PCB Chat

PCB Chat 112: Vivek Bansal on VVDN’s Vertical Integration Model

VVDN Technologies is perhaps best known as a provider of end-to-end engineering and manufacturing of hardware, mechanical and electronic assemblies, and embedded software, among others. Founded in 2007, it now has 11 product engineering centers worldwide, plus seven manufacturing plants across India where its capabilities include SMT, injection molding, tooling, die casting, and metal stamping, among others.

The company in February announced plans to invest $100 million over the next five years in a new 100-acre factory in Tamil Nadu. That plant will add PCB fabrication capability, rounding out the firm's vertical integration strategy.

Vivek Bansal, co-founder and president of engineering, discusses the company's plans and future expansion in India and elsewhere with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

This episode of PCB Chat is sponsored by PCB East, the Electronics Industry’s East Coast Conference and Trade Show. Coming to the Boston suburbs May 9-12, and registration is now open at pcbeast.com.

 

PCB Chat 111: Metallic Resources on Reclaiming Electronics Solder

Metallic Resources is a developer of high purity solder for electronics applications, making paste, bar, and cored wire products, among others.

Metallic Resources’ slogan is “not your typical solder,” and one big reason for that is the high purity solder it supplies. This is credited to the company’s electrolytic refining process.

David Bao, Ph,D., director of New Product Development, Erik Ozan, senior manager and head of the recycling division, and Jeff Giles sales manager of Metallic Resources talk about that refining, reclaiming, the pros and cons of risk aversion, and why some companies are wasting money stuck in higher cost solder assembly processes with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

This episode of PCB Chat is sponsored by PCB East, the Electronics Industry’s East Coast Conference and Trade Show. Coming to the Boston suburbs May 9-12, and registration is now open at pcbeast.com.

RM 115: Making Sense of ’Big Data’

You don't have to be in the tech industry you understand importance and value of data. Industries have always collected various sets of data, first manually and, in modern times, automatically. The volume of data has historically been limited to the ability to capture and store it. Recent advances in technology have vastly increased the ability to capture and store data. The industry 4.0 movement has fueled both of desire and requirement to capture data.

We have created a "be careful what you ask for" scenario as we now are capturing data at an unprecedented rate but frequently lack the ability to discern and analyze all of our newly captured data.

Luisa Herrmann, head of product for Arch Systems, is helping to transform "big data" into useful data. Luisa has 10 years of experience in product management and product marketing, launching products, building teams, and scaling organizations in the data software space. She was most recently the head of product at Cape Privacy, an encrypted machine learning company, and before that she was the Head of Product at expert.ai, an NLP company. She has a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and lives in the Boston area.

Luisa Herrmann may be contacted here:
lherrmann@archsys.io
https://archsys.io/

PCB Chat 110: Steve Robinson of APCT

APCT in February completed the acquisition of Advanced Circuits, a printed circuit board fabricator located in Aurora, Colorado. The acquisition nearly doubles APCT’s annual revenue, to $200 million, which immediately thrust it to the number 2 spot among PCB fabricators in North America, behind TTM.

Steve Robinson, president and CEO of APCT, discusses the acquisition, the pending integration, and APCT's new responsibilities as one of the largest North American PCB fabricators with Mike Buetow. 

 

This episode of PCB Chat is sponsored by PCB East, the Electronics Industry’s East Coast Conference and Trade Show. Coming to the Boston suburbs May 9-12, and registration is now open at pcbeast.com.

RM 114: The Remarkable Return of the Post-Reflow Cleaning Process

On this show, we’ve discussed many aspects of the electronics assembly process. We talked about reflow, thermal management, printing, soldering materials, additives, and so much more. What do all these topics have in common? When done correctly, they all contribute to the reliability of circuit assemblies.

Today, we’re going to dive into the subject of cleaning circuit assemblies after reflow. For many assemblers, the cleaning process was replaced by the use of no clean flux technology. Time and technology have eroded the concept of allowing all residues to remain on the assembly. Today, residue caused failures are such a concern, that IPC recently and radically changed the way circuit assemblies are considered to be clean.

Mike Konrad's guests are Sal Sparacino and Eric Camden. Sal is sirector of sales at Zestron Americas, located in Manassas, VA. Zestron is a manufacturer of cleaning chemicals for the electronics industry. Eric is lead investigator for Foresite, an analytical laboratory based in Kokomo IN. Eric, is the person you call when things go wrong. Together with my experience as a cleaning equipment manufacturer, we’ll discuss how cleaning contributes to increased reliability, and we’ll review the reasons cleaning has returned as a mainstream assembly process.

 

 

RM 113: Counterfeit Component Detection with Dr. Eyal Weiss

We are all aware of the “oldest profession in the world.” Perhaps the second-oldest is counterfeiting. Whenever a product is introduced, a counterfeit version soon follows. While the electronics industry has experienced counterfeit components from its inception, recent events such as the pandemic and supply chain shortages have fueled the counterfeit industry.

Statistics by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reveal that the counterfeiting of electronic parts in the US alone cost the chip industry more than $7.5 billion in revenue annually. According to new data from the ERAI, a global information board for counterfeiting, reports of counterfeit electronic products are growing. Although it is difficult to put an exact figure on just how many counterfeit products are in circulation, estimates suggest that consumer and industrial businesses lose approximately $250 billion each year due to counterfeit parts. 

