The world’s second largest fabricator invested $15 million in the new plant. It spent seven months converting the site from a warehouse.

“We took a 20-year-old, 40,000 sq. ft. building that was being used as a warehouse, and we turned it into the most technology advanced PCB building in the United States,” said TTM Technologies president and CEO Tom Edman, in a statement.

The plant was outfitted in part with equipment and assets from TTM’s acquisition of Endicott, NY-based i3. The company told local media it wanted to keep the acquired technology in the US.

About 40 staff members now work in the advanced technology center, along with some 600 employees at the 240,000 sq. ft. site nearby, which TTM acquired from Honeywell in 2002. That site was expanded in 2004.

Production began at the new plant Jan. 4. – CD

For information about attending, visit pcbwest.com. – MB

The main driver for large-area FO panel development is cost-reduction because more parts can be processed in a batch, according to the firm’s recent report, which divides the panel market into high-density RDL (≤2μm L/S with multiple RDLs) versus low-density (>5μm L/S with ≤3 RDLs).

The report discusses FO-WLP panel activities at major companies and reports on consortia progress and future plans. Applications for large-area panels are discussed. A market forecast is provided for low-density panels, and panel capacity is included.

The report examines the packages inside Huawei’s Mate 30 5G to see how Huawei has been able to use fewer US components. Recent announcements of high-performance package offerings from TSMC are described. Trade-offs in high-performance packaging are discussed.

Quarterly and annual OSAT financial trends are presented. One section examines EMI shielding offerings and applications. – CD

In the filing, Yuji Fukuoka and Ercan Dede describe an electronics assembly that includes a cooling chip structure with a target layer and a jet impingement layer coupled to the target layer. The jet impingement layer has one or more jet channels disposed within the jet impingement layer. Further, one or more through substrate vias are disposed within the jet impingement layer, where the substrate vias are electrically conductive and electrically coupled to the target layer.

A fluid inlet port and a fluid outlet port are fluidly coupled to the one or more jet channels of the jet impingement layer.

However, air jet cooling systems are not widely used today. Two of the biggest obstacles that prevent the use of these systems is their complexity and weight. Air jet systems must be made of metal to be able to handle the pressure associated with air jets whose speed can exceed 200 miles per hour. And the air handling system can be complex with many discrete components that manage the air flow and direct the air onto the hot spots where cooling is required.

Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a new type of air jet cooler that overcomes previous barriers to jet cooling systems. Using additive manufacturing, the researchers created an air jet cooling system in a single component that can direct high-speed air onto multiple electronics hot spots. The researchers manufactured the cooling system from strong polymer materials that can withstand the harsh conditions associated with high-speed air jets.

Gou said supplies to factories in China and Vietnam have returned to normal levels. However, weak consumer demand has resulted from Covid-19, which the World Health Organization has declared a pandemic. Gou said the US market is now particularly concerning.

The Foxconn founder said he’s concerned about the electronics supply chain in Japan and South Korea and cited rising prices for DRAM memory and supply issues with display panels.

“When Foxconn communicated that they would have their factories back to 100% capacity by the end of March, that was very encouraging as it relates to Q2 output,” Christopher Stansbury, chief financial officer, Arrow Electronics, said on an investor call. “But for Q1, we’re still monitoring it daily and it’s too early to call.”

In March Foxconn reported revenue would fall 15% in the first quarter. Taiwan-based competitors Compal and Wistron reported February sales were down 27 and 21%, respectively, from a year ago. The latter firms added that concerns remain over component supply and lower demand in their key consumer end-markets.

Most ODM factories in China were running at about 60% capacity as of mid March, DigiTimes reported.

Meanwhile, Sanmina does not expect to meet its second quarter fiscal 2020 financial outlook due to the impact of Covid-19, and Jabil announced its affected factories were operating at five to 10% below optimal level. Likewise, SigmaTron said its factory headcount was at 60% as of the end of February and “steadily increasing,” but warned supplier decommits could swing up in the coming weeks, putting pressure on deliveries.

Not all companies were playing catchup, however. Note said its plant in Tangxia, China, which reopened Feb. 10, was running at full capacity by the end of February. – CD + MB

For printed boards, IPC-2223E will provide designers of flexible/rigid-flexible designs with updated figures, new sections and comments on microvia stacking, back-drilled holes and dual-row zero insertion force connectors.

IPC-6102E provides new acceptance criteria for back-drilled holes, discussion on reliability issues for microvia structures in Class 3 products and establishes new requirements for copper wrap plating of holes in new designs.

IPC/WHMA-A-620D provides some new acceptability criteria, figures and graphics on target conditions, solderless wrap section revisions, and a new section added on overmolding of flexible flat ribbon.

The connected factory exchange (CfX) standard provides changes made to message sections and message structure sections. Appendix A was added with a short description of all changes from V1.0, and Appendix B provides acronyms and abbreviations.

IPC-1791A provides a new Appendix D covering requirements for trust certification of non-US electronic design, fabrication and assembly organizations. Several sections have been updated as well. – CD

There were 14 consolidations, four vertical/horizontal convergences, 10 private equity investments, and one “diversification” into EMS, Lincoln said. No OEM divestitures took place last year.

Over the decades our industry has been an integral part of developing, refining and establishing many cost-effective and reliable technologies, perhaps best illustrated by improvements in communications. These improvements have not just been about broadcasting voice with higher fidelity in smaller packages, or integrating photography into word processing software, with easier user interfaces. Thanks to technology, the world of communications has been developing into much more: real-time, interactive, and transportable.

