Articles

 

PCB Reliability: Auditing Your Supply Chain to Insure It
SMTA e-news June 2019

PCBs are electronic real estate. Establishing the foundation for assembly, there is a direct correlation between the reliability of a final electronic product and the bare printed circuit board. There is much to knowing what it takes as both a buyer and a producer of PPCBs to ensure high-reliability PCB performance. After selecting the raw materials, backbone fabrication processes (multilayer press, via drilling, copper through hole plating) are the key components of PCB Reliability.

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To Bake or Not To Bake: Impact of Waiving Pre-Baking Prior to Assembly

SMT Magazine November 2016

I'll always remember the summer of 2004 as the "Summer of Lead-Free." Finally, Pb-free circuit boards were going into standard production mode. Assemblers focused the majority of their efforts (often at my behest) on final finish and proper laminate selection. What none of us saw coming, however, was the rash of delamination that would burn the entire industry during that long, hot lead-free summer. After a good amount of research, Isola came up with a Lead-Free PCB Fabrication and Assembly Guideline outlining critical steps for successful Pb-free assemblies.

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Case Study: Reducing Defects Caused by Excess Handling and Mishandling

iConnect Magazine May 2016

Most folks associate quality improvement initiatives with upfront expenses and ongoing cost increases. Fortunately, when done efficiently and with enough forethought and planning, quality improvement programs can pay for themselves in the form of increased throughput, reduced labor steps, and reduction in materials consumption. Increased yield improvements are then a pure bonus.

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Becoming an Automotive Supplier—Proceed with Caution
iConnect September 2015

Before you make that plunge to becoming an automotive supplier, we need to talk about liabilities. In our industry, the liabilities for shipping bad boards are generally limited to a range of a) replacing or b) crediting out the bare boards to pay for the assembly (parts and labor) that was affected. Historically, this has been the case for automotive applications, as well. It’s been my feeling that since the OEMs have beaten down pricing so badly over the past 20 years, they generally bore most of the costs of warranty claims.

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PCBs for Automobiles: What to Wear to the Party?

the PCB Magazine October 2014

The automotive electronics market is ensured to generate growth for the rest of this decade. Just because the Chinese have the lion’s share of this mature market doesn’t mean there is no room for a North American PCB fabricator. You just have to be more discerning and offer a value-added solution to the customer, which can take investment in education, processes, and people. Not an easy road, but one with potential riches at the end.

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PCBs for Automobiles:Turbo Boost for Sales?
PCB Magazine October 2013

With the projected trajectory of electronics content in vehicles, automotive PCBs are a global growth driver for our industry. And yet, the pressing question for any N.A. PCB manufacturer might be, do I even want to get in this race?

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Microvia Formation: When to Drill, When to Blast!
PCB Magazine May 2013

As today’s designs become increasingly dense, PCB fabricators’ capabilities are tested especially when drilling for microvias. By using DFM rules, fabricators can match the best method of manufacturing with the type of microvia being incorporated into a PCB design. Moreover, many fabricators will be surprised to find out which capabilities they may already have in-house, versus those that need to be outsourced.

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Built Board Tough: DC Copper Plating for High-Reliability and Increased Capabilities

PCB Magazine January 2013

Converting your old DC copper plating setup to one that produces high-reliability and higher aspect ratio copper plating for vias isn’t difficult; some old jeans and a little resourcefulness can produce world-class plating capabilities in a small hand-plating line.

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Domestic Fabricators: Round 10 and Still Standing!

PCB Magazine December 2012

Reshoring may be real, but fabricators still need to understand that the conditions driving it have nothing to do with mandates or politics. This article defines five skill sets driving the targeted reshoring campaign. Does your company possess these capabilities?

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PCB Reliability: Cleaning Up Your Act
SMT Magazine September 2012

Bare board cleanliness is a serious matter, yet also a relatively new issue for the industry. In addition to design, a product’s environment causes ionic contamination to form dendritic growth. End-users should review both board design and the environment to combat the issue.

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Built Board Tough

SMT Magazine July 2012

PCBs are electronic real estate. Establishing the foundation for assembly, there is a direct correlation between the reliability of a final electronic product and the bare printed circuit board. There is much to knowing what it takes as both a buyer and a producer of PCBs to ensure high-reliability PCB performance.

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Alternative Materials for LED PCBs
SMT Magazine June 2012

In 2009, author Yash Sutariya consulted Clemens Lasance, a thermal management guru, who began teaching the ways of the (thermal) force. Now, Yash is curious: Are brand-name thermal dielectrics on metal core printed circuit boards more effective than traditional FR-4 PCBs with Cu-plated vias?

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Latest on Lead-Free Capable Materials

PCB Magazine February 2012

Advancements in lead-free materials are not necessarily restricted to the materials themselves; they often develop in our knowledge base of the characteristics and performance criteria of the already available library of materials in the marketplace. This is truly the low-hanging fruit.

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Strategies for Beating the Heat: Updates on Thermal Management for PCBs
SMT Magazine July 2011

With the LED market exploding while still in its infancy, both PCB producers and end users can expect to see consistent evolution in not just standard MCPCB materials, but also potentially disruptive and game-changing technologies and applications.

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Materials for High Reliability Applications

PCB Magazine June 2011

When discussing high-reliability materials for printed circuit board applications, the conversation typically gears towards opinions of reliability: is one material system versus another better? Other times, it’s materials’ properties that are stressed to imply reliability.

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