Episodes
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Monday May 17, 2021
C2C: Out of the Box Manufacturing Founders Allison and Chad Budvarson
Monday May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
Concept to Creation Episode 2
Allison and Chad Budvarson are a husband and wife team that founded and operates Out of the Box Manufacturing, a Renton Washington-based contract manufacturer. They share how they founded their company, their challenges, successes, and what motivates them. They also provide sage advice for navigating both business and home life.
Allison Budvarson: allison@obmfg.com
Chad Budvarson: chad@obmfg.com

Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
PCB Chat 76: David Bernard on X-ray Inspection
Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
Wednesday Apr 28, 2021
David Bernard, Ph.D., describes a coming presentation on x-ray inspection, including understanding how the system works, how magnification works, detectors and sensitivity, handling various solder types (hint: it's the material density that matter), and why users should "stop wasting time with things their x-ray cannot do."
Bernard's three-hour webinar, Getting the Best from Your X-Ray Inspection System, takes place May 20. For information, click here: pcb2day.com/webinars.

Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
RM Episode 66: Dr. Ron Lasky and Students
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Dr. Ron Lasky (Professor at Dartmouth College) and three of his students -- Annaka Balch, Nadia Clement, and Raaga Kannan -- talk about the papers they wrote and presented at SMTA's Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium in Hawaii in 2020, as well as a new paper to be presented at the same conference in 2022.

Friday Apr 23, 2021
Concept to Creation - The Entrepreneurs of the Electronic Assembly Industry
Friday Apr 23, 2021
Friday Apr 23, 2021
Welcome to Mike Konrad's new podcast is called “Concept to Creation - The Entrepreneurs of the Electronic Assembly Industry.”
On this podcast, Mike will interview industry founders to talk about the following topics:
- Concept
- Creation
- Execution
- Growth
- Challenges
- Successes / Failures
- Motivating Insights
The first episode features Dr. Bill Cardoso of Creative Electron. Bill earned his AA degree at the age of 13. He went on to earn his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering as well as an MBA in economics, strategic management and entrepreneurship. In 2008, he founded Creative Electron, a manufacturer of x-ray equipment. Bill discusses his journey of concept to creation including his success, failures, and challenges along the way.
Future episodes will air on the first and second Tuesday of each month.
The second episode (airing on May 4) features an interview with the husband and wife team behind Out of the Box Manufacturing, a contract assembler in Renton, WA. They discuss, among other things the challenges of starting a new business one month after they were married in 2008 as well as their strategies for successful growth.
The third episode (airing on May 18) features a conversation with FTC Assemblies (soldering materials manufacturer) founder Mike Scimeca.
The fourth episode features an interview with Kyzen’s Dr. Mike Bixenman and Tom Forsythe.

Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
On part 2 of this series , we dive into oven profiling best practices. In part one, we looked at void mitigation and how vacuum reflow technology can help reduce or eliminate voiding.
Our guests are Tim O’Neill from AIM Solder and Fred Dimock of BTU. Tim will discuss voiding mitigation from a materials standpoint while Fred will bring cover equipment and profiling strategies.
Tim O'Neill is technical marketing manager for AIM Solder. Operating out of AIM’s US headquarters, Tim is responsible for developing and optimizing product and technical information, collaborating with complementary suppliers and equipment manufacturers and ensuring AIM's products exceed expectations and meet market requirements.
Tim is also a technical writer and presenter for industry trade publications and events. He has coauthored several papers on PCB assembly subjects. Tim is also an IPC-A-610 Certified IPC Specialist.
Fred Dimock is manager of process technology at BTU International and recently started a consulting business, FCD-Global services. Fred holds an associate degree in mechanical design from Wentworth in Boston and a bachelor's degree in ceramic engineering from the State University of New York. He has authored numerous articles on lead-free solder, process control, and the operation of continuous furnaces. His papers have been published in English, Chinese, and German.
He has taught numerous SMTA solder reflow classes and participated in the 5-45 Subcommittee for the development of IPC-7801 Reflow Oven Process Control Standard. Additionally, he wrote the chapter on solder reflow for the Handbook of Electronic Assembly and A Guide to SMTA Certification by Dr. Ron Lasky and Jim Hall.
He received Distinguished Speaker status at SMTA Guadalajara Mexico and is a key presenter for the SMTA Jump Start program for new engineers.
Timothy O'Neill is the Technical Marketing Manager for AIM Solder. Operating out of AIM’s U.S. Headquarters, Tim is responsible for developing and optimizing product and technical information, collaborating with complimentary suppliers and equipment manufacturers and ensuring AIM's products exceed expectations and meet market requirements.
Tim is also a technical writer and presenter for industry trade publications and events. He has co-authored several papers on PCB assembly subjects.
Tim is also an IPC-A-610 Certified IPC Specialist.
Fred Dimock is the Manager of Process Technology at BTU International and recently started a consulting business, FCD-Global services.
Fred holds an Associate Degree in Mechanical Design from Wentworth in Boston and a Bachelors Degree in Ceramic Engineering from the State University of New York.
Fred has authored numerous articles on lead free solder, process control, and the operation of continuous furnaces. His papers have been published in English, Chinese, and German.
He has taught numerous SMTA solder reflow classes and participated in the 5-45 Subcommittee for the development of IPC-7801 Reflow Oven Process Control Standard.
Additionally, he wrote the chapter on solder reflow for the Handbook of Electronic Assembly and A Guide to SMTA Certification by Dr Lasky and Jim Hall.
He received Distinguished Speaker status at SMTA Guadalajara Mexico and is a key presenter for the SMTA Jump Start program for new engineers.
Tim O’Neill may be contacted here:
Fred Dimock may be contacted here:

