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86 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2022 "It is vanity to do with more that which can be done with less." —William of Occam, 14th cen- tury monk, logician, and philosopher Many scientists are familiar with the con- cept of Occam's Razor (also sometimes called the Law of Parsimony). e basic idea postu- lates that when attempting to explain any given observed phenomena, the simplest explana- tion is preferable to those which are more com- plex. e reasoning behind the concept is that simple theories are easier to examine and verify, and not coincidently, are more oen found to be true. Simplic- ity is a theme that has been recom- mended by some of the greatest minds in his- tory. "Simplify, simplify," urged oreau. Einstein advised, "Every- thing should be made as simple as pos- sible, but not simpler." ese great teachers are both instructional and inspira- The Many Benefits of Eliminating (Most) Solder Flexible Thinking by Joe Fjelstad, VERDANT ELECTRONICS tional; while echoed throughout history, their words are not always followed because it is, ironically and unfortunately, easier to make things more complex. Yet these touchstone words have held sway over me for most of my life. With that in mind, I will postulate that some long-time readers of my musings may be famil- iar with the Occam Process, which I first pro- posed in 2007 on the heels of the EU ban of lead in electronics solder. e Occam Process proposed to eliminate concerns about lead in sol- der by eliminating solder (and the root cause of perhaps as much as 70% of failures, according to a relatively recent scholarly paper 1 ) from most (if not all) electronics manufacturing. Having been influenced by the industry's roots in 100-mil-center designs predicated on the lead pitch of a ubiquitous dual-in- line package (DIP), the idea of a