This week, the Global Electronics Association published its monthly report on PCB fabrication and EMS bookings and shipments, and the numbers are extremely positive. In EMS, the three-month book-to-bill ratio stands at 1.29 for July. Year-to-date EMS bookings are at 11% over 2025. The picture is similar in PCB fabrication as well. Year-to-date bookings are up 33% over last year, and book-to-bill stands at 1.46.

This does not look like a short-term blip in the overall numbers, but it does seem to be driven by spotty demand: AI, data centers, and defense, with their extremely complex designs, are at the forefront, while the high-volume consumer-type products are still sluggish.

This begs the question: Who’s designing and how is this changing their work? Our posse of PCB pundits all seems to be tossing that same question around in their heads.

This week, we bring you the debut column from Flexible Circuit Technology’s “Fab Five,” and Micron opens a new training center in Boise. VeCS creator Joan Tourne returns to provide an update on how the design and fab methodologies have matured. Ventec’s Mark Goodwin raises some warnings about the current state of the laminate supply chain, and Kelly Dack equates electronics with ecology and, well, evolution.

Flex Connections: Four Lessons in Engineering Judgment for PCB Designers
Published August 20

Dan Skweres enters the chat with a powerful thesis for a changing design environment: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” With so much growth in the most complex board designs, it’s even more important to consider whether that design choice is over-engineering.

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Micron Opens State-of-the-Art Training Center in Boise to Strengthen America’s Semiconductor Workforce
Published August 26

In the September issue of SMT007 Magazine, we highlight the ongoing growth in Mexican electronics manufacturing. The needs being confronted by Micron and Mexico are the same: How do you quickly create a workforce with a skill set to match the manufacturing demands facing them. Micron’s new Boise training center is their latest answer to the challenge.

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VeCS HDI Process Technology: Has the Time Come for Broader Adoption?
Published August 25

VeCS offers PCB fabricators a potentially simpler manufacturing approach to HDIs. The technology can reduce or eliminate multiple lamination cycles, ease some stackup constraints, and achieve greater vertical interconnect density while leveraging conventional PCB fabrication equipment and processes. I-Connect007 has covered VeCS since its introduction in 2017 and 2018. VeCS creator, Joan Tourne, returns to update on how the design and fab methodologies have matured. For additional detail, don’t miss Marcy LaRont’s article here.

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Preparing for a New Laminate Supply Reality
Published August 26

Ventec’s Mark Goodwin cautions us on the PCB materials supply chain. Current market demand far outstrips global production, and, as Goodwin points out, once the supply crisis has begun, strengthening supply chain resilience is essentially impossible. Meanwhile, designers need to know which materials are available. So, what to do? Goodwin has some answers.

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Target Condition: Life in the Engineering Ecosystem
Published August 25

Kelly Dack’s column reflects on the design and manufacturing chain as if it were organic, because the processes most certainly are. In fact, Kelly observes, “Our responsibility doesn’t end when the CAM files leave our desktop. In many ways, that’s where it begins. Every trace we route, footprint we approve, fabrication note we write, and dimension we place becomes the starting point for someone else’s work. Manufacturing, assembly, inspection, test, procurement, and ultimately the customer all depend on the quality of that information.” Wise words and much food for thought from Kelly as our ecosystems, and the roles within them, evolve.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• I-Connect007 is pleased to welcome Tianming Liu, founder of First Quality Circuit Co. Ltd. (FS Quality) and Fuji PCB, as our newest columnist.
  In his new column, "Bridging the Pacific," Tianming will draw on more than three decades of PCB manufacturing experience to explore the cultures, practices, and perspectives shaping electronics manufacturing around the world.
  

• In a new white paper, Nash Bell, president of BEST, Inc., explores how salvaging high-value components from obsolete PCBs can extend component life, reduce waste, and create opportunities for economic reuse.
  

• Brian Buyea of Remtec, Inc. explains how connecting the next generation with opportunities starts with showing them just how essential this industry is to the technologies they already care about.

  
  

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By Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007

My mom used to tell a story about my friends and me carefully eating our peanut butter sandwiches so we could fashion them into toy handguns, eventually finding us playing cops and robbers with our lunch. It seemed that anything we could find would be turned into a game, and all it took was a creative mind.

In fact, ever since grade school, I’ve had two fascinations: military aviation and marine sciences. (I actually had many more, but we’ll just stick with these for now.) There are some valuable lessons for electronics from these two disciplines.

For example, I’ve recently been following a story on the NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) buoys, and, separately, the evolving role of drones in military operations. Oddly enough, in the Venn diagram of my mind, these topics overlap and, in doing so, offer some words to the wise in electronics.

Whales

In the late 1940s, the U.S. Navy deployed a network of hydrophones across the seabed in the Atlantic and the Pacific. When it became clear that low-frequency sounds from submarines could travel extremely long distances underwater, the U.S. laid a series of simple microphones on the seabed at key locations. These hydrophones were a secret military tool for detecting and tracking Soviet submarines—a tool that became strategically important during the Cold War.

Location and range finding could be accomplished through beamforming, a variation of the triangulation used in today’s GPS systems. In some cases, the system could even recognize a specific sub by its signature. The Soviets likely knew the SONUS microphones were there, but because they were passive listening devices, they emitted no RF signal that could be used to locate and deactivate.

Over time, SOSUS operators learned they could hear much more than just submarines. Whale song was commonplace, and SOSUS became adept at whale identification. Whale song, by the way, is capable of traveling thousands of miles. In the 1990s, SOSUS and whale researchers began collaborating, using SOSUS hydrophones to track entire whale populations across the ocean basin.

Around the same time, in the realm of air traffic tracking, things quickly became complicated. Because sound signals don’t travel as well in the atmosphere, air defense sensors relied on RF-based sensors like radar, and more. These systems were complicated, expensive, active rather than passive, and not easy to deploy.

Drones

That brings me to lessons we’re learning on the contemporary battlefield. Ukraine and Iran have fundamentally changed military aviation on the battlefield. Their widespread use of drones has shown the global superpowers that micro-assets can be useful, lethal, and, more importantly, affordable. Air superiority has traditionally been achieved through helicopter and fixed-wing craft, though, back in the 1950s and early ’60s, my father-in-law piloted a blimp. His crew would be dispatched to the location of a Soviet submarine, where they’d trail the submarine for days on end, a sort of passive air-based monitoring. But things didn’t always stay so simple.

Around 1930, prior to the development of radar, home defense networks in countries like the United Kingdom, attempted to build listening stations based upon huge acoustic mirrors. This created the unusual job of “aircraft listener.” Planes got quieter as they got faster, rendering the listening stations obsolete around 1930. Traditional aircraft needed more complex sensor technology, which engineers spent nearly 80 years refining. The aircraft manufacturers spent that time jamming signals and, as with stealth technology, deflecting them physically.

Trouble is, the complex sensor arrays used for aircraft and missile detection don’t work well with drones. Battlefield drones are relatively small, fly slowly, and low to the ground. Consequently, they have effectively zero radar signature. The big sensor arrays were never asked to account for a weapon yet to be imagined.

But it seems that Ukraine has rediscovered listening stations. They’ve built a drone detection network not unlike SONUS. To do so, they used microphones attached to cell phones. They created a grid of these devices (some sources say 10,000+ sensors), all networked together, listening for the sound of a Shahed drone. Like the drones themselves, the sensors are cheap, expendable, and rapidly deployable. Like SONUS, the sensors are passive and distributed and can even provide triangulation data for target tracking. They are nearly impossible to jam. When Ukraine has between 47 and 48 million registered cellphones, a network of 10,000 passive cellphone microphones is a statistical drop in the bucket, also making the network extremely hard to detect and remove.

Over the past year, a number of Russian battlefield drone teardown articles have reportedly come out of Ukraine. These battlefield drones are built with a surprisingly high percentage of off-the-shelf, easily sourced components, some of which are straight-up consumer-grade. The drones are kept intentionally unsophisticated, since they’re meant to be expendable. The fundamental truth is this: A ground force’s air cover is no longer the job of the ground attack plane or helicopter. That job is shifting to drones.

This represents a shift back to passive simplicity for electronics used in mil/aero detection. Radar sends out a measurable signal; so does LIDAR, and sonar. But a microphone? That’s entirely passive and nearly undetectable. Hiding passive sensors is, therefore, pretty easy to do.

