30 The PCB Design Magazine • March 2016
New Year, New Outlook for the
Electronics Manufacturing Industry
As an advocate for the electronics manufactur-
ing industry, my job is to educate and encourage
policymakers to create a favorable legislative and
regulatory environment for advanced manufactur-
ing to grow and succeed. From that perspective, I
think we should be proud of the significant prog-
ress we made in several areas in 2015.
In Memoriam—Dennis (Denny) J. Cantwell
Long-time IPC member, Dennis (Denny) J.
Cantwell, 74, passed away on November 12,
2015. Denny was a very active member of the IPC
Flexible Circuits Base Materials Committee until
his retirement from Printed Circuits Inc. in 2009.
Robots, Wearables and Implanted
Devices in the Age of Bionic Health
If you are an electronics manufacturer and you
ask your business bankers where their market re-
search suggests growth will come from, they will
almost certainly identify medical electronics as a
key growth area.
How North American Fabricators
Benefit from Attending HKPCA
Two New Englanders in Shenzhen. It sounds like
the title of a play, doesn't it? Headlining the bill
is Peter Bigelow of IMI, who explains to me why
even small American manufacturers benefit from
attending large Chinese shows like the HKPCA.
He's joined by fellow New Englander Alex Stepin-
ski of Whelen Engineering, who discusses drill con-
cepts and the transition to zero discharge.
Mr. Laminate Tells All: CEM-3 Reinvents
Itself (Again)—or, Atari Game Boards
on eBay?
CEM-3 was unusual as the reinforcement was a
combination of woven fiber-glass fabric and fiber-
glass paper. The resin system was a dicy-cured ep-
oxy resin yielding a Tg the same as FR-4 at the
time, of 110–120°C range. Because it was all ep-
oxy and all fiberglass, the properties were electri-
cally identical to those of FR-4.
Happy's Essential Skills: The Need for Total
Quality Control (Six Sigma and Statistical
Tools), Part 2
The statistical representation of Six Sigma de-
scribes quantitatively how a process is performing.
To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce
more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A
Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of
customer specifications.
What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been—
and It's a Long Way from Being Over
Harvey Miller has been in the PCB industry for
more than 40 years, and he's probably seen it all.
I recently sat down with Harvey at a wine bar in
Palo Alto to learn more about his history in the in-
dustry and where he sees it going forward. Harvey
arrived wearing jogging shorts and running shoes.
No surprise after what his doctor recently shared
with him.
Graphic PLC Receives Training Awards
The awards recognise exceptional training and de-
velopment in organisations across the South West;
celebrating companies that develop their staff
through training and have as a result seen excep-
tional business success.
TTM Technologies Reports Sales Growth
in Q4 and FY 2015
"Our solid fourth quarter execution combined with
seasonal growth in the cellular phone end market
and robust demand in the automotive and aero-
space and defense end markets drove our sequen-
tial increases in gross margin, operating profit and
strong free cash flow generation," said Tom Ed-
man, CEO of TTM.
Conflict Minerals: Negotiations Begin
in Europe on Proposed Legislation
Informal negotiations between the EU Council,
Commission and Parliament (trialogue) started on
the conflict minerals dossier on February 1, 2016.
The trialogue is an informal, closed-door process in
which the Council and the Parliament try to reach
to a compromise on a legislative proposal.
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