PCB Chat

What if passing the test is not enough? In reliability engineering, we often place a great deal of confidence in laboratory validation. We test, measure, analyze, and document. And when the product passes, we naturally assume it is ready for the field. But what happens when a product passes the lab test and still fails in the hands of the customer? Today, we are going to explore the gap between la...

Today, we’re going to explore a topic that seems to be touching nearly every industry, every workplace, and increasingly every part of our daily lives: artificial intelligence. But this conversation is not just about what AI can do. It’s about what AI assumes, what it values, what it misses, and what happens when powerful technologies are deployed into environments they were not designed to unders...

This is part two of a two-part series. In Part One, we explored how the electronics industry transitioned from a clean-everything approach to one where cleaning became optional. But what happens when the assumptions behind “no-clean” collide with modern electronics design? In this episode of Reliability Matters, Mike Konrad examines how the definition of cleanliness has fundamentally changed. As a...

Tomachie has quite a few tricks up its sleeve. Its eponymous platform provides AI-assisted analysis of PCB schematic data. It optimizes DfT and identifies the ideal locations for physical test point insertion. And it generates a 0-100 layout-readiness score, providing design teams with an objective, data-driven metric. Tomachie is the brainchild of CJ Clark, a veteran test engineer with a backgrou...

For decades, cleaning circuit assemblies after soldering was not optional. It was standard practice across the electronics manufacturing industry. Then, almost overnight, that changed. In this episode of Reliability Matters, Mike Konrad takes you back to the origins of that shift. From the widespread use of CFC-based cleaning solvents to the global impact of the Montreal Protocol, this episode exp...

Today, we’re going to explore a topic that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves but has a direct impact on product quality and long-term reliability. Mike Konrad is joined by Mehdi Nahali, founder of PCB Revision Control PRO. His platform is designed to replace spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected systems with a centralized approach to PCB revision lifecycle management and factory intell...

Today’s episode is going to resonate with anyone responsible for uptime, efficiency, and ultimately, product reliability.  Because whether we’re talking about circuit assemblies, manufacturing lines, or entire facilities, reliability doesn’t start at inspection. It starts with maintenance. Mike Konradf's guest is Paul Ross, chief marketing officer at Limble, a company providing modern maintenance...

Printed circuit designers Lauren Waslick and Kristen Aguiar of Newgrange Design have become mainstays as presenters at industry conferences such as PCB East and PCB West. Neither, however, anticipated a career in PCBs coming out of college. They discuss their career paths, finding mentors, and adjusting to a male-heavy industry with PCEA managing editor Ryann Howard.   

What if your factory could predict failures before they happen, capture decades of human expertise, and make better decisions than ever before—without replacing the people who run it? Today’s guest sits right at the intersection of innovation and industry.  Bryan DeBois, director of industrial AI at RoviSys, is helping reshape what manufacturing looks like in the age of intelligent machines. From...

Nemanja Jokanovic is the executive leader of Breadboard, an AI-powered platform that he believes will revolutionize BOM management. In this interview with Andy Shaughnessy, Jokanovic, an Octopart alum, discusses the many sourcing challenges facing EMS companies today, and he explains how Breadboard optimizes BOM analysis and supply chain management.  Stop by and chat with Jokanovic in person at PC...

Artificial intelligence is being promoted as the next revolution in electronics manufacturing, but what happens when the people evaluating it aren’t traditional AI experts, aren’t software vendors, and aren’t selling anything?  Today’s conversation brings together engineers and professors who live at the intersection of education, reliability, and real-world manufacturing to separate meaningful pr...

Wally Rhines is the spokesperson for the ESD Alliance, part of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International. He joined Andy Shaughnessy to share details from the latest ESD Alliance report on sales of computer-aided engineering tools, semiconductor tools, PCB design software, related IP and services, and employment. In this interview, Wally discusses the results for the fourth quarter of 20...