Scan the news for a few months, and you’ll see what I saw:

• AP News: Drone debris indicates Russia is using Iranian Shahed technology

• War & Sanctions: Shahed has an NVIDIA Jetson Orion AI chip

• United24: Breakdown of western-made components in Russian decoy drones

• Component level analyses for Orlan, Shahed, Parodiya and Lancet drones

• U.S., European, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese semiconductors are being used throughout all the recovered drones

And Cybersecurity

If you’ve wondered why the U.S. government has been rolling out CMMC, this is a key reason. When components meant for non-military use are driving what can be called the most disruptive battlefield weapon in recent years, when deadly autonomous vehicles can be created so simply, then everything is a weapon. Although, I don’t think a peanut butter sandwich pistol really stands much of a chance, except during backyard lunchtime play fights.

It’s worth noting that old-fashioned document security was built around paper, clearances, encryption, and a “need to know.” The distribution of the information was always the weakest link. Modern-day cybersecurity is grappling with the same challenges in restricting access and ensuring that packets of information move without divulging their contents to the wrong people.

The August issue of SMT007 Magazine closely examined the CMMC certification process, what it means for the electronics industry, and the entire supply chain. Chances are good (and the drone story backs this up) that some of your products are being used in a military application that you’re not even aware of. You might find yourself being asked to show your CMMC compliance soon, thanks to down-channel uses you didn’t know about. Which should cause you some worry.

Once again, what’s old becomes new again. Until recently, the venerable OOI network was slowly being dismantled. Budget cuts to the National Science Foundation meant that what funds were available were directed toward the removal of buoy-mounted stations rather than maintenance. The U.S. Senate, however, passed legislation to block decommissioning the network. The cabled arrays, however, remain in place, and the future of the network is being considered. In this rapidly changing technology environment, the newest techniques sometimes borrow heavily from long-out-of-favor techniques.

In the last 100 years, the cutting edge in aircraft detection has moved from passive to active to complexly active and back to passive. The idea is the same, though the implementation details in Ukraine are nothing like the techniques available to the U.K. a hundred years ago.

And, if CMMC is a data security destination– a milestone to reach– then NIST 800-171, and the newly revised data-transfer standard, IPC-1751, which restructures data (and metadata) flow to improve visibility to these otherwise hidden channels of distribution, are the vehicles to reach this milestone. And while the technology is different, the idea is the same: only those with clearance to the information are allowed to see it.

In my last column, of course, I wrote about how education is starting to thwart AI by returning to teaching methods abandoned 30 years ago. It was George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher who wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In engineering, technology, science, education, and even warfare, perhaps the quote should be, “Those who remember the solutions of the past just might re-use them.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I feel a hankering for a peanut butter sandwich.

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When we talk about electronic waste, the conversation usually goes straight to recycling. How do we recover the metals? How do we keep all this out of landfills?

But what if recycling isn’t always the best first step?

That’s the idea behind Salvaging Electronic Components: A Reliable Method for Reducing Electronic Waste, and Ensuring Economic Reuse, a white paper from Nash Bell, president of BEST Inc., hosted by I-Connect007 as part of our growing library of industry resources.

Instead of immediately breaking discarded electronics down into raw materials, Bell looks at another possibility: What if some of those components still have useful life left?

It’s a pretty simple idea on the surface. Harvest high-value components from obsolete or superseded circuit boards, recondition and test them, and put them back into service.

Of course, actually doing that reliably is a lot more complicated.

Recycling vs. Reuse

One of the things that stands out in the paper is the distinction Bell makes between recycling and circularity.

Recycling is valuable, especially for recovering metals and rare earth elements. But recycling still means breaking something down into its constituent materials. Circularity asks whether we can keep the product (or, in this case, the component) useful a little longer before reaching that point.

That makes sense when you’re talking about high-value electronic components.

Sometimes an obsolete or difficult-to-source semiconductor is the only thing standing between a piece of industrial equipment and the end of its useful life. If that component can be safely recovered from another assembly, what suddenly looks like electronic waste becomes a potential source of parts.

There’s a resource argument here, too.

Semiconductor manufacturing consumes a tremendous amount of energy and ultra-purified water. Bell cites an estimated 1,500–2,500 kWh of energy required to manufacture a single 300 mm semiconductor wafer. And that’s before considering raw-material extraction, transportation, distribution, or packaging.

If we can safely extend the life of components that have already been manufactured, we’re preserving some of that investment rather than starting over.

But You Can’t Just Pull a Chip Off a Board

This is where the idea gets more complicated.

Salvaging a component isn’t simply a matter of heating up the solder, removing the device, and putting it somewhere else.

You have to consider where that component has been, what it has been exposed to, and what happens to it during removal.

Moisture is one example. Bell discusses the importance of pre-baking moisture-sensitive components because trapped moisture can vaporize when a device is heated during desoldering or reflow. That can lead to cracking, delamination, or the appropriately named “popcorning.”

The removal process itself also has to be controlled.

Hot-air systems can provide uniform heating, but airflow, temperature, and dwell time all matter. Infrared systems can provide more localized heating, but their effectiveness can vary depending on factors such as component color, reflectivity, and board material.

Then, once you’ve successfully removed the component, you still aren’t done.

BGA devices may need to be deballed and reballed. Components need to be inspected for coplanarity, solder-ball height and volume, missing balls, shorts, foreign debris, and other potential problems. X-ray and endoscopic inspection can provide additional confidence.

In other words, component salvage starts looking a lot less like “reuse” in the casual sense and a lot more like a controlled manufacturing process.

The Big Question: Can You Trust It?

A salvaged component has a history, and sometimes you don’t know all of it.

It may have experienced electrical overstress, contamination, moisture exposure, mechanical damage, or thousands of thermal cycles during its previous life. A component can look perfectly fine and still have degradation that could contribute to an early failure in its next application.

That’s why Bell puts so much emphasis on testing.

Depending on the component and its intended use, that can include microscopy, X-ray inspection, solderability testing, XRF, electrical testing, burn-in, temperature cycling, scanning acoustic microscopy, and other reliability tests.

Obviously, not every reclaimed component needs every test. The level of scrutiny has to match the risk. A component going into a high-reliability application is a very different proposition from one going into a less critical product.

And this isn’t just a theoretical discussion. BEST is participating in the development of the IPC-7712 Component Reclaim Standard, an effort intended to help advance circularity and create more opportunities for responsible component reuse.

Maybe “E-waste” Isn’t Always Waste

We tend to think of an obsolete circuit board as something that has reached the end of the road. Maybe we recycle it, recover what materials we can, and move on.

Under the right circumstances, those assemblies can be sources of usable components whose manufacturing costs—in energy, water, materials, and resources—have already been paid.

The catch is that reuse only makes sense when it can be done reliably.

Controlled removal, proper reconditioning, careful inspection, and risk-appropriate testing are what make the difference between simply pulling old parts off boards and creating a legitimate circular manufacturing strategy.

And that makes component salvage a much more interesting part of the e-waste conversation than I’d previously considered.

Want to dig into the process? Read Nash Bell’s full white paper, Salvaging Electronic Components: A Reliable Method for Reducing Electronic Waste, and Ensuring Economic Reuse, in the I-Connect007 Industry Resource Center.

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Michelle Te’s must-reads for this week range from educating the next generation of PCB designers to selecting materials for high-power applications and understanding power module assembly. She is also highlighting the newest issue of I-Connect007 Magazine, which has a fantastic assessment of the importance of working within the electronics ecosystem. If you like analogies, you’ll love this issue!

August I-Connect007 Magazine: The Electronics Ecosystem, From Design to Development
Published August 18

Managing Editor Marcy LaRont masterfully weaves together the connections that take a product from idea to reality, as well as the people, processes, and technologies that make it happen. This collection of articles, columns, and graphics is a good reminder that understanding your own piece of the process is important, but understanding how it all fits into the larger ecosystem can make all the difference.

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Powering the Future: From Substrate to System—The Power Module Assembly
Published August 18

Columnist Brian Buyea of Remtec instructs us on power module assembly. What is that? Well, I’m not sure, but I certainly learned more about the importance of power electronics, as he walks us from the substrate level through the completed system, showing how materials, design, packaging, thermal considerations, and manufacturing all have to work together.