To talk more about counterfeit components and detection technologies is Dr. Eyal Weiss, Founder and CTO of Cybord. Dr. Weiss received his Ph.D. in electronic and computer engineering from BGU (Ben-Gurion University) in Israel as well as a master's in plasma physics and bachelor's (cum laude) in mechanical engineering from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology.

He worked as a researcher on pulsed plasma at Soreq Research Center (SNRC). He then worked as a technology department manager in the high-tech fiber-optics industry. He was the technology manager at Lynx Photonics and then at Explay, developing state-of-the-art silicon and optical chips production, packaging, and assembly production lines. He developed a new fiber-pigtailing and packaging technology and built full-scale production lines utilizing this new technology.

He returned to Soreq SNRC and for 15 years served as manager and leading scientist of the R&D Systems Department. He built mass-production lines and assembly lines for new sensors technology and developed their test equipment. He has twice received the prestigious Israel Defense Prize. 

In 2018, he founded and became CTO of Cybord, developing electronic component qualification and authentication technologies. He is a member of the Israel Innovation Authority, Euramet, SAE, and IPC committees. He specializes in multidisciplinary technology development and has received significant awards and accolades in the fields of machine learning, plasma physics, optical assemblies, laser technology, and electromagnetics. 

Dr. Weiss is an expert in technology development and manufacturing technology and has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles, 4 patents, and a book.

 

 

This podcast is brought to you by PCB East, the original conference for the #electronics #design, #manufacturing and #assembly industry on the East Coast. Coming to Boxborough, MA, on May 9-12, with the one-day exhibition and a day's worth of free technical sessions on May 10. Visit pcbeast.com for details.

Business Challenges with STI Electronics’ President David Raby

This episode was recorded live at the SMTA Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium in Hawaii.

David Raby is president of Madison Alabama-based STI Electronics, a contract manufacturer for the EMS industry. David worked at the family business since he was a child and eventually took over the family business when his father (and company founder) Jim Raby retired.

The electronics industry moves at the speed of light and any business within the EMS industry must learn to stay ahead of technology and trends. David shares some of his experiences in taking over the family business and some of the challenges his business (and many other businesses) face on a near daily basis.

 

This podcast is brought to you by PCB East, the original conference for the #electronics #design, #manufacturing and #assembly industry on the East Coast. Coming to Boxborough, MA, on May 9-12, with the one-day exhibition and a day's worth of free technical sessions on May 10. Visit pcbeast.com for details.

 

PCB Chat 109: Wally Rhines on the PCB Design Software Market

On this episode of PCB Chat we discuss the third quarter 2022 printed circuit design software market data from the ESD Alliance, which were released Jan. 23, 2023.

Our guests are Wally Rhines, who spent more than 45 years in in semiconductor and PCB design as an executive with Mentor Graphics and before that, TI; and Merlyn Brunken, whose is the longtime market intelligence director with Siemens Digital Industries, formerly Mentor.

 

This podcast is brought to you by PCB East, the original conference for the #electronics #design, #manufacturing and #assembly industry on the East Coast. Coming to Boxborough, MA, on May 9-12, with the one-day exhibition and a day's worth of free technical sessions on May 10. Visit pcbeast.com for details.

PCB Chat 108: Travis Kelly on Government Support of the US PCB Industry

Travis Kelly, president and chief executive of Isola and chairman of the Printed Circuit Board Association of America, joins PCB Chat host Mike Buetow to discuss the latest policy plans in support of the US printed circuit industry, and the new president of the trade group.

Kelly gives updates on HR 7677, the bill introduced last year in support of the US PCB industry, and weighs the impact of the Chips Act on similar legislation for circuit boards. 

 

RM 112: ESD Mitigation with ESD Expert Christopher Almeras

Electricity is the life blood for all circuit assemblies. It can also afflict significant damage via electrostatic discharge. Today, Christopher Almeras of Raytheon reviews the various ESD mitigation strategies as well as some ESD horror stories!

Almeras began his career in process engineering for a small electronics manufacturer in the late 1990s. There he became responsible for the sites ESD compliance verification. His next career move took him to a high-volume manufacturer where he added ESD Coordinator to his process duties. He eventually made the jump into the Military/Aerospace side of electronics manufacturing (with Raytheon) in 2010 where he has remained working in process, capital installations, continuous improvement, and ESD.

In 2009, he completed the ESD Certified Program Manager from the ESDA. He serves as a member on several ESD Association standards committees including S20.20, TR53, Process Assessment, High Reliability, Electrostatic Attraction among others. In 2022 he took over the working group chair for Soldering/Desoldering Hand Tools.

Almeras was elected to the ESD Association Board of Directors and continues to be active with the ESD Symposium each year. In 2018 he presented his technical paper “An ESD Case Study of Defect Analysis in High Speed Electronics Manufacturing” at the symposium. Almeras has a BS in mechanical engineering from Purdue University and an MS in industrial engineering from Oklahoma State University. He is an ESD Certified Program Manager (ESDA).

 

During this episode, host Mike Konrad references the following:

• Reliability Matters Episode 104: A Conversation about ESD Flooring with Thomas Ricciardelli
• 4 Easy Ways to BLOW UP Your Test Gear Daniel Bogdanoff - Keysighthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvue5whx0s