Friday Apr 02, 2021
Friday Apr 02, 2021
On this episode, we’ll have a conversation with two industry experts on the subject of solder voiding mitigation and oven profiling, two subjects which influence solder voiding. This will be a two part episode. Here, we dive into void mitigation and how vacuum reflow technology can help reduce or eliminate voiding. Part two (episode 65) will discuss profiling best practices.
Our guests are Tim O’Neill from AIM Solder and Fred Dimock of BTU. Tim will discuss voiding mitigation from a materials standpoint while Fred will bring cover equipment and profiling strategies.
Tim O'Neill is technical marketing manager for AIM Solder. Operating out of AIM’s US headquarters, Tim is responsible for developing and optimizing product and technical information, collaborating with complementary suppliers and equipment manufacturers and ensuring AIM's products exceed expectations and meet market requirements.
Tim is also a technical writer and presenter for industry trade publications and events. He has coauthored several papers on PCB assembly subjects. Tim is also an IPC-A-610 Certified IPC Specialist.
Fred Dimock is manager of process technology at BTU International and recently started a consulting business, FCD-Global services. Fred holds an associate degree in mechanical design from Wentworth in Boston and a bachelor's degree in ceramic engineering from the State University of New York. He has authored numerous articles on lead-free solder, process control, and the operation of continuous furnaces. His papers have been published in English, Chinese, and German.
He has taught numerous SMTA solder reflow classes and participated in the 5-45 Subcommittee for the development of IPC-7801 Reflow Oven Process Control Standard. Additionally, he wrote the chapter on solder reflow for the Handbook of Electronic Assembly and A Guide to SMTA Certification by Dr. Ron Lasky and Jim Hall.
He received Distinguished Speaker status at SMTA Guadalajara Mexico and is a key presenter for the SMTA Jump Start program for new engineers.

Monday Mar 22, 2021
PCB Chat 75: Keshav and Tarun Amla of Avishtech on Electronics Stackup Tools
Monday Mar 22, 2021
Monday Mar 22, 2021
Design engineers are paying close attention to materials. It’s not just about the routing anymore. Keshav Amla and Tarun Amla are founder and CEO and cofounder and CTO, respectively, of Avishtech, a San Jose, CA-based developer of simulation and design software, specifically stack-up and 2D field solvers. They discuss how their signature software enables better board design and how it came to be endorsed by Lee Ritchey, one of the leading experts in signal integrity and PCB design.

Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
RM Episode 63: A Conversation with Reliability Expert Dock Brown
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Dock Brown brings his more than 30 years of electronics reliability experience to clients of Ansys. Prior to joining Ansys, he spent 20 years at Medtronic where he most recently concentrated on cross business unit implementation of reliability initiatives for Class III medical devices. He was also responsible for supplier assessment and approval, on-going supplier audits, failure analysis, corrective actions, MRB, sampling, and ultimately full accountability for quality and reliability of commercial off-the-shelf and custom parts and assemblies from a worldwide supplier base. Earlier in his career, Mr. Brown also spent time at Sundstrand Data Control where he led the implementation of Boeing’s Advanced Quality System program and with Olin Aerospace.
As a volunteer, he has been involved with ASQ, IEEE, IPC, and SMTA. He was the keynote speaker at the SMTA Cleaning Conference and won the best paper award at the SMTA Microelectronics Conference. He has taught on the subjects of design for reliability, tin whiskers, statistics, design of experiments, and contributed to standards development.
Today’s episode is a little different than others. Dock will be sharing a very interesting presentation on the subject of reliability. If you’re listening to the audio-only version of this episode, you may want to view the video version so you can see Dock’s slide-deck. The video version of this episode, and several others are available on the Reliability Matters YouTube channel.

Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
RM Episode 62: A Conversation with Cogiscan's Co-Founder François Monette
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
By now, most of us have heard of Industry 4.0, or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), or Smart Factory, or Factory of the Future. The key all of these acronyms is Connectivity, Data Management, Material and Process Control, Traceability, and Analytics. It’s not as simple as collecting data. The data much be understood, useful, and contextual.
François Monette, is cofounder and chief business development Officer at Cogiscan, a company specializing in Track Trace Control products for the electronics industry.
François cofounded Cogiscan in 1999 with two other partners in Canada. François earned his mechanical engineering degree from McGill University in Montreal. François started his career at IBM, and worked at contract manufacturers, C-Mac and Solectron, before joining Universal Instruments.

Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
PCB Chat 74: DuPont's Andy Kannurpatti
Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
A little over two years ago DuPont opened its Silicon Valley Technology Center. It is also finishing work on a major investment at its laminates manufacturing plant in Circleville, OH. Andy Kannurpatti, global business leader - Films & Laminates, Interconnect Solutions of DuPont Electronics & Imaging, explains how DuPont is helping the domestic industry grow.