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A University Model for Training the Next Generation of PCB Designers
Published August 19

We often talk about the need to bring up the next generation of electronics industry professionals, but what are we actually doing about it? If you’re John Watson, you’re putting your money where your mouth is. John has been teaching PCB design classes at Palomar College and recently expanded his offering to three other universities. John has a passion for finding professionals in even the most unlikely of places. Find out what he’s been doing and maybe it will inspire you to take that step toward a new career or helping someone else do the same.

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A Practical Approach to Material Selection for High-Power PCBs
Published August 17

This article offers a practical look at the decision-making process for choosing a PCB material. Apparently, it isn’t simply a matter of finding something with the right numbers on a datasheet. When you have high-power applications, you have a host of requirements that must be weighed against each other. Drew Delaney of Isola Group shares some tips, reinforcing the idea that good engineering comes from understanding how your choices affect the entire product.

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Flex Connections: Four Lessons in Engineering Judgment for PCB Designers
Published August 20

Let’s welcome our newest columnists from Flexible Circuit Technologies. This group of engineers brings a combined 140 years of experience to the table, so you know you’re getting real-world applications in every word. We start with Dan Skweres, who focuses on engineering judgment through the wise phrase, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” (Something I try to remind myself when I want a cookie.) Dan’s message is fitting in an industry where having better tools only makes knowing how and when to use them more important.

Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• For decades, global sourcing followed a simple formula: find the lowest cost and build for efficiency. Robert Duke of American Standard Circuits, LLC explains why that formula was designed for a world where disruption was the exception.

• Shane Whiteside of Printed Circuit Board Association of America (PCBAA) explains how, for PCB manufacturers, this isn’t simply an industry challenge. It’s a strategic one.

• All Flex CEO John Fallon shares with I-Connect007's Marcy LaRont what’s driving the partnership, how it can help customers streamline their flex PCB supply chains, and why the company is thinking beyond the next quarter—with a “100-year plan” for growth.

• In this job report, we explain why PCB designers, process engineers, quality specialists, manufacturing engineers, and reliability professionals are in demand and why a slow hiring process can mean losing top talent to the competition. When the right candidate comes along, speed matters: https://lnkd.in/g9Pyvgj7

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There’s a lot of talk about the workforce shortage in manufacturing. But for many electronics companies, the problem isn’t simply finding people but finding the right people (and getting to them before somebody else does).

Experienced PCB designers, process engineers, quality specialists, manufacturing engineers, and reliability professionals aren’t exactly sitting around waiting for recruiters to find them. These are specialized roles requiring specialized experience, and when a strong candidate enters the market, chances are you’re not the only company interested.

That makes speed (and where you’re looking) more important than ever.

A Specialized Industry Needs Specialized Recruiting

Think about what we actually ask of people working in electronics manufacturing.

A manufacturing engineer might need experience with stencil printing, solder paste inspection, reflow profiling, AOI, and statistical process control. A PCB designer may be expected to understand controlled impedance, HDI structures, signal integrity, and DFM. Quality engineers often need working knowledge of IPC standards, root cause analysis, and failure analysis.

You’re not necessarily finding those candidates by throwing a job listing onto the biggest employment platform and hoping the algorithm does its thing.

That’s one reason industry-specific resources like jobConnect007 can play a different role. Instead of maximizing the number of people who see a listing, the goal is to put that opportunity in front of people already working in PCB design, fabrication, assembly, advanced packaging, materials, testing, reliability, and the rest of the electronics manufacturing ecosystem.

In other words: fewer random eyeballs. More of the right eyeballs.

Slow Hiring Has a Cost

There’s another piece of this that employers can’t afford to ignore: Qualified candidates have options.

Someone with years of specialized electronics experience may be interviewing with several companies at once. Every extra week between interviews, every delayed round of feedback, and every internal holdup before an offer gives another employer an opportunity to move first.

And an empty position doesn’t only affect HR metrics.

A vacant engineering or manufacturing role can mean delayed process improvements, heavier workloads for the existing team, slower product introductions, and potentially postponed customer deliverables.

That problem is only expected to get bigger. Projections indicate U.S. manufacturers will need approximately 3.8 million additional workers between 2024 and 2033, with nearly 1.9 million positions potentially going unfilled if workforce challenges persist.

Meanwhile, manufacturing technology isn’t getting simpler. The industry increasingly needs people with highly specific technical knowledge—not just broadly transferable manufacturing experience.

Go Where the Industry Already Is

There’s an advantage electronics manufacturers have that sometimes gets overlooked: This is already an incredibly connected professional ecosystem.

Engineers, designers, fabricators, assemblers, OEMs, equipment suppliers, and materials specialists read many of the same publications. They attend the same conferences. They participate in the same standards organizations. They use the same educational resources.

So why shouldn’t recruiting happen there, too?

For employers, recruiting within that ecosystem means reaching an audience that already understands the industry. For job seekers, it means spending less time sorting through thousands of unrelated engineering positions and more time finding opportunities that actually match their experience.

That’s exactly what we’re building with jobConnect007: a hiring marketplace specifically for the electronics industry.

Because the hiring challenge ahead isn’t simply going to be Who can find qualified people?

It’s going to be Who can find them—and act—first?

In a market where specialized talent is increasingly valuable, recruiting efficiency isn’t just an HR advantage. It’s a business advantage.

Sources

1. 2025 Talent Trends: Recruiting, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 2025.

2. 2025 Manufacturing Industry Outlook, Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, Nov. 20, 2024.

3. “Hiring Processes Are Getting Longer, Recruiters Say,” SHRM, 2024.

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Another week has flown by, and it’s time for the must-read articles and news highlights!

This week, Marcy LaRont is putting a spotlight on FUJI PCB and FS Quality, through an interview by Dan Beaulieu with President Tianming Liu, and “the rest of the story” from the EIPC Summer Conference technical sessions. She is also focusing on a new marketing book by Brittany Martin, and there’s rarely a week when we don’t talk about AI, so she also chose Sean Patterson’s most recent practical advice for PCB fabricators. Though the U.S. has placed a “stay” on CMMC Level 2 certification, it’s still coming for you and your business. If you work in the Mil/Aero space in the U.S., check out what Omega EMS has done to accelerate its compliance. Their wisdom may be worth your time.

We hope you enjoy this week’s top must-reads. Have a great weekend!

Catching Up with FUJI PCB and FS Quality’s President, Mr. Tianming Liu
Published August 13

I am always interested in learning about a “new” company, and in his latest “Catching Up with” series, Dan Beaulieu interviews PCB fabricator, Tianmug Liu, president of FUJI PCB and FS Quality (“Fu Shi” (富仕). Though educated in Chinese medicine, Mr. Li eventually founded four PCB fabrication facilities in China and Japan and has since expanded into Thailand. Not to be confused with Fuji Corporation, FUJI PCB, and FS Quality focus solely on the PCB market, providing high-technology products across applications from industrial to automotive, communications, and medical, including HDI, 6G, and AI server boards.

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EIPC Summer Conference 2026: Technical Presentations Tell the Rest of the Story
Published August 12

Though June may already feel like a lifetime ago, the wisdom and information presented in the many excellent presentations at the EIPC Summer Conference this year are timely and relevant. Robotics and AI were recurring themes across many of the sessions, and I found it impossible to produce a proper write-up of all of them. But this article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of what you missed if you were unable to attend, including some highlights from the tour of TLT Teltonika Lithuania’s new state-of-the-art PCB fabrication facility and larger electronics manufacturing campus, which was impressive.

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The Marketing Minute: Why I Wrote ‘Marketing in 17 Minutes’
Published August 12

I had to include Brittany’s book launch, a clever aggregation of her previous writings on marketing specifically to the electronics industry. Brittany’s short missives are among our highest reads, and for good reason. If you’ve missed anything she’s previously written, check out Marketing in 17 Minutes (and the images are fun too).

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Omega EMS Advances Toward CMMC Level 2 Certification
Published August 12

I think we’re all aware that the U.S. Department of Defense placed a 60-day review hold on its hard requirement that all companies working on military products achieve their full CMMC Level 2 certification by November 2026. Despite the timeline uncertainties and certification parameters, we know that full CMMC certification will be required. Omega EMS has proactively worked to attain Level 2.0 certification, even ahead of schedule. In this interview with Nolan Johnson, CEO Chris Alessio shares their journey and wisdom on approaching the tremendous challenge of CMMC Level 2 certification. If you work in this space, read on.

