Reliability Matters

My guest, Eric Camden (Lead Investigator with Foresite) and I discuss electrochemical migration (ECM) and other failure modes caused by residues on circuit assemblies.Eric Camden's Contact Information:ericc@foresiteinc.comhttps://www.foresiteinc.com

On this episode, I speak with Mark Goodwin, COO of Ventec Europe, a supplier of copper clad laminates and prepreg bonding materials for the circuit board fabrication industry about supply chain challenges.Mark Goodwin's Contact Information:mark.goodwin@ventec-europe.comhttp://www.ventec-group.com

You don't have to be in the tech industry you understand importance and value of data. Industries have always collected various sets of data, first manually and, in modern times, automatically. The volume of data has historically been limited to the ability to capture and store it. Recent advances in technology have vastly increased the ability to capture and store data. The industry 4.0 movement has fueled both of desire and requirement to capture data.We have created a "be careful what you ask for" scenario as we now are capturing data at an unprecedented rate but frequently lack the ability to discern and analyze all of our newly captured data.My guest today, Luisa Herrmann, Head of Product for Arch Systems, is helping to transform "big data" into useful data. Luisa has 10 years of experience in Product Management and Product Marketing, launching products, building teams, and scaling organizations in the data software space. She was most recently the Head of Product at Cape Privacy, an encrypted machine learning company, and before that she was the Head of Product at expert.ai, an NLP company. She has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and lives in the Boston area.Luisa Herrmann may be contacted here:lherrmann@archsys.iohttps://archsys.io/

On this show, we’ve discussed many aspects of the Electronics assembly process. We talked about reflow, thermal management, printing, soldering materials, additives, and so much more. What do all these topics have in common? When done correctly, they all contribute to the reliability of circuit assemblies.Today, we’re going to dive into the subject of cleaning circuit assemblies after reflow. For many assemblers, the cleaning process was replaced by the use of no clean flux technology. Time and technology have eroded the concept of allowing all residues to remain on the assembly. Today, residue caused failures are such a concern, that IPC recently and radically changed the way circuit assemblies are considered to be clean.My guests today are Sal Sparacino and Eric Camden. Sal is Director of Sales at Zestron Americas, located in Manassas Virginia. Zestron is a manufacturer of cleaning chemicals for the electronics industry. Eric is Lead Investigator for Foresite, an analytical laboratory based in Kokomo Indiana. Eric, is the guy you call when things go wrong. Together with my experience as a cleaning equipment manufacturer, we’ll discuss how cleaning contributes to increased reliability, and we’ll review the reasons cleaning has returned as a mainstream assembly process. Guest Contact Info: Sal Sparacinosal.sparacino@zestronusa.comhttps://www.zestron.comEric Camdenericc@foresiteinc.comhttps://www.foresiteinc.com

Episode 113: A Conversation about Counterfeit Component Detection with Dr. Eyal WeissWe are all aware of the “oldest profession in the world”. Perhaps the second oldest profession is counterfeiting. Whenever a product is introduced, a counterfeit version soon follows. While the electronics industry has experienced counterfeit components from its inception, recent events such as the pandemic and supply chain shortages have fueled the counterfeit industry.Statistics by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reveal that the counterfeiting of electronic parts in the US alone, cost the chip industry more than $7.5 billion in revenue annually. According to new data from the ERAI, a global information board for counterfeiting, reports of counterfeit electronic products are growing. Although it is difficult to put an exact figure on just how many counterfeit products are in circulation, estimates suggest that consumer and industrial businesses lose approximately $250 billion each year due to counterfeit parts. To talk more about counterfeit components and detection technologies, I invited Dr. Eyal Weiss, Founder and CTO of Cybord to be my guest. Dr. Weiss received his Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering from BGU (Ben-Gurion University) in IsraelAs well as a Masters in Plasma Physics and bachelors cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology.He worked as a researcher on pulsed plasma at Soreq Research Center (SNRC). He then worked as a technology department manager in the high-tech fiber-optics industry. He was the technology manager at Lynx Photonics and then at Explay, developing state-of-the-art Silicon and optical chips production, packaging, and assembly production lines. He developed a new fiber-pigtailing and packaging technology and built full-scale production lines utilizing this new technology.He returned to Soreq SNRC and for 15 years served as manager and leading scientist of the R&D Systems Department. He built mass-production lines and assembly lines for new sensors technology and developed their test equipment. He has twice received the prestigious Israel Defense Prize. In 2018, he founded and became CTO of Cybord, developing electronic component qualification and authentication technologies. He is a member of the Israel Innovation Authority, Euramet, SAE, and IPC committees. He specializes in multidisciplinary technology development and has received significant awards and accolades in the fields of machine learning, plasma physics, optical assemblies, laser technology, and electromagnetics. Dr. Weiss is an expert in technology development and manufacturing technology and has published over 20 peer-review articles, 4 patents, and a book, and, I’m happy to say, he’s my guest on this episode of the Reliability Matters podcast.Contact Eyal Weiss:eyal.w@cybord.aihttps://cybord.ai

