A look back at friends and colleagues who left us in 2021.

Semi genius - Akasaki

Isamu Akasaki, 92, Japanese physicist invented the first efficient blue LED and shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics.

Robert “Bobby” Baker, 60, Sanmina/SCI senior buyer.

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A new study reveals emerging applications for attaching very-fine-pitch parts using low-temp methods.

Electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs) have been touted for decades as a potential replacement for solder. Technology roadmaps by organizations ranging from IPC to the Surface Mount Council often listed ECAs as a “coming” technology, and scores of papers have been presented highlighting possible uses and likely end-products.

In early October, the international research firm IDTechEx released a new study called “Electrically Conductive Adhesives 2022-2032: Technologies, Markets, and Forecasts.” Matthew Dyson, Ph.D., a senior technology analyst at IDTechEx specializing in printed, organic and flexible electronics, spoke with Mike Buetow about the study’s findings.

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By concentrating heat onto the part, the BGA avoids excessive temperature. 

Recently, a customer asked if we could remove a valuable BGA from an existing circuit card assembly. About 1,000 of these BGAs could be removed. Our customer is a reclamation company, and they planned to resell the BGAs, which could fetch upwards of $400 each because of the current chip shortage.

The BGA itself is an older version of the Intel Altera family of products (FIGURE 1). While deemed obsolete by the manufacturer, the part is certainly usable, and due to the chip shortage, our customer might understandably obtain a good price for these older parts, which can be used as replacements for newer models.

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A new platform for streamlining procurement takes shape. 

Supply chain has been the story of the past year, and a new face to the industry proposes to help resolve that by connecting electronics engineers with printed circuit board assemblers.

Vincent Bedát is a mechanical engineer and recent MBA graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also founder of a San Francisco-based startup called Volthub. I came across Volthub as part of an announcement of the finalists for the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. That program has various aspects to it, but in short it’s a way to match early-stage teams with industry experts and entrepreneurs, and perhaps gain some seed money along the way. Some of the companies that have been part of the competition over the years include HubSpot and Akamai Technologies.

Vincent Bedát

Bedát hails from Zurich, Switzerland, where he also studied, graduating with a master’s in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich. He then went on to work at the robotics startup Synapticon in Stuttgart, Germany, as a mechanical engineer and eventually project manager.

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