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Your AI Doesn’t Know Your Process (Here’s How to Teach It)
Published August 13

When it comes to AI, it feels a bit like that movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Although the subject is unavoidable, most PCB fabricators don’t know where to start when it comes to implementing smart AI on their shop floors. That what I’ve loved about Sean Patterson’s article series. It is a very practical guide to learning what you need to and getting started implementing the inevitable. His articles follow a natural arc of what to do and how to get started, so I encourage you to go back and start from the beginning if you’ve missed the first few. I highly recommend adding this to your reading list.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• Scott Ryan of Cetec ERP explains that a successful RMA process has to move seamlessly through receiving, quality, production, shipping, and accounting. When it doesn’t, the impact reaches far beyond the repair itself.

• Isola Group’s Drew Delaney looks at a more holistic approach to laminate selection for high-power converters and highlights the key considerations engineers should evaluate before making a material decision.

• In a new I-Connect007 Magazine column, Flex Connections, application engineers from Flexible Circuit Technologies Inc will share practical guidance drawn from decades of experience designing and manufacturing flex and rigid-flex circuits.
  
  Mark Finstad, Chris Clark, Terrill Schmidt, Dan Skweres, and Zack Schaner will rotate as authors, tackling real-world design considerations to help PCB designers make smarter engineering decisions.

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A Better Way to Characterize Copper Foils for Flexible Printed Circuits, Advanced Packaging

Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007

Finite element analysis is only as accurate as the material properties behind it. Kenji Koike discusses research showing that digital image correlation produces more precise stress-strain curves and Young’s modulus measurements for rolled copper foils, giving engineers greater confidence when designing flexible printed circuits and advanced packaging for demanding applications.

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More Than Moore Enabled by Advanced Packaging and Heterogeneous Integration

Chetan Arvind Patil, Marvell Technology

For more than a half-century, Moore’s Law has been the defining principle of semiconductor innovation. By continually shrinking transistor dimensions, the semiconductor industry delivered exponential improvements in computing performance, energy efficiency, and integration density. Each new technology node enabled more transistors to be placed on a single die, reducing the cost per transistor and making electronic systems smaller, faster, and more capable. Though this scaling continues to advance, it is no longer the sole driver of system-level innovation, which now increasingly comes from a combination of scaling and advanced packaging.

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Advanced Electronic Packaging: The Industry’s New Innovation Engine

Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007

Over the past several years, advanced packaging has moved from the back end of semiconductor manufacturing to becoming one of the electronics industry’s most strategic technologies in the ecosystem. At many IEEE conferences, discussions that once centered almost exclusively on transistor scaling now devote equal attention to chiplets, heterogeneous integration, co-design, advanced substrates, thermal management, and system-level packaging.

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Below the Surface: Why Thermal Failure Is Still the No. 1 Killer in Power Electronics

Chandra Gupta

Why do power electronics fail? There’s a range of answers, from overvoltage and mechanical stress to poor assembly and environmental exposure. If you ask your favorite AI search engine for an answer, you’ll get a pretty simple response: excessive temperature leads to component degradation, material breakdown, and eventual failure. In a sense, that’s true, but it’s oversimplified and incomplete. The real issue is thermal management failure at the system level. Heat is still the number one killer, and most of the time, you don’t even realize it’s there.

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More News

• Carano and ElectronicsU Debut New Course on Advanced Packaging

• Advanced Chip Packaging Technologies Market to Reach $87.6 Billion by 2030

• Intel, Lens Technology Collaborate to Enable Advanced Semiconductor Packaging for the AI Era

• TSMC Expands U.S. Semiconductor Investment to $265B

• Micross to Acquire AEMtec, Expanding European Advanced Packaging

• Amkor, NVIDIA Partner to Expand AI Packaging and Test

• Qnity Strengthens Long-Term Innovation and Advanced Packaging Roadmap

• Global Electronics Association Strengthens Taiwan Technical Leadership in Advanced Electronic Packaging

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This month, I’m excited to release my first book, Marketing in 17 Minutes: A Guide to Marketing in the Electronics Industry.

After writing more than 17 Marketing Minute columns and working with companies across the electronics industry, I realized I kept hearing the same questions: How do we get engineers to notice us? How can technical content generate leads? How do we make every marketing dollar work harder?

The answer is rarely a single tactic. The strongest marketing strategies connect technical expertise, content, advertising, email, social media, PR, and events so that each effort reinforces the others.

That idea became the foundation for Marketing in 17 Minutes. The book offers a practical roadmap for building credibility, turning technical expertise into effective marketing, strengthening brand recognition, and getting more value from the marketing you’re already doing.

Key Takeaways

Readers will learn how to:

• Build credibility before the first sales conversation

• Create technical content that earns trust

• Connect advertising, content, and thought leadership

• Maximize marketing investments

• Build recognition through consistency

• Stand out in a crowded technical marketplace

If you’ve ever wondered why great products don’t always get the attention they deserve—or how to make your marketing work harder—this book is for you.

Marketing in 17 Minutes is available as a free download from the I-Connect007 library.

Brittany Martin is the digital marketing manager for I-Connect007.

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Manufacturers have more production data than ever before, but data alone doesn’t improve performance. The real advantage comes from knowing how to turn that information into better decisions.

That’s the focus of The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to... Factory Analytics by Julie Cliche-Dubois of Cogiscan. The book explores how electronics manufacturers can use factory analytics to improve efficiency, quality, and continuous improvement while preparing for the growing role of machine learning and AI in manufacturing.

Industry leaders agree.

“Factory Analytics is great reading! Data analytics provides evidence of sustained performance and continuous improvement. This book also covers new tools like machine learning and how AI will bring new levels of factory analytics and efficiency.”

—Alejandro Carrillo, Founder & General Manager, InterLatin

Carrillo points to one of the book’s biggest strengths: it not only explains today’s analytics capabilities but also shows how emerging technologies are changing the future of manufacturing.

Jason Sciberras, President of the Saline Lectronics Division of Emerald Technologies, also recommends the book for manufacturers looking to make better use of their data.

“I would recommend that any data-driven engineers focused on taking their manufacturing operations to the next level read this book.”

—Jason Sciberras, President, Saline Lectronics Division of Emerald Technologies

Whether you’re an engineer, operations leader, or manufacturing executive, Factory Analytics offers practical guidance on turning factory data into meaningful operational improvements.

Ready to see what your manufacturing data can really tell you? Download your free copy today and discover how factory analytics can help drive smarter decisions, greater efficiency, and lasting competitive advantage.

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The news has taken a more languid pace this week. Not so, however, for our intrepid band of I-Connect007 columnists, who thoughtfully tackle some chunky locus of control topics! Take Leo Lambert, who argues that soldering reliability is often predetermined by the materials and components selected rather than the accuracy of the soldering process. Dan Beaulieu’s column asserts that we’re much more in control of AI than the other way around. Don Ball looks back at the cyclical guidance on whether to diversify or consolidate, and why you should make a carefully thought-out choice. The market projections for memory chips in 2027 are out, prompting some companies, like NVIDIA, to adopt an internal locus of control in response. Finally, the August issue of SMT007 Magazine, on the very latest in CMMC certification, is available for your download.

Learning With Leo: Where Reliability Actually Hides
Published August 5

In this installment of Leo’s column, he posits that successful soldering is decided well before the soldering iron touches anything. With today’s complex components and material combinations, reliable solder joints require a full knowledge of material interactions.

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August SMT007 Magazine: Cybersecurity Remains a Business Imperative
Published August 2

Every now and then, SMT007 Magazine gets on top of a rapidly emerging topic, which makes for an up-to-the-minute read but makes the editorial experience feel more like a newspaper than a magazine. Thanks to the U.S. government’s delay of an impending deadline for CMMC certification, the August issue on CMMC is one of those issues. Download your copy to get the latest on cybersecurity concerns and certifications.

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It’s Only Common Sense: AI Is Accelerating the Electronics Industry
Published August 3

Dan Beaulieu’s column puts forth a thoughtful thesis regarding AI based on internal locus of control: Without advanced electronics, there is no AI. Instead of asking how AI will replace electronics manufacturing, we should be asking how electronics manufacturing will make AI possible. Good reading for those of us needing a shift in perspective on AI.

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The Chemical Connection: When History Repeats Itself on Diversification
Published August 4

Progress (and karma) tends to spin like a wheel, hence the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Don Ball steps back to examine this dynamic in the long-tail cycle of core competencies, where we diversify, then spin off the non-core businesses, then diversify again. Don has some thoughts on how to make sure this particular spinning wheel actually makes forward progress.

