Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1116895
108 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 how to do this economically. Another layer of OEMs, the Foxconns and Flextronics of the IoT market, are working their way through the sys- tem right now and offering these services to companies. They're going to be the suppliers of the bolt-on electronics, and as these com- panies grow, they're going to bring it in-house. Matties: When you travel through China, it's clear that they've embraced technology in a big way on a lot of different fronts. I can go to a local fruit stand and they won't even accept cash, for example; everything is e-pay now. Traffic signals and cameras everywhere, so there are a lot of electronics. What has it been like for you to watch this transformation from a technology point of view? Neves: It's quite challenging because the rate of change is unlike anything I've ever experi- enced before. The interesting thing is watching how the locals accept it. The average Chinese person has become accustomed to this pace of change, and it's just normal to them. They ex- pect that when they leave and go on vacation for a couple of weeks, they're going to come back to something different, such as a new road, building, or technology. China is used to change, but not everyone in the world is. I can go to places in the U.S. or Europe that haven't changed in 15–20 years. Meanwhile, none of what we passed driving from the train sta- tion to our office existed when I first arrived 15 years ago; it was just farmland. Where this building now sits used to be in the middle of nowhere. But now there's solid development the entire way to the city center. The Chinese are used to it and don't spend a lot of time planning details ahead of time be- cause plans change so rapidly, and otherwise, nothing would ever get done. If they need fiber optic ca- bles, they dig up a road and put some in. If they need a road or a drain system, they put one in, etc. They plow ahead, and if they make a mistake, they fix it and move on. Matties: Back to the testing, when should peo- ple consider a testing service? Neves: If I look at the documents and IPC test methods out there that talk about test- ing, they're very basic guides; they only tell you generally how to accomplish a test. For instance, there is a long learning curve associ- ated with doing a humidity test. You can't just buy a humidity chamber and a meter and start testing. There's a huge amount of understand- ing you have to gain about your water system, environment, cleanliness, the wires you use, the techniques to put the samples in the cham- ber, and how to put the meter together. Dozens of little things aren't a part of what's published out there, and that knowledge only comes from having experience. Microtek started in '86. We've been doing testing in this market for a very long time, so we have a lot of learned knowledge. It has been passed on and acquired from doing what a lot of competitors don't have. Other compa- nies say, "Let's get into the automotive mar- ket. We'll buy some chambers and meters, and we'll be an automotive test laboratory right now," but they haven't spent 30 years doing testing in the automotive market. For example, we started with Delphi and Sun Microsystems Humidity lab 2.