Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1143487
JULY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 9 less to say, most of the time, the house was like a rainforest. While some of her implementa- tions may have been a bit impractical overall, her self-cleaning house was a reliable solution to her housecleaning problem in that it worked and she didn't have to. And that's our theme for this issue—re- liability in the products that we turn out for use in the world. Of course, to talk about reli- ability, we also have to talk about the failures we're trying to avoid. Grandma Frances had a pacemaker that served her well for many years, triggering a heartbeat something like 800 million times while keeping her alive— and creative—longer. A demonstration of a very different level of re- liability is illustrated on this month's cover. Fal- con Heavy's reusable side boosters are shown landing in unison at Cape Canaveral Landing Zones 1 and 2 following a SpaceX test flight in February 2018. Our industry is embarking on a new age of technical development to achieve much higher levels of overall reliability that will be required of the devices we fabricate. Medical devices will be relied upon to keep us living in ma- ny more situations. Autonomous vehicles will need to be failure-free to keep riders and pe- destrians alike safe in the world. IoT will bring opportunities to put smart electronics in new places, performing in unthought-of ways. Reli- ability will be crucial to both our success and safety. Right now, it's hard to avoid the conversa- tion. Recently, IPC hosted the IPC High-Reli- ability Forum and Microvia Summit in Balti- more, Maryland—two full days of discussion on how to increase reliability. I-Connect007 sent Design007 Managing Editor Andy Shaugh- nessy to cover the event. "The conference in Baltimore was solid with attendance up from last year," said Shaugh- nessy. "The big topic at the conference was mil/aero microvia failure and the investiga- tions by Motorola and other members of the IPC V-TSL-MVIA subcommittee. By the way, that committee would love to have more input from the industry if you're able to share your company's data on microvia failures." Nolan Johnson is managing editor of PCB007 Magazine. Nolan brings 30 years of career experience focused almost entirely on electronics de- sign and manufacturing.To contact Johnson, click here. Thus, we look to those conversations for this issue. We start with Jerry Magera and J.R. Strickland who set the tone with their techni- cal article titled "Microvias: Links of Faith Are Not Created Equally." Right on their heels is research from Paul Wang, et al., into "Intercon- nect Reliability With System Design and Trans- portation Stress." Completing the technical hat trick, Mike Konrad discusses "How Changing Cleaning Technologies Affect Reliability" with Andy Shaughnessy. Columnist Todd Kolmodin changes up the pace with his column, "What Do You Mean 'Passed' Isn't Enough?" NCAB's Jeff Beau- champ brings us "A Guide to High-reliabili- ty PCBs From Design to Specification," and Mike Carano's column moves into part four on "Moving Into Microvias." In another interview, Andy Shaughnessy talks with Terry Munson about avoiding CAF failures. And columnist Steve Williams files an interview with Prototron's Van Chiem on the topic of reliability. Tara Dunn continues the theme with "When You Do Everything Right and Something Still Goes Wrong." Gardien's Todd Kolmodin (in addition to his column in this month's issue) goes deeper into the feedback loop between post-fab test and on- going design optimization in his article, "How to Feed Test Data Back to Engineering for Pro- cess Improvement." And Didrik Bech discuss- es how to "Avoid Failures in PCB Production with Compliance Control." Finally, Marc Ladle holds onto his column's anchor position with a visit to and a discussion of Huawei's influence on the community of Dongguan, China. My grandmother's self-cleaning house may have been reliable for her, but it was never ready to take over the world. However, the products we build for our customers (SpaceX included) will. So, dive into this issue with us and we'll all stick the landing. PCB007