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2027 Memory Market Sees Diverging DRAM, NAND Trends
Published July 30

Memory pricing and availability are fundamental leading indicators of our business. According to Trendforce, continued HBM capacity allocation, robust AI server demand, and growing procurement of CPU memory and HBM are expected to keep DRAM supply constrained and prices on an upward trajectory. In fact, NVIDIA is scaling back its HBM configurations in response. By contrast, NAND Flash is projected to see increased downward pressure on prices as new production capacity comes online while consumer electronics demand remains weak.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• In The Printed Circuit Assembler's Guide to... Design for Test, Bert Horner of The Test Connection, Inc. explains why testability should shape every stage of PCB and CCA development—from schematic capture through manufacturing, inspection, and long-term support. Read these 3 key takeaways and download your free copy today: https://lnkd.in/gK-uYfvB

• By implementing a maskless direct imaging (MDI) system from Schmoll Maschinen GmbH, Zot Engineering Ltd. streamlined solder mask imaging, reducing setup complexity while improving registration accuracy and production efficiency. Read more here!: https://lnkd.in/gnJ_qXN5

• That's the idea behind Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA)'s Bright Manufacturing Challenge, which has nearly doubled in participation for its second year. In this interview, SMTA's Tara Dunn discusses the program's rapid growth, the lessons learned along the way, and why students are so eager to take part: https://lnkd.in/gwv2jxfC

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AI is everywhere now. We are talking to our computers and getting insightful, predictive replies in return. Just the other day, I was driving down the interstate when I asked my Android Auto app the 0-60 time for my Toyota 86 TRD. Not only did Android Auto give me the number (just under seven seconds), but it continued, “Of course your 86 TRD is valued for its handling more than traditional off-the-line performance. And since you’re currently driving, be sure to pay attention to traffic, keep your hands on the wheel, and above all else, enjoy your driving experience.” Every single assumption AI made about me at that moment was completely true. Whoa… I could get quite used to this kind of electronic assistance.

Seems I’m not alone, but I may also run contrary to the demographics. Estimates show that the U.S. population’s willingness to use and trust AI increases with higher education. AI acceptance rises for adolescence, peaks for those in university years, and then slowly declines as the population ages. No wonder, then, that our educational system is undergoing rapid retooling to adjust. This shift seems in part to include a return to the “old ways.” Now, before you baby boomers and Gen Xers gloat, let me explain.

Over the last quarter century, U.S. schools have been following the “No Child Left Behind” model, which emphasized test scores as the key metric. Entire curricula were developed simply to teach to the test rather than cultivate real understanding. The shift AI’s presence is creating is to move away from “Can the student create this product?” to “Can the student demonstrate genuine understanding behind the product?” To put this switch into effect, educators are now emphasizing that students demonstrate process rather than just a correct answer. Sure, in the pre-internet days, when one could use only one’s own thinking (possibly assisted by a card catalog at the library) as a resource, a correct answer was a pretty surefire way to spot-check process correctness. But when a correct answer is just a voice query away, that right-answer spot check becomes obsolete.

Increasingly, students are being asked to show understanding by demonstrating critical thinking, original arguments, real-world application, synthesis of multiple sources, and – get this – an evaluation of the evidence. Handwritten work, especially when generated in the classroom and not at home, is returning to the center as a validation method.

My son is in his late 20s now. Back when he was in grade school (well before AI, of course), his relationship with his math teacher was constantly strained. Even into early algebra, he tended to do the math in his head, write down his answer, and move on. He’d argue, “Why bother with all the extra writing when I know the answer?” His teachers would answer back, “Because I want to see HOW you got there, that’s more important to me than the actual answer.” This, even during the NCLB years. That handwritten process showed his understanding – sometimes his lack thereof - of the methods. Even back then, educators were working to demonstrate a student’s understanding of the process; it has only become more critical in the post-AI world.

That said, it’s likely that media reports about the return of cursive are a bit exaggerated, jumping one conclusion too far as it were. Just because handwritten work in the classroom is on the return doesn’t mean that cursive is to follow. Though it would make sense, one’s personal cursive writing style is probably the most AI-defeating font on the planet.

It’s not just the classroom; it’s the newsroom as well. Current estimates are that about 9% of all news articles contain some AI-generated text and increasing. We can naturally surmise that the use of AI in the newsroom as a research automation tool will continue to grow. AI’s strength (and weakness) is in pulling research from sources you didn’t know about. For example, the Associated Press bans the use of Generative AI in the creation of news items. But the AP has, for quite some time, used non-generative AI to collate data in highly structured areas, such as financial reporting.

At I-Connect007, we’re also using AI as a research tool. We’ve established policies for how and how not to use AI in all the content we publish. (If you’d like a copy of our guidelines we’ll be happy to share one with you.) Just like educators, we strive to hold all our content to high standards of critical thinking, original arguments, synthesis of multiple sources and ideas, and more. Which brings me to my point about interviews.

For many years, I-Connect007 has used the interview as a signature method of reporting up-to-the-minute news and information. We’re good at them. Whether we go beyond the press release to talk to the newsmakers, get additional insight from a keynote speaker, or dig deep into a technical topic with a subject-matter expert, interviews allow us to take you deeper into a story. We ask the harder questions, strive to stitch together various perspectives, and create a genuinely unique, deeper understanding for our readers.

If our interview objectives sound similar to the way educators are shifting schoolwork for our children, it’s because we share the same goals. We’re here to find and document the uniqueness of our business, and our seat near the center of it all allows us to bring you insight and useful perspectives.

So, don’t be surprised if you see more interviews in all our various publication channels; the presence of the interview guarantees that the content is absolutely NOT AI-generated. That transcript format is our own seal of approval that what you’re about to read is entirely human thought.

We may know how to do it, but don’t expect us to start publishing our original content in cursive, though. We’ll stick to printed text.

Full disclosure: AI was used as a research aggregator for the creation of this piece. The thinking and writing was human-generated, and as gloriously flawed as it should be.

Michelle Te contributed to this article. She is a managing editor at I-Connect007 and has an extensive career history in newspaper and magazine publishing.

Nolan Johnson is also managing editor at I-Connect007. His background is ICs, PCBs, and software development.

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In this week’s Electronics Industry Digest, I-Connect007’s Michelle Te is starting with the ever-optimistic Dan Beaulieu, who refuses to get discouraged about the business he’s been part of for several decades. She also highlights pieces from Summit Interconnect, a new book by Bob Neves, a webinar from Chris Jorgensen at the Global Electronics Association, and a column by Chandra Gupta of Remtec. Finally, it’s worth noting the June book-to-bill reports published this week by the Global Electronics Association, available here and here, which show very favorable bookings.

It’s Only Common Sense: Stop Watching the Headlines and Start Watching the Opportunity
Published July 27

It’s easy to get caught up in the uncertainty of life, and that’s equally true in the electronics industry. There’s never a shortage of trials and challenges. In his weekly column, Dan Beaulieu encourages us to look beyond the headlines and focus on the opportunities that exist for those willing to adapt, invest, and take action. His message is a timely reminder that perspective often determines whether companies see obstacles or possibilities.

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Summit Interconnect Celebrates 10 Years
Published July 28

A decade of growth is always worth celebrating, but Summit Interconnect’s 10-year milestone also reflects broader changes within the North American PCB industry. In this interview Marcy LaRont did with Shane Whiteside and Gerry Partida, they look back on the journey that built Summit into one of the largest PCB manufacturers in North America while sharing their perspective on the challenges and opportunities ahead. It’s a story about growth, resilience, and the importance of building a strong domestic manufacturing foundation.

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Beyond PDFs: The Next Generation of Electronics Compliance
Published July 28

In this webinar conducted by Chris Jorgensen of the Global Electronics Association, he mentions that compliance traditionally has relied heavily on documentation, but, he says, the electronics industry is moving toward a more connected, data-driven approach. This article reviews that webinar, exploring how digital transformation is changing the way companies manage compliance information, improve visibility, and support more efficient processes throughout the supply chain. As products become more complex, the ability to manage and share accurate data will become increasingly important.

