Features Articles
Sales pitches from Chinese board shops should come with arthritis medication.
Dramatis PersonaE (in order of appearance):
- Saleswomen from Chinese printed circuit board fabricators, all with curiously westernized first names.
- Marketing types trying to sell me lists of attendees at nonexistent trade shows.
- Serial killers.
- Clowns (sometimes indistinguishable from #3). Generally speaking, disturbing.
- SBA-approved loans. (I have one qualified offer right now from capitaldrip.com. I’m not making this up.)
- Webinars about I-9 forms and Covid-19 mitigation and prevention.
- Virtual trade shows (and the people lurking behind them).
- SAM renewal.
- Persons wanting me to sell our business.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) companies, which often lead to:
- Website developers from India named Mike.
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Results of experiments on PTH parts.
Use of low-temperature solders (LTS) is growing in popularity. LTS are predominantly composed of tin and bismuth, with a small quantity of a “special blend” of other elements to suit a given manufacturer’s performance specifications. The opportunity, as the name suggests, is to create solder joints at far lower temperatures than those required for tin/silver/copper (SAC) alloys, and which are even lower than that needed for the (historic?) tin/lead eutectic solder. These LTS have a melting temperature of ~138°C. The benefits of using LTS mean no Pb is present in the joint, and lower processing temperatures can be used. Using lower temperatures means reduced energy consumption during manufacture, lower manufacturing costs and reduced greenhouse emissions. In addition, it offers the opportunity to use different, thinner and possibly cheaper PCB substrates and components compared with those used today. This obviates the “overengineering” required of today’s boards and components to mitigate warpage, which due to LTS are operating close to the glass transition temperature of the board material. It also makes it possible to rework SAC area array package joints with low-temperature alloys.
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Moisture is only one of the potential culprits.
PCB delamination can be subtle or obvious. It is caused by expansion of moisture in the PCB laminate, but that may not be the root cause. Eliminating moisture often prevents the energy buildup that forces apart different layers, but this is not the complete story. Poor bonding during manufacturing of the multilayer board or some form of contamination may result in poor adhesion on innerlayers, permitting moisture to accumulate on these surfaces.
FIGURE 1 shows solder mask cracking around a through via. The PCB expanded during reflow, then contracted during cooling. This resulted in lifting and cracking of the solder mask, plus an intermittent electrical connection. FIGURE 2 shows the innerlayer surface of the board after separation. The through vias are separated and there is no visible adhesion on this layer.
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Embrace Industry 4.0 for cleaner, healthier lives.
Industrial electronics is a stealthy but enormously valuable business. Approaching one-quarter of all PCBs manufactured worldwide are for industrial applications, including not only equipment for use in factories but activities such as construction and power generation. In Europe, about 40% of electronic production is destined for industrial applications.
Though cost-conscious, industrial companies appreciate the importance of investing in advanced technology to secure their market position and take advantage of new opportunities. While investing is critical for survival, early adopters can gain a significant competitive edge. This is increasingly the case as the fourth industrial revolution – Industry 4.0 – continues to transform activities.
It’s good news for product innovators. Although development can be expensive and the pace fast, the value of cutting-edge industrial electronics tends to be high, and differentiating features that deliver extra value for customers can attract a premium.
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Striking the right balance between costs and cycle time.
Decisions made in product design can impact assembly cost, defect opportunities and inventory cost. While design for manufacturability (DfM) analysis can eliminate many issues, less commonly analyzed decisions related to cost targets, scheduling and work team assignments can have unintended consequences that generate unacceptable levels of waste.
Lean manufacturing practitioners are aware of Taiichi Ohno’s concept of the seven wastes (muda) in manufacturing as part of the Toyota Production System (TPS). To recap, those seven wastes are:
- Waste of overproducing (no immediate need for product being produced).
- Waste of waiting (idle time between operations).
- Waste of transport (product moving more than necessary).
- Waste of processing (doing more than what is necessary).
- Waste of inventory (excess above what was required).
- Waste of motion (any motion not necessary outside of production).
- Waste of defects (producing defects requiring rework).
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The pandemic created a unique environment for finding talented employees.
Looking back about a year ago, the challenge that kept you awake at night was people. More precisely, where and how to find people to hire – people with talent, a work ethic and interest in a long-term career manufacturing electronics. 2020, of course, has brought a slew of new concerns, and made us adaptable to what is described as the "new normal." But surprise! Right up there with how many face masks, hand sanitizer and Plexiglas partitions are available in the stockroom, staffing remains the major concern for business leaders.
The focus on people certainly has taken some twists and turns through this year. During the first six months, many were focused on how to retain the workforce they had. To be sure, potential health issues, social distancing, work-from-home protocols and other necessary obstacles displaced new talent acquisition, and jolting headlines on unemployment claims, especially in the hospitality and retail sectors, forced business leaders to consider when the next shoe would drop and the order board would dry up. Thankfully – or maybe luckily – most manufacturing, and especially electronics manufacturing, has remained surprisingly “normal,” and customers, employees and suppliers have recalibrated as necessary.
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Press Releases
- ViTrox Welcomes Gemaddis as a New Sales Channel Partner in France
- NCMS Releases White Paper: “Artificial Intelligence to Improve Supply Chain Resilience Throughout American Manufacturing”
- E-tronix Expands Team with Strategic Hires to Strengthen Technical Solutions Support in 2025
- Leading Defence Manufacturer Awards Kitron Order for Deliveries to U.S. Army