Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1197000
60 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2020 to address the need to provide greater educa- tion. We have to address a huge variety of dif- ferent application parameters that satisfy ultra- low voltage to ultra-high voltage, ultra-high current, and low current. There's a lot of work to be done in that area, and I only talk about the electrochemical performance. There are so many other parameters that still have to be addressed, but I don't get involved with those; after all, there are only so many hours in a day, and I have Gen3 and a home life, not necessar- ily in that order! Johnson: You used automotive as one exam- ple. Now, we're looking at what happens with wearable technology because that's being driven so strongly by the medical field. And then you have IoT, delivering connection requirements and data sharing in so many dif- ferent ways. Industry 4.0 is an example within manufacturing of the overall global technol- ogy trend. There are so many competing forces on what we do, all at the same time. The IPC standards activity at IPC APEX EXPO, etc., is where all of that comes together. It may seem like a dry process to put standards together, but so much hinges on these docu- ments being up to date, accurate, workable, measurable, and meaningful. Naisbitt: Exactly, and trying to get the raw materials to match the demands of a cataclys- mic change in the way in which we go about things is an overwhelming amount of work to be done on people who are already over- stretched. Where are you going to find more people? Where are you going to get the neces- sary knowledge? Johnson: If that isn't a call to action to industry professionals to get more involved, then there it is. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Naisbitt: You're very welcome. SMT007 Graham Naisbitt is the author of The Printed Circuit Assembler's Guide to… Process Validation. Visit I-007eBooks.com to download this and other free, educational titles. the inter-copper layer needs to be much more heavy-duty; it's thicker, heavier, and more expensive. Johnson: And a bigger load on the mineral resources. Naisbitt: Absolutely. As a consequence, what is happening in Germany is that they are opt- ing to go for the high-voltage, low-current route, where you'll still have high amperage ratings, but nothing as high as the high cur- rent. But they will still be up around 50 amps, so they're inherently dangerous. If you have a conventional petrol or diesel vehicle, the war- ranty level that the manufacturers of the vehi- cle impose on the supply chain; it is 15 years, which for petrol or diesel vehicles, is around 12,000 hours in operation. With an electric vehicle that is always on, to achieve that same 15-year period, it goes out to 130,000 hours. Part of the problem that the industry is trying to address is, of course, there are a big num- ber of automotive manufacturers, and don't think purely of cars. There are trucks, vans, buses, and all manner of other vehicles, such as aircraft and drones. Those circumstances are driving a huge reliability problem because the test duration to get the evidence to support the reliability that you need to meet that war- ranty, we have users in test labs around the world that are testing for anything up to 2,000– 3,000 hours at anything up to 1,500, 2,000, or 2,500 volts. If you run a chamber and a test for 2,500 hours, you have 93 days where you can- not have power disruption. In the U.K., of which I'm ashamed politically, by way of illustration, our government has said, "We want to go carbon-neutral by 2030, and we want everybody in electric cars by 2030. And just to make it interesting, we're closing down all the power stations." Joined-up thinking is a requirement in the world of tomorrow. Johnson: There are two separate pools of thought. Naisbitt: It's crazy. At IPC APEX EXPO, a lot of questions are going to be asked, and we have