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Below the Surface: Ceramic vs. PCB—When ‘Good Enough’ Becomes System Failure
Published July 28

One of my newest columnists is Chandra Gupta of Remtec. This month, he writes that the decisions engineers make early in the design process can have long-term consequences. He examines the differences between ceramic substrates and traditional PCB approaches, highlighting why choosing a material or technology based only on what seems sufficient today can create challenges later. Chandra’s columns first appeared in the Advanced Electronics Packaging Digest, our monthly newsletter devoted to the latest packaging technologies. Be sure to check it out.

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Will Your Vias Survive the Heat? New Book From I-Connect007 Has the Answers
Published July 29

I-Connect007 is proud to release its latest book, this time from Bob Neves, titled The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to… Via Structures: Reflow Process Survivability, Reliability, and Robustness. Now, when I mentioned that I’m still peeling back the layers of this complex industry, here comes another one of those layers. Bob explores the limitations of traditional methods while introducing new ways to evaluate via performance and failure mechanisms. When Bob speaks, people listen, and this book is just another perfect example of that.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• When the supply chain becomes an integrated part of the business, it drives resilience, strengthens customer relationships, and creates lasting competitive value.
  This article by Anaya Vardya of American Standard Circuits, LLC, explores the shift from supply chain management to supply chain strategy, and why that distinction matters more than ever: https://lnkd.in/gD7NHMvf
  

• Matt Stevenson MBA of ASC Sunstone Circuits knows that choosing a PCB manufacturer is about value.

  This latest column explores what total value manufacturing really means and why the strongest partnerships are built on collaboration, quality, and continuous improvement: https://lnkd.in/gXfj7Uzz
  

• At Mycronic, Robert Helleday and Göran Frank explain that setup optimization isn’t an afterthought, it’s built into the company’s approach to equipment design.
  Learn how Mycronic is helping manufacturers improve productivity, increase flexibility, and keep production moving without compromising quality or traceability: https://lnkd.in/gEs6fDyP

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I-Connect007 is excited to announce the release of The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to... Via Structures: Reflow Process Survivability, Reliability, and Robustness, the newest addition to its technical resources library. In this new book, reliability expert Bob Neves tackles one of the electronics industry’s most misunderstood topics: how to properly evaluate PCB via structures for assembly process survivability, long-term reliability, and robustness.

The challenge is that these three terms are often used as though they mean the same thing. They don’t. Neves explains why each represents a different aspect of performance, why each requires its own testing strategy, and why assembly process survivability must be validated before meaningful reliability testing can even begin.

From there, the book takes a closer look at the strengths—and limitations—of traditional evaluation methods like microsection analysis and daisy chain testing. Neves then introduces performance-based assessment techniques that detect failures as they develop, giving readers practical insight into real-time electrical monitoring, the HATS² test system, and single via structure testing. Together, these approaches improve statistical confidence while revealing failure mechanisms that conventional methods often miss.

Dennis Fritz of Fritz Consulting praised the book for bringing clarity to a complex subject, saying it “nicely separates Process Survivability, Reliability, and Robustness” while explaining the strengths and limitations of current reliability test methods. He called it “an essential resource” for engineers looking to better understand the factors that influence long-term microvia performance and PCB quality.

Neves is chair and CTO of Reliability Assessment Solutions Inc. (RAS), manufacturer of the HATS² reliability test system, and founder of Microtek Laboratories. A recognized leader in the electronics industry, he is a past chair of the Global Electronics Association Board of Directors and a member of its Hall of Fame. He has authored dozens of technical papers and articles on reliability, testing, and failure analysis, and has spent decades advancing reliability engineering through standards development, technical education, and consulting.

The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to... Via Structures: Reflow Process Survivability, Reliability, and Robustness is available now through the I-Connect007 technical library. Printed copies are also available to order here.

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In this week’s top five must-reads, Marcy LaRony has chosen articles that go from big business questions (to diversify or not), to important technical issues such as DFM errors made in creating HDI designs using ELIC and design for test, to a discussion around some of the power and thermal considerations in advanced packaging, and the fact that they are now, firmly, performance enablers, not after-the-fact elements to be managed in fabrication. All good reads… we hope you enjoy them.

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

DFM Mistakes Designers Make When Moving to ELIC
Published July 20

Anaya Vardya, CEO of American Standard, continues the every layer interconnect (ELIC) discussion we began in the June issue of I-Connect007 Magazine by looking at this ever-popular design/fab approach to HDI. He highlights some of the errors that designers may build into such designs and recounts via stacking rules that do not transfer to ELIC builds, cautioning that solder mask cannot be treated as a finishing detail. He also talks about designing this type of HDI for scale, not just for the initial buildability, in addition to covering five other potential “gotcha” areas that designers must be mindful of up front. If you are in the design world, and have not yet had a chance to read this article, this is definitely a must-read.

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Beyond the Board: Diversification as Strategy
Published July 22

“Are the days of simply building boards and shipping them out the door coming to an end?” Perhaps this was a dramatic way to kick off my interview with Ray Cottrell of Flexible Circuit Technology (FCT), but then again, is it? Ray came to FCT specifically to expand their business on the EMS and services side, and he has done just that. His take on diversification and what companies need to be considering and implementing the survive and thrive is insightful and informative.

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From Prototype to Product: Why E-Textile Standards Matter
Published July 22

When you hear the word “textiles,” you probably don’t think of electronics, yet those worlds have collided in spectacular fashion as the wearable electronics market explodes and demand for new products continues to climb. Chris Jorgensen is the senior director, next-generation standards, for the Global Electronics Association, in charge of its deep standards portfolio, which includes IPC-8911, 8921, 8952, and 8971, all addressing different aspects of electronics manufacturing in the world of textiles. As Chris says, “The opportunity is enormous.” Check it out!

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Power and Thermal Constraints in AI Accelerator Packages
Published July 20

In the advanced packaging side of electronics manufacturing, new packaging expert Chetan Patil discusses “Power and Thermal Constraints in AI Accelerator Packaging” in his second article for the Advanced Electronics Packaging Digest. The interplay between power demands and thermal management is not only a significant and ongoing discussion in our industry, but in the semiconductor and AI infrastructure industries as well. Chetan recounts the largely incremental nature of power and thermal performance until recently, and the changing nature of system architecture and packaging from merely an “electrical and mechanical interface” to that of “performance enabler.” He takes the reader through the transition from compute central to power and thermal scaling, the reasons behind the shift, and the constraints design and manufacturing are presented with this evolution.

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Meet the Author Podcast: Bert Horner on Design for Test
Published July 22

If you haven’t met Bert Horner, you are missing out! His new book on DFT and this discussion on test and inspection is so important, and yet sometimes, it feels as if people just seem to put their heads down and carry on when it comes to test. Maybe they don’t think they can effect any change without huge CapEx investments, or they are afraid the task will be too daunting and with limited return. But, as Bert says, you can save time if you approach this correctly: “Time is money.” You owe it to yourselves to learn more about what this slice of tech expertise can offer you, and you certainly owe it to yourself to listen to this Meet the Author podcast with Bert.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• At Mycronic, Robert Helleday and Göran Frank explain that setup optimization isn't an afterthought, it's built into the company's approach to equipment design.

• Today, the Printed Circuit Board Association of America (PCBAA) has grown to 90 members representing the entire electronics ecosystem... Read the article by Shane Whiteside and learn about the next chapter of advancing America's PCB industry

• The U.S. manufacturing sector will need 3.8 million new workers over the next decade, yet nearly 1.9 million of those jobs could go unfilled without stronger recruiting and workforce development efforts. Read why finding qualified talent has become one of the industry's most pressing issues: https://lnkd.in/gtQ3KDM9

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The Butterfly Effect of Design for Test: Bert Horner on Why Small Decisions Have Big Consequences

What if one decision made during schematic capture could influence manufacturing yields, product reliability, serviceability, and even profitability months—or years—later?

That’s the idea behind the “Butterfly Effect” of Design for Test (DFT), the focus of the latest episode of our Meet the Author podcast. In Episode 7, Nolan Johnson sits down with Bert Horner, president of TTCI, to discuss his new book, The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to... Design for Test.

Throughout the conversation, Horner makes a compelling case for treating DFT as a design discipline rather than a manufacturing afterthought. As electronic assemblies become more complex—with finer geometries, higher component densities, and advanced packaging technologies—planning for inspection and testability from the very beginning has never been more important.

The discussion explores the practical strategies covered in the book, including boundary scan, built-in self-test (BIST), flying probe, in-circuit test (ICT), and functional testing. Horner also explains the PCOLA-SOQ framework, a structured methodology for measuring inspection and test coverage that helps manufacturers understand how effectively a design can be inspected and tested before production begins.