David Raby is President of Madison Alabama-based STI Electronics, a contract manufacturer for the EMS industry. David worked at the family business since he was a child and eventually took over the family business when his father (and company founder) Jim Raby retired.The electronics industry moves at the speed of light and any business within the EMS industry must learn to stay ahead of technology and trends. David shares some of his experiences in taking over the family business and some of the challenges his business (and many other businesses) face on a near daily basis.David Raby's Contact Information:draby@stiusa.comhttps://stiusa.com

Electricity is the life blood for all circuit assemblies. It can also afflict significant damage via electrostatic discharge. My guest, Christopher Almeras of Raytheon reviews the various ESD mitigation strategies as well as some ESD horror stories!Christopher Almeras began his career in process engineering for a small electronics manufacturer in the late 1990s. There he became responsible for the sites ESD compliance verification. His next career move took him to a high-volume manufacturer where he added ESD Coordinator to his process duties. He eventually made the jump into the Military/Aerospace side of electronics manufacturing (with Raytheon) in 2010 where he has remained working in process, capital installations, continuous improvement, and ESD.In 2009, Christopher completed his ESD Certified Program Manager from the ESDA. He serves as a member on several ESD Association standards committees including S20.20, TR53, Process Assessment, High Reliability, Electrostatic Attraction among others. In 2022 he took over the working group chair for Soldering/Desoldering Hand Tools.Christopher was elected to the ESD Association Board of Directors and continues to be active with the ESD Symposium each year. In 2018 he presented his technical paper “An ESD Case Study of Defect Analysis in High Speed Electronics Manufacturing” at the symposium.Christopher earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and an MS in Industrial Engineering from Oklahoma State University. He is an ESD Certified Program Manager (ESDA).Christopher may be contacted here:lonestaresd@outlook.comhttps://www.lonestaresd.comDuring this episode, I referenced the following:Reliability Matters Episode 104: A Conversation about ESD Flooring with Thomas Ricciardelli https://youtu.be/peyNVuE7Ink4 Easy Ways to BLOW UP Your Test GearDaniel Bogdanoff - Keysighthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvue5whx0s

Historically, circuit assemblies are rigid devices. IoT (Internet of Things) has opened up the opportunity to embed electronics into a near limitless array of form factors. Some of these form factors require the electronic assembly to be flexible such as in wearable and medical applications.To complicate matters, The metal conductors on the assembly are rigid, and not flexible or malleable. That may change with the adoption of liquid metals. We were all exposed to the concept of liquid metal in the 1991 film Terminator 2. Will science fiction become reality?My guest today is Dr. Michael Dickey. Michael is currently the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University. Michael Dickey received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a PhD from the University of Texas. From 2006-2008 he was a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Professor George Whitesides at Harvard University. Michael completed a sabbatical at Microsoft in 2016. Michael’s research interests include soft matter (liquid metals, gels and polymers) for soft and stretchable devices (electronics, energy harvesters, textiles, and soft robotics), and hopefully, for the sake of humanity, not liquid metal T1000 villains.Dr. Michael Dickey's Contact Information:mddickey@ncsu.eduLink to Michael Dickey's TED-X Talk:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfUnK_rME8E

On this episode, there are no guests, and no specific topics. I would like to use this opportunity to thank my guests, our syndication partners, and, of course, my audience for making this podcast so successful. We have a full season ahead in 2023 and I'm excited to share those episodes with you. Please keep your questions and topics suggestions coming. Send them to mike@mikekonrad.com.A huge shout-out to my 2022 guests:Joel Scutchfield Brian O'LearyTony LentzMike AdamsonGreg Papandrew Kevin Huo Michelle Ogihara Marco SanchezColin Harper Dr. Kunal Shah Dr. Ron LaskeyJim HallClaire HotvedtTom WatsonPhil ZarrowKeith BryantDr. David BernardDavid KruidhofRobert BoguskiJen Fijalkowski Graham NaisbittMatt Kelly David RabyEd Stone Thomas Ricciardelli Dr. Martin AnselmJulie SilkRaiyo AspandiarDavid Greenman Michael Mchale Randy Cherry Dr. Chuck BauerDavid Graham

Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution. Beyond the buzzwords, what does this mean? My guest today is David Graham, Chief Technology Officer of 4IR.UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Internet of Things focused, British Systems. 4IR.UK specializes in creating Monitoring, Control and Automation solutions, often based on the MultiPlug Edge Computing Platform, for manufacturing environments. They also provide consultancy and development for other Industry 4.0 platforms.I was intrigued by a webinar presented by David entitled “A Decade of Industry 4.0 – What it Wasn’t, What it Was", and today, I spoke with David about his thoughts, experiences, and opinions of Industry 4.0. David's Contact Info:David Grahamdavid.graham@4ir.ukwww.4ir.uk