Karen Burnham feels your pain - the pain of EMC, that is. Karen is an EMC engineer, instructor, and founder of EMC United, a consulting company that aims to make EMC less painful for the rest of the PCB design engineering community. Karen joins Andy Shaughnessy to discuss some of the most common EMC challenges facing our industry today, a variety of solutions for these challenges, and design pract...

What does Cadence's acquisition of EMA Design Automation mean for the respective companies, and the market? Mike Buetow considers the issues related to the EDA giant's acquisition of its largest VAR.

Scott Bright is co-founder and COO of Cadstrom IO , a new company that is coming up with tools for resolving some of the engineering problems that designers and engineers are encountering daily. Bright has more than 35 years of technology and management experience, including three years at IoT company Jiva, where he was CEO, and 13 at the engineering firm Synapse, which he co-founded and was CEO....

In electronics manufacturing, defects don’t usually announce themselves. They happen in milliseconds, far faster than human perception, and often long before anyone realizes a process has drifted out of control. By the time failures show up in test, inspection, or worse, in the field, the root cause may be buried deep inside machine behavior that no one thought to question. When machines are assum...

Wally Rhines the spokesperson for the ESD Alliance, part of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International. He joins Mike Buetow each quarter to share details from the latest ESD Alliance report on sales of computer-aided engineering tools, semiconductor tools, PCB design software, related IP and services, and employment. We discuss: The latest PCB/MCB design tool market data The 19-quarter s...

Jon Urquhart is director of global applications engineering at Precision Valve and Automation — one of the world’s leading developers of dispensing, coating, and industrial motion-automation systems. Since joining PVA in 1993, Urquhart has become widely recognized for his expertise in fluid material processing, precision dispensing, and the engineering-to-manufacturing handoff that so often makes...

Margaret (Maggie) Frachioni is a semiconductor hardware engineer at General Motors, where, armed with a bachelor’s in computer engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, she started out college as a software engineer in its automotive test lab.  While at GM, she started work toward her master’s at Wayne State University in Detroit. Last year, she was part of the first PCEA Certified Pri...

Since 2018, Reliability Matters has been building a knowledge vault, capturing the wisdom of industry experts for engineers everywhere.  In this special year-end episode, we celebrate the journey, the growth, and the community that made it possible.

Mike Konrad continues a dive into the world of contract manufacturing—a vital piece of the electronics ecosystem. Joining him are two industry leaders who know this space inside and out. First, we have Daniel Stanphill, SMT process engineer at Aurora Boardworks, and alongside him, Sean Kincaid, president of K & F Electronics.  Both companies provide contract manufacturing services to a wide ra...

The next two episodes of Reliability Matters will be all about contract manufacturing, an area that can make or break the reliability and success of a product.  Mike Konrad's guest on this episode is Raymond Novara, founder and owner of East End Assemblies, a US-based contract manufacturer recognized for its focus on quality, customer service, and compliance with AS9100 and IPC standards. During o...

Note: This is the fourth of four episodes on the subject of soldering materials.   Today, we're diving into a topic that's reshaping how we think about thermal management, energy efficiency, and long-term performance in electronics manufacturing—low temperature soldering. Joining Mike Konrad is Dr. HongWen Zhang, principal metallurgist and R&D manager of the Alloy Group at Indium Corporation....

Today’s guest is Matthias Wagne r, chief executive and cofounder of Flux. Flux is maker of a Agentic AI-based PCB design platform and programmable simulator that runs in a browser environment. Regular listeners may know we have spoken with Matthias a few times in the past, most recently in February 2024. Since we last spoke, Flux has built out its platform with a variety of tools for design planni...

This is the third of four episodes on the subject of soldering materials. Today, we’re continuing our deep dive into the world of soldering materials, from advanced alloys and flux chemistries to global manufacturing strategy and materials innovation, with one of the industry’s most respected leaders. Joining Mike Konrad is Ross Berntson, president and CEO of Indium Corp. Berntson has been with In...