One of the episode’s strongest themes is that successful DFT isn’t owned by a single department. Engineering, manufacturing, quality, and leadership all play a role in building products that can be efficiently tested and validated. When organizations align around a layered test strategy supported by measurable coverage metrics, they can improve first-pass yield, reduce rework and field failures, shorten time to market, and deliver more reliable products.

Whether you’re a PCB designer, manufacturing engineer, quality professional, or test engineer, this conversation offers practical insight into why designing for testability pays dividends throughout a product’s life cycle.

Listen to Episode 7 of Meet the Author to hear Bert Horner explain why the smallest design decisions can create the biggest long-term impact.

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Power and Thermal Constraints in AI Accelerator Packages

Chetan Arvind Patil, Marvell Technology

For more than five decades, semiconductor progress was driven primarily by transistor scaling. Moore’s Law provided a predictable path for increasing transistor density, while process technology advancements consistently improved performance, power efficiency, and manufacturing cost. During this period, package development evolved alongside silicon, supporting higher pin counts, faster interfaces, and improved thermal performance, but it rarely dictated overall system capability.

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The AI Data Center Boom: Technology, Capacity, and Society

Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007

AI begins with advanced chips, but delivering AI at scale depends on an ecosystem of technologies that extends far beyond the semiconductor. In this interview, Andrew Bradner, senior vice president of Schneider Electric’s cooling business, explains how AI is transforming data center design, why liquid cooling has become essential, and what these shifts mean for advanced packaging, power delivery, thermal management, and the broader electronics supply chain supporting next-generation AI infrastructure.

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Below the Surface: Ceramic vs PCB—When ‘Good Enough’ Becomes System Failure

Chandra Gupta

Let’s start with the question engineers are increasingly asking themselves: “When should I use ceramic instead of FR-4?” It’s a fair question. FR-4 has been the backbone of electronics for decades. It’s affordable, widely available, and for many applications, it works just fine. Until it doesn’t.

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Call for Participation Now Open for the Global Electronics Association’s Advanced Electronic Packaging Conference at APEX EXPO 2027

Global Electronics Association

AEPC is the electronics industry’s premier technical conference for component-to-system-level integration, advanced PCB and assembly manufacturing, and next-generation electronics technologies. The Global Electronics Association invites engineers, researchers, manufacturers, and technology leaders from around the world to submit technical presentation abstracts for this distinguished event.

More >

More News

• TSMC and Amkor Technology Announce Long Term Partnership to Accelerate Advanced Packaging in the US

• Remtec Announces the Industry’s Most Complete Suite of Plating Capabilities Including PCTF Technology for Advanced Electronic Packaging

• Qnity Powers the Transition from Shrink to Stack with Advanced Packaging Solutions

• ACCM Introduces Celeritas SMC: A Production-Ready, Silicon-Matched Core for Advanced Packaging

• Alpha, Omega Semiconductor Unveils AmpStack Packaging

• Onshoring Advanced Packaging and Assembly Workshop

• Advanced Packaging Technologies Market to Surge Beyond $15 Billion by 2030

• Applied Materials Introduces New Systems to Accelerate DRAM and Advanced Packaging for AI Chips

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If you’ve followed Nolan Johnson’s list of must-reads, you know that he’s always interested in semiconductor news, and this week had a few good ones: Apple adds to the recent Intel fab agreement by adding to its U.S.-based design and manufacturing agreement with Broadcom; Micron is investing $3 billion to the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem; and Intel announces a 5 billion euro investment in European infrastructure. It’s encouraging to see the investment in U.S. manufacturing, which is sure to have a ripple effect on the electronics manufacturing industry.

In Nolan’s must-reads this week, he points you to a new podcast I recorded with the authors of a new book from Dow, a preview of this month’s upcoming Advanced Electronic Packaging Digest, the fresh drop of July’s I-Connect007 Magazine, and, of course, the CMMC suspension news.

Department of War Suspends CMMC Phase II Requirements
Published July 14

Why does this matter? “Recent data, including reports from the Small Business Administration (SBA), confirmed that CMMC compliance is forcing innovative companies out of the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) which will delay the delivery of critical capabilities,” the Pentagon announced. It wants the cybersecurity, but without as much overhead and red tape. For companies already certified, this might be a “don’t care”; for those companies finding themselves perhaps priced out of a sector, this is a respite.

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Meet the Author Podcast: Exploring the Growing Role of UV Curable Conformal Coatings with Dow
Published July 13

I had the pleasure of hosting Brian J. Chislea and Cody Schoener, PhD, of Dow, Inc., for a recent “Meet The Author” podcast. Schoener and Chislea were kind enough to discuss their new book, The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to... UV Curable Conformal Coatings. In this engaging conversation, we examine why UV curable conformal coatings are becoming a more practical choice for a wider range of applications and what designers and manufacturers should know before implementing them. The authors explain both how UV curable coatings work and when to use them. This is an excellent way to hear first-hand from the authors and learn how these new coatings will help your business.

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July I-Connect007 Magazine: Business Diversification and Display Electronics
Published July 15

What I enjoyed about this month’s issue was the exploration of whether to diversify your business. There’s a lot to consider. Diversifying might not be right for your business. Maybe you just need to double down on existing capabilities, or it’s time to see what else you can offer. On the design side, the issue examines the challenges (and there are some) of designing PCBs for LED display electronics. These displays are showing up everywhere, from stadiums to advanced cockpits, and human perception is everything. Read what our experts have to say about it. That’s just the start of what’s in this issue, so please check it out.

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Power Delivery, AI Infrastructure, and Materials Innovation: What’s Ahead in the Next Issue of Advanced Electronics Packaging Digest
Published July 14

Packaging is rapidly evolving to accommodate ever-smaller passives and ever larger actives. The Advanced Electronics Packaging Digest is our monthly online newsletter for news, articles, interviews, and updates from research and industry. The July issue will cover power, AI, and materials, among other topics. Subscribe now!

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An Update on the Printed Circuit Board and Substrates Act
Published July 14

Marcy LaRont and the Printed Circuit Board Association of America’s David Schild discuss the Protecting Circuit Boards and Substrates Act and the association’s remarkable milestones in just five years. There has been significant progress in advancing the bill, and Schild shares details. Similar bills had been put forward in the last two Congressional sessions, but there seems to be more momentum this time around. Learn more about why.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• Principal Mineral's acquisition of Isola Group is a move aimed at rebuilding America's electronics supply chain from the ground up. In this interview, CEO Adam Johnson and COO Wes Spurlock explain why Isola Group matters—and why resilient domestic manufacturing starts with strategic materials.

• A recent Global Electronics Association panel discussion brought together Tim Dietz from Ford Motor Company, Dr. Lothar Henneken from Robert Bosch, Eric Camden from Foresite Inc., Hubertus Mertens from Atotech an MKS Brand, Doug Pauls from It Depends Electronics, and moderator Stanton Rak from SF Rak Company to examine ionic contamination assessment in ECU manufacturing.

• A new white paper from MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions examines how a sinter-ready copper foil solution could improve performance while simplifying die topside interconnection. It's a practical look at an emerging approach to next-generation power electronics.
  

Every advance in power electronics places new demands on semiconductor packaging. As manufacturers push for greater power density, improved thermal management, and smaller form factors, even long-established interconnection methods deserve a fresh look. In its latest white paper, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions examines how a sinter-ready copper foil solution could simplify die topside interconnection while improving performance.

The paper is called “Enabling Next-Generation Die Topside Interconnection (Power Electronics).” Access the paper here. Access the entire Industry Resource Center here for a full list of our white papers.

1. Traditional topside interconnection methods are reaching their limits

For decades, aluminum wire bonding and solder have been the industry’s standard solutions for die topside interconnection. However, demanding applications such as electric vehicles, industrial power modules, and RF devices are exposing the limitations of these conventional approaches. As thermal performance, reliability, and power density become more critical, manufacturers are increasingly evaluating alternative interconnection technologies that better support the requirements of next-generation devices.

2. Manufacturing improvements can be just as valuable as material innovations

The paper emphasizes that innovation is not only about developing new materials but also about simplifying production. By combining a pre-applied nano-silver sintering layer with a copper foil, the BondPad concept eliminates several traditional assembly steps, including paste printing, adhesives, and fixturing. Streamlining the process reduces manufacturing complexity while improving yield, throughput, and process consistency. This demonstrates that smarter manufacturing can deliver benefits alongside improved material performance.

