PCB Chat

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,...

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...

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...

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 developmen...

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 i...

Mike Konrad speaks with Dr. Ron Lasky and Jim Hall, authors of the SMTA SMT Certification Courses (along with Phil Zarrow) about the content of these courses. He also speaks with course students, Claire Hotvedt of Indium Corp. and Tom Watson of Kimball Electronics about their experience taking the courses and the value they received. SMTA offers two certification courses: • SMT Processes • Lean Si...

Dr. Ron Lasky talks about the many books he has authored on SMT processes and production efficiencies. Dr. Ron Lasky is a Senior Technologist at Indium Corporation, as well as a Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College, where I have twice had the privilege of speaking on the Dartmouth campus to his students. If you're like some people who view the next generation of young adults skeptically a...

Kunal Shah, Ph. D., is president and chief scientist at Lilotree, a manufacturer of novel surface finishes for circuit boards. He explains the advantages of surface finishes utilizing the thinnest thickness of gold as well as Ni-Less ENIG surface finishes to Mike Konrad.

Jack Fisher is project facilitator of the High Density Packaging User Group , also known as HDP, and Madan Jagernauth is marketing director and project facilitator. They discuss HDP's new technology direction initiative, which focuses on projects to support enabling technologies, and share details of some of those new programs. They also invite nonmembers to their first face-to-face meeting in two...

On this episode of PCB Chat we discuss the fourth quarter 2021 market numbers from the ESD Alliance, which were released the week of April 4, 2022. 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 Industrie...

Recorded at IPC Apex Expo in San Diego, Mike Konrad has conversations with two guests. Marco Sanchez from SMT North America talks about thermal control of reflow ovens. marco.sanchez@smtna.com Colin Harper of BPM talks about automatic device programming. colin_harper@bpmmicro.com

Mike Konrad talks with four guests: Jesper Lykke from Viscom talks about inspection systems. jesper.lykke@viscomusa.com   Greg Papandrew from Direct PCB talks about PCB buying and his new book "PCB Basics for Buyers": greg@boardbuying.com   Kevin Huo from EM Solutions talks about fast-turn contract assembly. kevinh@emsolutionstech.com   And Michelle Ogihara from Seika USA talks about the advantage...

Michael Kirschner is president of Design Chain Associates, where he helps manufacturers understand and ensure that their products comply with health and environmental regulatory, customer and market requirements. He has broad expertise in areas including semiconductor quality and reliability, software design and development, hardware design, development, and manufacturing as well as manufacturing...

While it may seem like an untimely topic given the current supply chain shortages, storage systems for electronic components are an important part of the electronic assembly industry. While we are still in the midst of a supply chain crisis, sooner or later this will be solved and the question of where to put all of our components will be waiting for us to answer. It's often said we don't have tim...

Mack Technologies is one of the largest privately held US-based EMS companies. It recently moved into a 164,000 sq. ft. facility in Juarez, effectively doubling its footprint there. President Will Kendall and VP of operations, Juarez Oscar Gonzalez speak with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow on the demand behind the expansion, the local employment situation, and moving product over the US-Mexico border.

Tombstoning is a reflow issue causing components to stand up, creating opens. FCT Solder's Tony Lentz discusses the causes and mitigation techniques to illuminate tombstoning. Tony Lentz has worked in the electronics industry since 1994. He entered the industry as a process engineer at a circuit board manufacturer and worked there for 5 years. Since 1999, Tony has worked for FCT Companies as a che...

In January Rochester Institute of Technology launched a hands-on program focused on printed circuit board design. The first offering is one the first true PCB design classes available at a major university in the US to be taught by an experienced design engineer. Dr. James Lee (pictured), acting chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology department at RIT, and Chris Banton, direct...

One of my favorite subjects is the electrification of automobiles, not just electric cars, which are with us now, but completely autonomous vehicles., says Mike Konrad. In the 1960s, we were promised flying cars by the year 2000. While that goal was not met, the real prospect of autonomous vehicles in our lifetime is extremely exciting, terrifying, and realistic. Brian Leary and Mike Konrad discus...

Wally Rhines, ex chairman of Mentor and spokesperson for the ESD Alliance, joins PCB Chat host Mike Buetow to discuss the latest data for the printed circuit board and semiconductor design software market. Led by big gains in analysis and physical design, PCB tools turned in another solid quarter. Rhines shares the data, along with observations on key end-markets and why electric vehicle designs a...

In July 2021, in response to two decades of a declining US market, a group of printed circuit board fabricators and suppliers established the Printed Circuit Board Association of America, or PCBAA. The organization seeks market fairness and a level playing field on which US PCB manufacturers can compete against competitors subsidized by foreign governments. Travis Kelly, president and chief execut...

Today, we discuss Fit for Use solder paste inspection. As we've repeated several times on this show, it is said most reliability problems begin at the printer. Our industry utilizes a lot of materials in order to produce a circuit assembly. If the materials, specifically the solder paste is out of spec, that can affect reliability. Unfortunately, in most cases, one cannot simply open a jar of sold...

Lorain County Community College, located in northeast Ohio, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, became in 2018 the first community college to offer an applied bachelor’s in microelectronic manufacturing. And a year ago, it formed the Manufacturing Electronics & Rework Institute for Training, or MERIT, which the hands-on training lab. Last spring, the program graduated its first students. Johnny Vand...

Larry Marcanti, executive director of the High Density Packaging User Group (HDP), and Madan Jagernauth, marketing director and project facilitator, talk with Mike Buetow about the trade consortium's recent semiannual meeting and its recently finished projects, including one for SIR. HDP  ( hdpusergroup.org ) is a consortium of more than 50 global companies that conceives and runs projects on elec...

Larry Welk is co-owner of Smart Splice. Larry is a business owner with a history of working in the electrical and electronic manufacturing industry. Skilled in sales, business management, business development, business process improvement, and sales management, Larry says he obtained a Master's degree from the school of hard knocks. After getting knocked down, he says he always focused on learning...

Miles Moreau, KIC’s general manager, has been with KIC for nearly three decades. He draws his deep and rich expertise from managing multiple business units across four continents spanning operations, field service, and sales and marketing channels. His expertise is in thermal management and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. We’ve discussed how to profile a board on this show. To...