The combination of higher capacity data storage in smaller and far less expensive packages and fast and reliable wireless bandwidth, available virtually anywhere, matched with camera and microphone technology that makes the smallest device sound crystal clear and picks up the smallest sound or sight from incredibly long distances, is just part of the dramatic evolution of communications technologies.

With construction of a new venue for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the annual Nepcon show was split into two parts this year. There were 67,169 visitors to see more than 2,100 exhibitors. A reported 24,323 people attended the conference presentations. Exhibits included automotive and electronics. The electronics R&D and manufacturing exhibits included IC and sensor packaging, LED and laser diode technology, PCB, SMT, test and measurement, components, devices, and materials. Many highly attended conference sessions focused on 5G, AI, and automotive electronics (FIGURE 1).

Automotive electronics. Automotive electronics, autonomous driving and electric vehicles (EVs) were the main focuses of the presentations in Automotive World. Nissan described the evolution of advanced automotive technology and described how the need to reduce CO2 emissions is driving the movement toward electrification. Evolving technologies such as the electric vehicle battery, including cell-energy density and volume, have improved cruising range and charging.

At new PCB time, the first order of business is improving the electronics in some way. The fix could be better performance, lower cost, higher reliability and, in some cases, all the above. Venturing into wireless technology and gaining FCC approval to play in its allocated spectrum is no slam dunk. Beefing up the power grid is a typical step. A good power distribution network has been known to cover for otherwise iffy routing. Every engineer will have some considerations carried forward.

Scott McCurdy, president
The Orange County Chapter is doing very well in Southern California and has been active for 18-plus years. We are proudly the largest active chapter in existence, based on attendance at our quarterly meetings. We average 50 to 65 attendees at our meetings, and occasionally have 80 or more in attendance. In our most recent meeting, held Jan. 21 at the Harvard Athletic Park multipurpose room, we had an outstanding crowd of 80 people in attendance to hear the educational presentation by Gerry Partida, a senior field application engineer for Summit Interconnect.

Within the automotive sector alone, its influence will be huge thanks to attributes like ultra-low latency that will enable time-critical use cases such as V2X. The 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) is excited about the prospects for cellular V2X (C-V2X) to consolidate vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-pedestrian, and vehicle-to-network modes, combining direct communication, communication with cell towers, and links to cloud services.

Rigidized SMT or through-hole component areas. Providing a rigid, stable surface for mounting components is probably the most common reason for stiffening an area on a flexible circuit. If components are mounted on a flex, which is then bent in that area, there is a very good chance the solder joints or solder pads will be damaged. The industry standard is to rigidize any area on a flex that has soldered components. If components are all SMT, install the stiffener on the side opposite the components. If through-hole components or connectors are used, mount the stiffener on the same side as the components. If components are on both sides, rigid-flex construction is probably needed, but that is a topic for a future column. By far the most common (and least expensive) stiffener material is epoxy-glass laminate (FR-4). This inexpensive sheet material comes in a range of thicknesses and is machined to size and shape by the flex circuit manufacturer. The machined stiffeners are then applied with either a pressure-sensitive or thermosetting adhesive (see below). Another material for stiffening a component area is 0.003″ to 0.005″ polyimide film. This material is common and cost-effective, since these stiffeners can often be added in panel form. This option is typically specified when overall thickness is a concern. The material is a bit more expensive than FR-4 but offers significant time savings during stiffener mounting. This material will not provide the same level of stiffness as a thicker FR-4 stiffener, so operators must exercise care in handing and forming during installation.

The critical issues for the A&D sector can be reduced to a list of 11 challenges that need to be resolved for efficient manufacture and reliable use of current and emerging commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies in military form factors on military platforms. These are:

PCB contamination comes from many sources: transport, handling, storage and manufacturing. The most common examples of PCB contamination are fingerprint oils and salts, flux residue, tape or other adhesive residue, solder balls, and even some inks or chip bonder.

Any contaminants or soils on PCBs may interfere with the proper bonding of the conformal coating to the PCB substrates. Salts or oils from fingerprints left on the boards can cause defects in the conformal coating (Figure 1). These include uneven coverage, pinholes, craters, blisters and fisheyes.

Authors: Michael G. Mazzotta, Amelia A. Putnam, Michael A. North, and Jonathan J. Wilker.

Abstract: Developing high-performance adhesives is predicated upon achieving properties including strength and ductility. However, designing tough materials that are simultaneously strong and soft is usually contradictory in nature. Biological materials including shells and wood achieve impressive toughness by using weak bonds to connect larger structures at several length scales. Here, the authors show that this toughness design approach can be applied to synthetic adhesives. A biomimetic adhesive polymer, poly(catechol-acrylic acid), was examined in conjunction with several compounds containing two organic functional groups. In a typical example, the diol ethylene glycol decreased the overall system modulus. Performance was seen to increase significantly. Spectroscopic and physical methods indicated these bifunctional additives created an interpolymeric network of weak hydrogen bonds. Material toughness was enhanced when breakable bonds were available to dissipate mechanical stresses, while leaving the surrounding matrix intact. These discoveries illustrate how a biological materials strategy of interplay between strength and ductility can be achieved with sacrificial bonds in an adhesive. Such an approach may be a general principle applicable to designing higher performance electronics, transportation, and aerospace systems. (Journal of the American Chemical Society, February 2020; https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.9b13356)