsey Drysdale.
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
In late 2018, IPC shocked the electronics assembly community by introducing an amendment to section 8 of the J-STD-001G. This amendment radically changed the way industry determines cleanliness. Now, assemblers must prove their assemblies are clean enough not to experience electrochemical migration events which would cause the assembly to fail.
This new process of obtaining objective evidence has been met with a considerable degree of confusion. To help clear up the confusion, Mike Konrad speaks with Graham Naisbitt, vice chair of the IPC 5-30 Cleaning and Coating Subcommittee that oversees 15 IPC Standards Development Committees and recipient of 14 IPC Standards Awards.
Naisbitt is an IEC 1906 Lord Kelvin Award Winner, IEC TC91 WG2, 3 and 10 Maintenance Leader of 4 Standards, and a British Standards Institution EPL-501 Member.
He is a specialist in surface insulation resistance testing, ionic contamination control, solderability, conformal coating materials and application systems, cleaning, inspection and test.
Wednesday Jul 06, 2022
Wednesday Jul 06, 2022
John Burkhert Jr., senior PCB layout engineer and author of Designer’s Notebook, the monthly column on PCB design engineering, talks about the so-called soft side of engineering: people skills.
He recently posted a 1250-word piece titled There May Come a Time When PCB Design Requires People Management Skills. It struck a chord with more than a few designers and engineers, who shared similar anecdotes. He shares the story and some lessons learned over his three decades in electronics design.
This special 100th episode of PCB Chat is sponsored by PCB West, the leading conference and exhibition for printed circuit and design engineering. Coming Oct. 4-7 to the Santa Clara CA Convention Center. Learn more at pcbwest.com.
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Jen Fijalkowski works for Aim Solder. Jen obtained her B.S. from the University of Rhode Island in chemical engineering and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Prior to her role as a technical marketing engineer, she interned as a SMT Process Engineer, where she analyzed various reports regarding solder paste printing and coauthored "Comparison of Aperture Designs, Solder Pastes, Nanocoatings and Print/Inspection Systems," published in PCD&F/Circuits Assembly. Jen also produces a video blog titled “Line Down” where she discusses common questions about solder paste best practices and how to avoid solder paste induced line-down situations.
Mike Konrad spoke with Jen about solder paste best practices as well as some of the latest advances in solder pastes such as low temperature, low voiding, and high reliability solder pastes.
Monday Jun 20, 2022
Monday Jun 20, 2022
The Rochester Institute of Technology in January launched its first course on printed circuit board design.
Instruction was performed by Dr. Kirsch Mackey, an electrical engineer and head of hardware training at HaSofu.
On this episode of PCB Chat, we speak with Dr. Mackey and Dr. James Lee, acting chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology department at RIT, about the new course, what was taught, the students’ response, and the next steps for the program.
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Mike Konrad speaks with four experts, not about brands or models of x-ray equipment, rather about best practices for purchasing x-ray equipment.
There are numerous manufacturers of x-ray equipment, each with multiple models with varying capabilities. Which type of x-ray equipment is right for your application (2D, 2.5D, 3D, etc)? What are the price ranges? What are the capabilities? What questions should I ask when speaking with manufacturers of x-ray equipment? How do I define my needs? How do I avoid buying too little or too much?
These and other questions are answered by our expert panel.
Our expert panel includes:
- Keith Bryant of Keith Bryant Consultancy. Keith has more than 30 years in the electronics industry and has worked for and with x-ray equipment manufacturers.
keith@smta.org - Dr. David Bernard of David Bernard Consultancy. David has more than 20 years of experience in the x-ray industry and has worked for and with x-ray equipment manufacturers.
dbc@bernard.abel.co.uk - David Kruidhof, sales manager for Creative Electron, a manufacturer of x-ray equipment. dkruidhof@creativeelectron.com
- Robert Boguski, president of Datest, an analytical laboratory specializing in failure analysis. Rob is a user of x-ray equipment. rboguski@datest.com
Friday May 27, 2022
Friday May 27, 2022
A couple episodes ago, Reliability Matters host Mike Konrad spoke with Dr. Ron Lasky about a couple of books he wrote. He also recommended one he didn't write: "Troubleshooting Electronic Assembly: Wisdom from the BoardTalk Crypt" by industry gurus Phil Zarrow and Jim Hall, available on Amazon (both were prior guests on this show). This episode, we’ll have a conversation with Zarrow and Hall about their book.
If you’ve been in the electronic assembly industry for some time, there’s little doubt that you have heard of Phil Zarrow and Jim Hall. Zarrow has been involved with PCB fabrication and assembly for more than 35 years. He is president and principal consultant of ITM Consulting.
Hall has been involved in the electronic assembly industry for the past 26 years. He’s a principal consultant and resident Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with ITM Consulting. He’s also an instructor in the Lean Six Sigma programs offered at Dartmouth College. Together with Dr. Lasky, Zarrow and Hall designed the SMTA SMT Processes Certification Course.
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Cadence and Dassault Systèmes in late February announced the combining of the former's Allegro platform with the latter's 3DExperience platform in a joint solution that enables customers to perform multidiscipline modeling, simulation and optimization of complex, connected electronic systems. The firms say this new multidisciplinary approach can accelerate customers’ end-to-end system development process while optimizing their design for performance, reliability, manufacturability, supply resilience, compliance and cost.
Today’s guests are Stéphane Declée, CEO of the Dassault Systèmes ENOVIA brand, and Michael Jackson, corporate vice president of R&D at Cadence's System, Package, Board Group.
They address a range of topics related to the integration, including how this could help users working in both environments, the manufacturing elements that can now be simulated, the functionality updates, and how other partnerships with ECAD and MCAD providers will be affected.
Wednesday May 11, 2022
Wednesday May 11, 2022
In early May the Printed Circuit Board Association of America held its first annual meeting, at which they shared progress on their overarching goal, which is to advance US domestic production of PCBs and base materials.
Coinciding with that meeting came an announcement from a pair of US legislators that they had introduced a bill to incentivize purchases of domestically produced PCBs as well as industry investments in factories, equipment, workforce training, and research and development.
The bill, known as the Supporting American Printed Circuit Boards Act of 2022, is aimed at helping to level the playing field for US-based electronics companies by incentivizing investment in capabilities and training.
Travis Kelly, president and chief executive of Isola and chairman of the PCBAA, joins PCB Chat host Mike Buetow to discuss the new bill and the highlights of the annual meeting.