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buetow
in-chief
A New Fox in the
EMS Henhouse?
on Hai, better known as Foxconn, has been the largest EMS/ODM company in the world since 2005, when it catapulted Flextronics to gain the top spot. To be sure, Foxconn’s revenues then and now are enhanced by ample non-electronics manufacturing segments, but the depth and breadth of the company is by any measure staggering. In calendar 2019, it reached roughly $150 billion, a mark that is all the more impressive when you consider it doesn’t include sales from some of its largest subsidiaries, such as Innolux, Sharp, and its connector and cable units. Its quarterly revenue alone would make it the largest EMS/ODM in the world. And its annual output not only eclipses all its customers’ electronics sales, sans Apple, but also the next four largest competitors combined.
In pursuit of the almighty dollar, Foxconn is the almightiest. Nothing seems out of its reach. Its founder and erstwhile chairman ran for president of Taiwan. It also dabbled in American politics, putting a massive (if mostly empty) facility smack dab in the soy and corn fields of the district of the then-US House Speaker.



Thintronics, the new firm founded last year by chemist Dr. Stefan Pastine, wants to help companies make better products through “reconceptualizing PCB design.”
The materials company has ideas for lower layer count designs for devices that must be small or lightweight or both, such as mobile, IoT, wearables and autonomous systems for self-driving cars and LiDAR or drones.
While much of these objects can be freely designed and quickly made, the addition of electronics to embed things like sensors, chips, and tags usually requires that you design both separately, making it difficult to create items where the added functions are easily integrated with the form.
Now, a 3-D design environment from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) lets users iterate an object’s shape and electronic function in one cohesive space, to add existing sensors to early-stage prototypes.

Electrolube appointed Carolyn McAllister European sales manager. She has a degree in chemistry from the University of Nottingham, and spent the past six years with the company’s research and development team.