3. Fully sintered interconnects are becoming a practical manufacturing option

Perhaps the paper’s most significant message is that fully sintered interconnection is moving from an emerging concept to a realistic production strategy. Solutions that deliver high thermal performance while fitting within existing manufacturing workflows make adoption far more achievable than in the past. Rather than requiring manufacturers to completely redesign their production lines, these technologies offer a practical path toward meeting the increasing reliability and performance demands of modern power electronics.

As semiconductor packaging evolves, success will depend on technologies that improve both device performance and manufacturability. This white paper illustrates how advanced interconnection materials can help manufacturers achieve both goals while providing a realistic roadmap for the next generation of power electronics.

Access the paper here. Access the entire Industry Resource Center here for a full list of our white papers.

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The must-reads from I-Connect007’s Michelle Te this week focus on building the right foundation in your work and business, from the Global Electronics Association’s new electronics policy council to new manufacturing systems designed to prevent quality issues before they occur.

You’ll find that what separates leading organizations is their willingness to invest in the fundamentals before they become urgent. It’s how you build organizations that last.

It’s Only Common Sense: The Underrated Business Strategy of Joy
Published July 6

We spend plenty of time talking about productivity, efficiency, and profitability, but not nearly enough time talking about joy. Dan Beaulieu argues that creating a positive workplace is good for employees and for business. Leaders who foster purpose, gratitude, and genuine enjoyment build stronger teams, retain talent, and create organizations where people want to do their best work.

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The Government Circuit: New Council Now Helps Shape Policy Decisions in the Electronics Supply Chain
Published July 7

The electronics industry has no shortage of challenges, from tariffs and trade policy to workforce development and supply chain resilience. This new policy council is designed to help ensure the industry’s voice is heard where policy decisions are made. If you’ve ever wondered how our industry can move from reacting to legislation to helping shape it, this article explains why that shift matters.

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ERP, Automation, and Maturity: A Systems Framework for Manufacturers
Published July 8

Many manufacturers begin with spreadsheets, QuickBooks, and homegrown solutions, but those same tools can become barriers to growth. Scott Ryan explores what business maturity really looks like, arguing that scalable systems, standardized processes, and reliable data create the foundation for automation and AI. Find out why he says technology alone isn’t the answer.

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Interlocking Material Management and Quality
Published July 7

Quality isn’t something manufacturers can inspect into a product at the end of the line. In this practical article, Jim Camillo of Cogiscan explains how interlocking material management and quality systems work together to reduce mistakes before they happen. It’s a useful reminder that the strongest manufacturing operations build processes that make errors less likely in the first place.

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Call for Participation Now Open for the Global Electronics Association’s Advanced Electronic Packaging Conference at APEX EXPO 2027
Published July 6

Advanced electronic packaging is evolving at a remarkable pace, and the Global Electronics Association is seeking experts to help drive the conversation. Sharing your research, new processes, and problem-solving is an opportunity to contribute to the technical discussions that help shape the next generation of electronics. For added measure, read this industry report: Advanced Packaging Technologies Market to Surge Beyond $15 Billion by 2030. To stay on top of what’s everyone is talking about in this space, be sure to subscribe to our free Advanced Electronics Packaging Digest, which publishes monthly to you email and on Substack.

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Pulse Check: LinkedIn Highlights

• As high-performance electronics become more complex, high aspect ratio (HAR) through-holes are playing an increasingly important role in enabling advanced HDI designs and next-generation IC substrates. Read the full article by Richard Nichols of GreenSource Engineering Sp. z o.o. to learn why HAR technology is becoming a critical capability for the future of electronics

• New and revised IPC standards cover a wide range, including an ESG management system standard and acceptance criteria for organic IC substrates. I-Connect007 provides detailed insights into what has changed and why it matters.

• In the latest Marketing Minute column for I-Connect007, I explain why you shouldn't chain yourself to your dashboard...whether it's your marketing dashboard or your fitness one. The numbers might not be showing you the whole picture.

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If you’re like me and you’re following the development of advanced packaging for semiconductors, the path to the future is clear: monolithic chip architectures have finally reached their limits. And if you’re anywhere downstream in the value chain from these semiconductors, this matters to you whether you know it yet or not.

Recently, I was reading an article by Nandan Nayampally (Semiconductor Engineering, April 30, 2026), titled “From Standards to Systems: The Chiplet Era on ARM.” I’m not acquainted with Nayampally at all, so I looked him up on linkedin. He’s got a background in AI, including a stint as the head of Alexa device SDK products at Amazon. So it would seem Nayampally is well informed, then, when he writes, “…the industry faces its next structural shift: the era of monolithic SoCs is tapering and giving way to the era of chiplet systems.” He reports that the ARM ecosystem – a bastion of scalability – has reached a point where single-die capacity scales at a rate insufficient for current compute needs. ARM, in other words, is turning to advanced packaging for its cutting-edge implementations.

And this puts ARM squarely into the standards definition role once again. Nayampally refers to the ARM Chiplet Specification Architecture (ASCA, or just SCA, depending upon the citation.) I downloaded a copy of the SCA from the ARM Developer site to get a taste of what the standard is all about.

The first insights came from the revision history. The Alpha 0 draft initiating this document was dated December 15, 2023. Then there were 28 recorded edits in 2024 and 5 in 2025, when version 1.0 was released on January 22 as the “beta 0 release.” Fifteen more edits lead up to the EAC release, version 1.0.0. In other words, this standards document was constructed at a supersonic pace for a standard - a year to beta, and an additional year to initial release. In the midst of what I’ve dubbed “the advanced packaging cotillion^[i],” ARM is moving fast to stay relevant.

Here’s an example: a quick flip to the ASCA specification’s introduction and they get right to the point:

“Chiplets are being used to partition monolithic designs, but also to aggregate additional functionality, such as devices traditionally in separate packages, into a shared package.”

And ARM needs to continue growing to meet compute needs, so the time has come for ARM to partition.

Nayampally spends the rest of his article discussing what he sees as “the new normal”: working through the push-pull of simultaneously scaling compute functions at the system-wide level (he specifically calls out on-chip, on-board, and across-rack implementations) while also simplifying the software stack, presumably to improve modularity. He firmly establishes his belief that workable distributed systems are defined by how well data moves across the entire system, not by CPU clock speed alone.

I strongly suspect that what ARM is tackling here is not unique to them; it follows a theme across advanced packaging systems in general. The realization that hits me like a broomstick across the forehead is this:

Here in circuit boards, we play a critical role in the functionality of chiplet-based systems. It doesn’t matter whether we’re building UHDI for AI or cell phone applications, or tried-and-true old-school FR4 designs; our work building interconnects is crucial for moving data from the system into the chip and back out into the system.

While this may seem like an obvious statement to make, the very fact that an ecosystem like ARM, and an industry expert like Nayampally is making the case at this point in time means that it’s more important now than ever before. Adding chip modularity increases the risk of data bottlenecks, and folks on the systems side of the advanced packaging discussion are concerned about this.

It’s not just ARM, either. On a recent podcast, “Semiconductor Leadership Podcast,” host and ISIG CEO Salah Nasri, interviewed Dr. Tek Kheng Lee founder of Launchxtec, and a leading researcher in advanced packaging. Dr. Lee talked extensively about his standards work in advanced packaging technologies, but throughout the highly informative hour-long conversation, he repeatedly stressed that the keys to a successful cutting-edge production process are: a solid process; people who are consistent with the process; and thinking systemically and multidisciplinarily. The standards work ARM has ongoing tells us the same thing, though more subtly.

What all this means is this: OEMs are shifting their thinking to a more systems-oriented worldview; the manufacturers who start the quality conversation with the OEMs, rather than waiting for the OEM to start, will have the competitive upper hand. It’s EMS’s cotillion, too…

Further Reading and Sources:

Nandan Nayampally, “From Standards to Systems: The Chiplet Era on ARM” https://semiengineering.com/from-standards-to-systems-the-chiplet-era-on-arm/

Arm Chiplet System Architecture, https://developer.arm.com/documentation/den0145/latest/

Salah Nasri, Semiconductor Leadership Podcast,

^[i] Why do I call it a cotillion? Because everyone is coming to the dance with debutante products, technologies, research and standards, hoping to be noticed above all the others.

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