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52 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2021 performance during its expected life. is cre- ates stresses that accelerate failures faster than possible with reliability testing. Robustness testing is used in situations where obtaining fast- er results is more important than directly un- derstanding life expectancy in the field. ese types of tests typically expose PCB test samples to temperatures above the material's glass tran- sition temperature (T g ) or pressures higher than 1 atmosphere. ese conditions create stresses and acceleration factors that are not seen dur- ing a product's normal life. ese types of tests are useful when comparing materials, process- es, or products to each other. Aer exposure to the extraordinary test conditions of robustness testing, observations point to the "better" one, but that may or may not mean that the better one will outperform "worse" ones in a product's real-life use environment. For via structures, robustness testing usual- ly means thermal shock/cycling between 25°C and 190-260°C, well above the T g of the PCB's material. Z-axis expansion rates of the PCB's substrate material above T g are 4–10 times what is experienced below T g and causes ex- treme stress to the via structures that does not occur during the product's life. ese addition- al acceleration factors speed the via structure's time to demise but creates difficulty when try- ing to correlate the results to real world oper- ating conditions. All the process survivability, reliability test- ing, and robustness testing of via structures can be performed using a HATS²™ tester. e HATS²™ tester can test a wide variety of PCB test coupons at temperatures from -55°C to 260°C. Please visit www.HATS-Tester.com for more information. PCB007 Bob Neves is chairman/CTO of Microtek China, and vice chairman of the board at IPC. The heavy-duty electric vehicle charging infra- structure market is anticipated to grow at a healthy 35.07% CAGR over the period of 2018–2030, re- veals the current Market Research Future (MRFR) report. The heavy-duty electric vehicle charging in- frastructure, put simply, is a complete assembly for transferring electricity from the electric grid and dis- tributing electricity to charge electric vehicles like trucks and e-buses. According to the report, there are numerous factors propelling the heavy-duty electric vehicle charging infrastructure market growth. Some of these include the increas- ing adoption of electric cars, people in Germany, the UK, Norway, and Chi- na increasingly switching to electric cars, favorable government subsidies and policies, and demand for electric cars as they reduce carbon footprints on the environment and also produce fewer emissions which are responsi- ble for smog and climate change. The additional factors adding market growth in- clude the growing need for energy-efficient com- muting and support from the government for elec- tric cars and their charging infrastructure through tax rebates, subsidies, and preferential policies. On the contrary, the high price involved in initial in- vestments for fast charging, the need for better bat- teries, the charging time of electric cars being higher than fossil fuel cars, especially in level 2 and level 1 charging, the compatibility of charging not being uni- form, and the current trend of pricing and grid capacity of electric cars being high- er than that of their fossil counterparts may limit the global heavy-duty electric vehicle charging infrastruc- ture market growth over the forecast period. (Source: Market Research Future) Heavy-Duty EV Charging Infrastructure Market Set for Strong Growth