Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1116895
MAY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 109 eons ago back when they were the early lead- ers in reliability and technology of PCBs. We gained a lot of experience from the au- tomotive and the U.S. aerospace market with satellites—things that people rely upon. We tested the boards on the Spirit and Opportu- nity Mars Rovers that lasted 6 and 15 years re- spectively after they were expected to die. And that's what customers want to find; problems cause their company pain, money, time, and time to market, so it's not about a few dollars in testing. Maybe the purchasing agents com- pare, but the engineers certainly don't. The en- gineers want to have good data so they can fulfill their responsibilities. We've been doing this for so long that we know about everything that could affect your test results. Matties: Pain and the associated problems are big motivators for testing, but do people look at it as an opportunity? Do they say, "We want to expand into a new market, and we need to prove a process," for example. Neves: Not really. We do some testing asso- ciated with material changes and things that they can't do internally. If they want to im- prove a process, it's usually a material change, so they'll send us something, and we'll de- termine if the material is better or worse. But again, that's usually driven from higher up in the supply chain. Somebody at the OEM level says, "I would like to make a change to this material and want to verify how you're able to manufacture it." Matties: Do you ever deal with the circuit board designers? Neves: They never go to the test side of it. They read and learn by trial and error. Matties: Is there an opportunity to gain knowl- edge to help improve circuit design? Neves: The material suppliers have seen that their materials get specified in at the design phase. They've developed an entire sales focus based on informing the designers of the bless- ings of using their materials and how they can solve the design problems that they're facing with their materials. There's a lot of informa- tion focused on the material supplier to the OEMs and the designers within those OEMs. But most of the supply chain doesn't care all that much. They've all just said, "We'll do what you want us to do. If it works, great, but if it doesn't, we can build it again." The bigger PCB shops have teams that review designs and will work with the designers, saying, "We've seen this before, and this isn't going to work. You should probably redesign this." There is communication between the board shop and the design team supplying the prod- uct. That has been a sales point for smaller and larger OEMs. The smaller ones that are do- ing design work don't expect to get the pro- duction order—their job is to work with the design team. And the large OEMs can't afford a $50 million mistake. Their customer would not be happy with them and would ask why they didn't catch it before it happened. Edy Yu: You said China is focusing on all types of transportation. What standards are you test- ing for transportation or aerospace? Neves: One of the things we've seen with the China market is that there's a push by the gov- ernment to use GB standards. But just like the IEC standards, GB standards—like all interna- tional standards—tend to lag behind the mar- ket a little bit. IPC has really pushed the effort to try and meet the needs of the transportation market. For example, China Rail Group and Comac have worked with IPC and their efforts Reflow simulation lab.