Z-Axis promoted David Figler to purchasing manager. He joined the purchasing team in 2019, and has more than 20 years’ experience in electronics purchasing and commodity management with Caldwell Manufacturing Company, Alstom, ITT Gould Pumps and Pfaudler.
AIM Solder opened a 12,000 sq. ft. ISO 9001-certified solder manufacturing facility in Malaysia.
Aimtron purchased an Austin American Technology X30 stencil cleaner, its second.
Apple has reportedly suspended new business with Pegatron after discovering labor violations at a student workers’ program.
CalcuQuote has partnered with Rochester Electronics to build a new integration that offers up-to-date information through the CalcuQuote platform.
Cogiscan named AES to handle sales and service throughout Vietnam.
The new plant is expected to be operational by the second quarter 2022.
The plant is a larger version of VGT’s high-volume Industry 4.0 factory, which opened last year. The site relies on AGVs and other automation, plus VGT developed intelligent ERP software and real-time product metrology to reduce labor and shorten production cycle time. (MB)
CHANDLER, AZ – Ticer Technologies announced an agreement to acquire certain manufacturing assets from Materion’s Large Area Coatings division, effective Jan. 1.
The deal will help Ticer avoid a potential supply disruption, the company said.
The companies did not disclose financial terms.
Ticer, which makes thin film embedded resistor foils, will acquire LAC’s vacuum deposition/sputtering production equipment, which will remain at the firm’s facility in Windsor, CT, as well as certain staff. Processes, equipment and raw materials will remain the same during the transition process, the companies said.
“This is a significant improvement in capacity and supply leadership long sought by Ticer,” said David Burgess, president, Ticer. “We believe our global customers will benefit from the flexibility and supply chain control afforded by this change.”
Ticer had previously announced a potential supply chain disruption due to the planned divestiture of Materion’s LAC division. The acquisition will obviate that potential disruption and make product requalification unnecessary. (MB)
Besides the large factory, the site will include several hundred offices, workstations, and flexible workspaces, and classified and unclassified labs. The building was designed for growth, with the ability to add 50,000 sq. ft. of additional space in the future.
The report, issued in September by the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Boston Consulting Group, says the US share of the global semiconductor fabrication industry has dropped to 12%, from 37% in 1990. Moreover, just 6% of new capacity is earmarked for the US, the authors say. In contrast, China will add nearly 40% of new capacity, making it the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world.
Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only).
The one takeaway from this crazy year is you can never plan for everything. Paradoxically, good planning makes it easier to deal with the unimaginable.
Company-sponsored educational resources are more limited today. That said, technology has made it possible and convenient to engage in focused continuous learning opportunities. IPC’s Certified Electronics Program Manager (CEPM) training and certification program is a good example. What once required multiple trips to training locations and a solid week of classroom time can now be done via computer either in live sessions or through reviews of class recordings. The program was redesigned to an online format in 2017 and now is a six-week program with two two-hour classes per week, providing overviews of program management, sales, cost accounting, materials management, contracts, production planning, quality and leadership. Students are assigned to teams that complete a case study each week related to the concepts presented. A variety of online exercises reinforce key concepts. The goal is to ensure participants are provided a common framework of knowledge and the opportunity to interact with peers to discuss best practices. Information on the program and upcoming dates is available here: https://training.ipc.org/product/certified-electronics-program-manager-cepm-program .
Meanwhile, we don’t want side effects: static on the radio, compressor noise from the AC or that annoying 60Hz hum from the light fixture bleeding over to my new bass amp. It’s these things we try our best to design out of the products we build.
We can adjust the tuner on the radio, and we can install the central AC unit away from the windows. I ordered a noise suppressor and plugged it into a socket where there’s no dimmer switches or high current motors plugged in. Then the amplifier and pedal board power cords were routed into the special apparatus, and I no longer get a wave of white noise when this MacBook Pro searches for a WiFi signal.
To support the best possible experiences in video, photography and gaming, new display technologies continue to emerge to provide seamless, immersive viewing. OLED displays are dominating the smartphone and flat-panel television markets, bringing attributes such as conformability and optical performance, including high contrast ratio with the ability to render true black, which conventional LCDs cannot manage.
If you’ve read previous “Material Matters” columns, you may recognize the following cross-section from our Z-solver software. Among other things, it shows that the base of a trace, facing the core dielectric, is wider than the side of the trace that faces the prepreg. As such, the trace trapezoids face both up and down in a multilayer stackup. There’s no relationship to the layer number or whether the trace is on the top or bottom half of the board. For this reason, some including me – but not everyone – avoid using terms like “top” or “bottom” with regard to trapezoidal traces.
Most manufacturers can form 0.250″ flex sections with no issues, and many can get down to less than half that. There are manufacturing and final-use implications of short flex sections between rigid areas on rigid-flex circuitry. The manufacturing issues affect cost, and the final-use issues could cause premature failure if the specified flex length is too small.
The PCEA’s mission is to promote the printed circuit engineering profession by encouraging and facilitating the exchange of information and the integration of new design concepts through communications, seminars, and workshops. Its efforts are buttressed by a network of regional chapters and the support of sponsors, including several CAD companies and other firms.
The PCEA has a growing membership of more than 1,000 members, with existing chapters in Phoenix, Orange County (CA), San Diego, Silicon Valley, Ontario (Canada), Minneapolis-St. Paul, Monterrey (Mexico), Nogales (Mexico), Research Triangle Park, and Seattle. Chapters planned for the near future include Columbus-Cincinnati-Dayton; Grand Rapids, MI; Illinois-Wisconsin; New Hampshire-Massachusetts; Albuquerque; Houston; Dallas; and Austin. The PCEA hopes to open another Canadian chapter soon.
by TIM WEBER, PH.D.
The process designs each step to specifically adapt to the inspected device’s design, materials, and fabrication technology. Performing any of the preparation stages incorrectly can result in spurious features, artifacts and great potential for both Type I and Type II error.
The process starts with PCB manufacturers designing test coupon segments into each of their products. This function enables panel testing without wasting the actual production board. To confirm the lab has met product specifications, they separate the coupon from each panel.
That’s no small matter. China produces some 90% of all electronics worldwide. In anticipation of the Chinese New Year, most companies outside China had increased their inventories of raw materials, so the impact on the supply chain wasn’t immediately felt. As buffer stocks dwindled, producers in the US and Europe were socked with virus-related shutdowns. Meanwhile, China came back online. So, while materials weren’t always where manufacturers needed them, even critical components generally were accessible in relatively short order.
SnPb alloys have been historically used for making joints. In the case of electronics, eutectic 63/37 SnPb was a very good choice, as solder joints could be soldered at relatively low temperatures, considering its melting point at 183oC. Eutectic SnPb also produced solder joints with very good mechanical reliability. The transition to lead-free was mostly a matter of regulatory compliance, and in the early 2000s various lead-free alloys were considered substitutes for eutectic SnPb, including the eutectic 42Sn58Bi alloy.
Preston Averette, 71, founder and owner of Photo Chemical Systems.
Danny Carr, 65, CAM software engineer and founder of Everything PCB.
Chen Sheng-wei (陳昇瑋), 44, Taiwan Artificial Intelligence Academy CEO who helped bring AI to PCB CAD.
Julian Coates, 62, marketing executive with Valor.
Karl Dietz, Ph.D., PCB materials expert at DuPont and prolific author.
Undisclosed Foxconn worker.
Patty A. Houston, 64, circuit board department worker, General Electric Medical Systems.
But I think it is safe to say we all have learned that statistically evaluating a set of data is complicated and rife with uncertainty. We choose among many possible statistical tools, and numbers “pop” out telling us if our hypothesis is correct. From those data, we proceed to either take an action or not take an action, depending on the statistical results.
Yet how many finish an analysis and wonder what if it is wrong? Did I have enough data? Did I choose the proper statistical tool? Do I even know the proper statistical tool? Arghh! (I suspect doctors of statistical science also have “arghh” moments.
Another reality presents, perhaps, a more immediate challenge: increasing component density beyond current norms. Realistically, for next-generation mobile phones and wearables, the primary consumers of the most miniaturized components, board designs will continue to incorporate the 01005 chip (metric 0402). There are a gracious plenty of reasons for this, not the least of which are cost and component availability. The challenge for product designers is how to get the most function from chips that may be larger than they would prefer. What’s the solution? Squeeze the 01005s closer together, of course!
In the images shown, the pins in the connector have floated down. This happens easily during soldering or rework. In an automated process, if the pins drop down 1 to 2mm below the board in selective or wave soldering, they can cause damage. Pins can contact the solder nozzle or wave former, which will jam the machine. Using low-temperature solder with a lower specification connector will work fine, but consider the rework temperatures if parts must be removed.













