PCB Chat

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 & Surface Mount Technology Journal Technical Paper Review committees. He’s a member of the American Society for Metals, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, and IPC. If you’re in the electronics assembly industry, you’ve probably seen Dave at numerous technical conferences, imparting wisdom with a style unique to Dave. Dave Hillman may be reached at david.hillman@collins.com

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 another startup with his former students, Gigajot Technology, Inc.

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