Pcb Chat

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 o

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

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 p

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.

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 whiske

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.

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.   

This year’s APEX Expo is a virtual event. Matt Kelly and Mike Konrad discuss IPC's new technical conference focus and review a small sample of the upcoming technical presentations and professional development courses.

Tara Dunn and Mike Konrad discuss the world of flex and rigid-flex circuits including flex best practices when it comes to design and use of flex technology. They also discuss the new world of additive electronics. Tara Dunn is a seasoned professional with more than 20 years in the electronics industry exclusively focused on the PCB sector. Her experience spans roles from manufacturing to sales and marketing. Tara was the founder of Omni PCB, a technical manufacturers representative for the printed circuit board industry which specializes in quickturn projects, PCB design, high-density interconnects, and RF/microwave PCBs. Tara is also the vice president of marketing and business development for Averatek which develops and licenses advanced manufacturing processes – and the key chemistries that enable them – for a variety of electronic products, including: • very high-density printed circuit boards • semiconductor packaging • RF and millimeter-wave passive components She was also a founder of Geek-a-Paloo

AJ Incorvaia is executive vice president of Siemens EDA, more familiarly known as Mentor. He joined Mentor in 2013 after more than 25 years in software engineering at OEMs and other major EDA vendors. He discusses the mainstream (desktop) PCB CAD market, its shift to internal sales channels, its upsides, and limitations with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

Solder voiding has been with us longer than we know. Modern x-ray inspection technology has allowed assemblers to see and quantify voiding. Metallurgical expert Dave Hillman from Collins Aerospace explains the causes and possible remedies for solder voiding. Dave Hillman is a metallurgical engineer in the Advanced Operations Engineering Department of Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He serves as a consultant to manufacturing on material and processing problems. He served as a subject matter expert for the Lead-free Manhattan Project in 2009. He has published numerous technical papers and was presented with the 2008 SMTA International Conference on Soldering & Reliability “Best of Conference” award and was the recipient of the SMTA “Member of Technical Distinction” Award. Dave was awarded the Da Vinci medal as a Rockwell Engineer of the Year. He serves as the Chairman of the IPC JSTD-002 Solderability committee. He’s also a member of the SMTA where he serves on the SMTA Journal and Soldering &

Matt Wrosch is senior products specialist at EMD Performance Materials. An expert in materials science, Matt has held a range of research, engineering and business development roles in the electronics industry in 1997. He has a master’s in materials science and engineering from UC San Diego and a bachelor’s from Michigan.    He joins PCB Chat host Mike Buetow to discuss transient liquid phase sintering (TLPS) materials, how they compare with solder paste, conductive adhesives and TIMs, and their applications in printed circuit fabrication and assembly.

Eric Fossum is best known for the invention of the CMOS image sensor better known as the “camera-on-a-chip” used in billions of cameras, from smart phones to web cameras to ingestible pill cameras to DSLRs. In 2017, Eric was a co-recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the world's top engineering prize (and considered by many as equivalent to the Nobel Prize) for the invention of digital imaging sensors. Eric was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a solid-state image sensor device physicist and engineer, and his career has included academic and government research, and entrepreneurial leadership of several startups. He is the John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor of Emerging Technologies at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth college. Eric also serves as Associate Provost of Dartmouth College for Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer, and directs Dartmouth's PhD Innovation Programs. Eric recently co-founded ano

Smart manufacturing, generally defined as the use of fully integrated, collaborative manufacturing systems that respond in real time to meet changing demands and conditions in the smart factory, in the supply network, and in customer needs, is quickly becoming reality. Is the US ready, or has it already been beaten by offshore companies? Mike Buetow considers the possibilities.

On this last episode of 2020 there are no guests, no experts, no best-practice advice. Just a short recap of 2020. We just reached more than 10,000 downloads of the podcast! A HUGE thank you to my audience and my guests for making this podcast possible! On this episode I'll announce the first few guests of the 2021 season of Reliability Matters. This is looking like a terrific season! We are now producing an audio-only format and a video format. The video format may be viewed on our new YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC43S4--AIuSqlXvxmdsA7AQ Please keep your questions and topic suggestions coming! Email me at: mike@mikekonrad.com Thanks everyone for making this podcast successful! Mike Konrad

Kent Balius has been at the forefront of front-end engineering for 30 years at some of the world's largest PCB fabricators. He spent the past 20 years at TTM / Viasystems, where he managed software applications and automation solutions for North America and Asia-Pacific operations. He just launched EPIC Front-End Engineering, which provides consultation, project management, software applications and development support to the PCB manufacturers, with the objectives of driving advanced automation to achieve productivity, improved quality, reduced labor costs. He speaks about how the automation of design-to-fabrication the affects Industry 4.0 implementation with PCB Chat's Mike Buetow.

Conductive anodic filament (CAF) is a form of electrochemical migration (ECM). Unlike surface-level ECM, CAF exists beneath the surface of the circuit assembly. Graham and Mike Konrad discuss the causes of CAF and methods to test for and mitigate CAF. Graham has an extensive history working in the electrical and electronic manufacturing industry. Graham was the IEC 1906 Lord Kelvin Award Winner. IEC TC91 WG2, 3 and 10 Maintenance Leader of 4 Standards. He is vice chair of the IPC 5-30 Cleaning and Coating Sub-Committee overseeing 15 IPC Standards Development Committees. He has received 14 IPC Standards Awards and is a BSI British Standards Institution (EPL501) Member. Graham is a Specialist in Insulation Resistance Testing, Ionic Contamination Control, Solderability, Conformal Coating materials and application systems, including Cleaning, Inspection and Test.  

EMA Design Automation has recently added the Mentor ECAD sales staff from Trilogic EDA. Manny Marcano, president and founder of EMA, explains what this means for the PCB CAD marketplace, and how the mainstream CAD market is shaping up.  

Voiding is the cause of multiple failure mechanisms. Mike Konrad speaks with solder material expert Tim O'Neill of Aim Solder, stencil manufacturer Prakash Gango of StenTech, and cleaning materials manufacturer Kalyan Nukala of Zestron about how solder voiding leads to product failures and methods to reduce voiding.   The guests may be reached here: Tim O'Neill AIM Solder toneill@aimsolder.com www.aimsolder.com   Prakash Gango StenTech prakash@stentech.com www.stentech.com   Kalyan Nukala Kalyan.Nukala@zestronusa.com www.zestron.com

Dr. Martin Anselm is a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and is also the newly elected president of the Surface Mount Technology Association or SMTA. Martin also worked for Universal Instruments. During his 12-year career at Universal Instruments, Martin was, among other positions, a process research engineer and manager of Failure Analysis Services. Martin completed his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering through Binghamton University. His research topic involved copper-nickel-tin intermetallic formation kinetics on electroless nickel substrates. Martin also has a master's in mechanical engineering from Clarkson and a bachelor's in physics from SUNY Geneseo.