Authors: Brian Romanczyk, Weiyi Li, Matthew Guidry, Nipuram Hatui, Athith Krishna, Christian Wurm, Stacia Keller, and Umesh K. Mishra.
Abstract: This work presents recent progress in the W-band (94GHz) power performance of N-polar GaN deep recess HEMTs grown on sapphire substrates. While SiC has been the substrate of choice to achieve the highest level of performance, sapphire substrates are a lower cost alternative. The authors show that N-polar GaN deep recess HEMTs grown on sapphire match the power performance of a device on SiC up to 14V with 5.1W/mm of output power density. At 16V the device on sapphire starts to suffer from thermal effects but still demonstrated 5.5W/mm with an associated 20.6% power-added efficiency. This work also examines the impact of encapsulating the device in a low dielectric constant film often used for the implementation of an RF wiring environment. Such a device could be critical to efficiently pushing 6G’s terahertz-frequency signals out of the antennas of future smartphones and other connected devices. (IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 41, no. 11, November 2020, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9187650)
Design Software

- Intuitive placement and routing
- Dynamic copper pour
- Full rules engine for automatic DRC
- High-speed design rules
- Heads-up display length matching
- Rigid-Flex, embedded components, and chip-on-board
- Revision control and PLM integration

Design Software

- Intuitive placement and routing
- Dynamic copper pour
- Full rules engine for automatic DRC
- High-speed design rules
- Heads-up display length matching
- Rigid-Flex, embedded components, and chip-on-board
- Revision control and PLM integration
