Category Archives: Hot Wires

Mike Buetow’s thoughts on the industry

What Was Hot in 2011

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Just for fun, let’s run down the top 10 articles published by CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY in 2011, based on web traffic:

10. “The Great Rebound of 2010.” Our annual look at the Top 50 EMS companies in 2010.

9. “Florida Sun Shines Light on Electronic Packaging Trends,” by Jan Vardaman. Jan’s recap of the annual ECTC conference.

8. “From Roadmaps to Research.” Mike Buetow’s interview with iNEMI CEO Bill Bader.

7. “Effects of a Dual Nozzle on Process and Quality.” Alan Cable looks at selective soldering.

6. “Vision Quest,” by Mike Buetow.  Our roundtable with a number of top placement OEM suppliers.

Tomorrow, the Top 5 from 2011.

Why ‘Green Mold’ Might Be Bad for You

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Researchers at IMEC have found that quartz-filled compounds used in place of halogen flame retardants in plastic packages lowered the CTE, and the subsequent mismatch in thermal expansion between the package and board is causing solder joint fatigue cracking, researchers found. The investigators are calling this failure mode “Cu lead fatigue fracture.”

Here’s the link: http://circuitsassembly.com/cms/news/12195-paper-halogen-free-packages-reveal-new-failure-mode

Apple’s Enablers

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Another Apple supplier — this time Pegatron — has blown up. Fortunately this time no one died, but 61 workers were injured, 23 badly enough to require hospitalization.

In the wake of the accident, I’m sure we’ll be treated to all the usual platitudes about how seriously Apple takes its corporate citizenship, an argument that becomes harder to swallow with each passing disaster.

How long are we going to operate under the premise that consumers actually care about where their products come from? “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

 

IPC-2581 Update

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It’s been a while since I updated readers on the IPC-2581 Consortium. Here’s a few tidbits:

  • The group of supporters continues to grow, and a couple large IT and test equipment OEMs are now considering joining. At least one announcement could be coming shortly.
  • The verification team, led by Ed Acheson at Cadence, is making progress. They are looking at some designs to use for test runs. At least 10 designs are expected to be validated using the members’ CAD and CAM tools.
  • Wise Solutions expects to have an IPC-2581 viewer by January. It will likely be made available through multiple websites.
  • The Consortium will have a booth at the IPC Apex show in late February and PCB West in September. Members will also have a poster at Apex and will make a presentation at PCB West.

Here’s a question: Should Mentor or Frontline (which Mentor owns a 50% stake in) join the IPC-2581 Consortium? Feel free to reply here or directly to me if you wish.

December Issue Now Online

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The December issue of PCD&F is now available.

Our cover story is a study of a novel halogen-free, phosphorus-free laminate said to be
effective for lead-free processing but without the cost penalty typically associated with such materials.

Other highlights include:

And our commentary on the recent Productronica trade show.

Check it out here!

Safe in the Cloud

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Data are safer in the cloud.

That’s what tech industry research firm Aberdeen concludes, based on findings from multiple benchmark studies on best practices in content security and security software.

Aberdeen says its analysis shows that users of cloud-based web security had substantially better results than users of on-premise web security implementations when it comes to security, compliance and reliability (and cost, by the way).

Over a 12-month span, cloud-based web security solutions users had 58% fewer malware incidents, 93% fewer audit deficiencies, 45% less security-related downtime, and 45% fewer incidents of data loss or data exposure than did their on-premise web security colleagues.

Extrapolated to the PCB design industry, the report suggests Altium’s move to a cloud-based server environment isn’t as fraught with security hurdles as some have posited.

The Media (Us) Gets Social

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Besides this blog, we at CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY are active in a number of other social media related forums.

You can follow Editor-in-Chief Mike Buetow’s steady stream of late-breaking news on Twitter (@mikebuetow).

Or join our LinkedIn groups: CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY, SMT Processing, PCB Test and Inspection, PCB Cleaning, and EMS — Electronics Manufacturing Services.

Finally, you could friend us on Facebook: search CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY.

Each vehicle is different, and each offers access to a somewhat different audience. Twitter tends to be a one-way, or two-way at most, type of communication. We use it more to relay important breaking stories, both reported by us and others. The LinkedIn groups, most of which are new, are more expansive, and intended to drive in-depth technical and market-related conversations. Facebook is less formal, in my opinion, than LinkedIn. The discussions there tend to be simpler in nature.

They all have their place, however, and we’d love to see you engaged in any one of them.

 

 

 

Talking Data Transfer at ZDAC

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I had the great pleasure of attending Zuken’s ZDAC users group meeting earlier this month in San Antonio at the invitation of Steve Chidester, head of product marketing, and Amy Clements, marketing/sales manager.

Steve and Amy had asked me to present on electronics data transfer, a subject many readers know has long held my interest.

There were about 100 people who attended the event this year, slightly up over last year. All the usual Zuken folks were there: Gerhard Lipski, GM of Zuken Europe; Dave Gullickson, GM of Zuken USA; apps engineer Griff Derryberry; Humair Mandavia; Sandy Jones; and so on. I also was fortunate to meet with Zuken COO Jinya Katsube and CTO Kazuhiro Kariya.

As we’ve reported over at PCDanfF.com, just before ZDAC, Zuken rolled out two new tools: DesignForce, which accelerates prototyping by enabling chip-package-interconnect substrate optimization in a single, native 3D format. The CAD company also released CR-8000, its primary CAD flow. (DesignForce is embedded in CR-8000.) They spent a considerable amount of time discussing those two new tools and their ongoing product roadmap, including CR-5000 Lighting v. 14 next March, which will include a netless router. Zuken says it sees a need to move more information to upstream design, such as system and architecture. The main takeaway was that design makes up 4% of the cost of the process, but it determines 60% of the product cost.

I had about 45 people in my session. There was great interest in the topic, in part because some of the people there have been pushing their companies (RIM, Rockwell Collins, Northrop Grumman, to name but a few) to standardize on IPC-2581. All in all, it was well worth the time.

Also, Zuken is doing a lot in wiring harness design. This is a big market for many EMS companies (especially for military and aerospace work), and there are probably 12 to 15 companies that supply design software for wiring harness. (Some big ones are Mentor, Zuken, Eplan, Autodesk, and IGE-XAO). I didn’t attend the wiring harness design sessions, but it seems the audience was fairly split between the two.

Next year’s event will be held in Newport, CA, around the same time frame (early November).

Productronica: Still the Big Player on the Block

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Productronica, the trade show that’s so big, they can only hold it every other year, enters its final day today.

The PCB fabrication exhibits have shrunk over the years and are now down to about one hall (although exhibitors were spread over two, intermingled with large lounge areas and contract assemblers). Like the (much bigger) assembly sections, the exhibitors felt Tuesday’s traffic was slow, but Wednesday and Thursday were strong. While China may have spirited away most of the production, this is still the event outside of the Pacific Rim.

Take a look at PCD&F today; our recap of the fab hall is now up.