PCB Chat

What are electronics companies doing, strategically and tactically, to adjust to today’s sourcing and manufacturing climate? Hassan Tawawalla, business unit director of the Printed Circuits Solution division at Molex, and David Palos, materials supervisor at Molex, join Mike Buetow to discuss inventory levels, double-bookings, supply chain transparency, and the need for companies to insulate themselves against shortages.

Numerous exhibitors are taking part in this new format. More than 100 technical presentations and papers will be available on-demand. Additionally, nine 3.5 hour professional development courses will be presented live!

We are all familiar with the pros and cons of importing goods from China. China supply chain expert David Alexander discusses pros and cons of doing business in China. David also discusses the lesser known opportunities of exporting US goods to China and China's appetite for western brands. David is founder and president of Baysource Global, company which provides management of offshore factories, US sales and distribution of Chinese products as well as distribution of US products in to China.

Matthew Chalkley has over 26 years of supply chain experience in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. Chalkley has held a number of senior operational management positions within, engineering, manufacturing, materials management, procurement, and customer order fulfillment. Chalkley was the Global Program Manager for IBM’s Supply Chain Social & Environmental Management System and the Global Tactical Lead for IBM’s Center of Excellence for Product Environmental Compliance. Matthew currently chairs the Environmental Sustainable Electronics (ESE) Technical Work Group for iNEMI. Chalkley has a graduate diploma focused in environmental management from the University of Ulster.    

The coronavirus may have taken hold around the globe, but you couldn't tell from the latest printed circuit board design software results. ESD Alliance spokesman Wally Rhines discusses the first quarter EDA market statistics with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow. 

Benchmark Lark Technology this month opened the doors to its 122,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art factory in Phoenix. The new site is significant because it includes both a fabrication and assembly capabilities, making Benchmark a vertically integrated manufacturer and creating one of the few greenfield fab shops in the US in the past 20 years. PCB Chat speaks with Kevin Walker, product line director, RF & High Speed Circuits at Benchmark Lark, which is a unit of Benchmark Electronics. He has spent more than 30 years in the electronics manufacturing industry, including 10 with Rogers, Dynaco, the flex circuit fabricator, NEE, Micro Systems Technologies, and AVX. He explains the background and strategy behind the new plant, and gives listeners an auditory walkthrough of its features and capabilities.

On this episode of Reliability Matters, Mike Konrad joins Dr. Jennie Hwang, Phil Zarrow, Bob Willis and Ray Prasad to discuss several industry topics including the pandemic, common technical issues, training and support, and other interesting topics.

Dr. Chris Jackson is founder of Acuitas, a company dedicated to electronics reliability. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales, and a master's and Ph.D. in reliability engineering from the University of Maryland. He is an American Society of Quality Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE), and a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) from Engineers Australia. ​ He has been senior reliability engineer for the Australian Defence Force, and director and founder of multiple research centers at the University of California Los Angeles. He has authored or coauthored multiple textbooks on reliability engineering and implemented several RAM programs across multiple industries. Chris discusses his five-part article titled "Three Ways to do Reliability Allocation." This article may be viewed here: https://accendoreliability.com/?s=3+Ways+to+do+Reliability+Allocation Additional technical works by Chris may be viewed at https://accendoreliability.com/page/2/?s=jackson

Inspectar is a startup company whose signature product is a tool for fast debugging of electronics hardware. The novel system highlights the nets on a board and captures and shares the metadata with other engineers, regardless of the native tool environment. Mihir Shah (CEO), Darryl Day (CTO) and Matt Noseworthy (CIO) talk about Inspectar’s origins and highlights of the just-released InspectAR 2.0. 

Dr. Jennie Hwang's wide-ranging career encompasses international business operations, sustained leadership in worldwide manufacturing and technology services, innovative research, intellectual property management, global leadership positions, as well as corporate and university governance. Dr. Hwang has held senior executive positions with Lockheed Martin. SCM Corp., Sherwin Williams., and was the CEO of International Electronic Materials Corp. as well as co-founded entrepreneurial companies. Currently, her company provides business, technology and manufacturing solutions to the global industry. She has served as an advisor to many Fortune 500 multinational companies, as well as the US government programs. Her formal education includes Harvard Business School’s Executive Program, Columbia University Business School Corporate Governance program, and four academic degrees (Ph.D., MS, MA, BS) in engineering & sciences from Case Western Reserve University, Columbia, Kent State-Liquid Crystal Institute and Cheng-Kung University, respectively. She was the first female to earn a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University's Engineering School - Materials Science & Engineering and has served on the university's board of trustees since 1996.