Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1143487
JULY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 41 Konrad: Yes. We have two workshops coming up in Rockville, Maryland, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Then, we have two more in Mel- bourne and Tampa, Florida. It's a roadshow. And we have a number of experts from confor- mal coating and soldering material, to cleaning equipment, testing, and coating, speaking on subjects and how they relate to reliability. Shaughnessy: You see a good cross-section of people coming to your events. Are you ever surprised by some of the problems attendees have? Konrad: I've been in this business for 35 years, and just when I think the element of surprise is gone, something comes up. One of the chal- lenges our industry, to quote a colleague, is the "silver tsunami"—the exit of highly expe- rienced engineers from our industry, the old sages who sat in the cubicle who knew the an- swer to every question and where all of the "process bodies" were buried. Mostly, they've retired, and young engineers are left who are very enthusiastic, and in some cases, inexpe- rienced. We do these workshops—and cleaning is a common denominator in a lot of these work- shops—because many people are under the impression that cleaning left us completely in the late '80s and early '90s. Folks are running their product with a jar of paste that says "no- clean" on it, and some people treat "no-clean" almost as if it were an instruction, like "don't clean." Now that cleaning has roared back, there's still a sense of misinformation or an absence of good information. Why are we cleaning some- thing that says "no-clean?" There are reasons behind it. The most popular flux cleaned today is no-clean. Most of our customers are clean- ing no-clean flux. The workshops allow people to realize that if they're cleaning, that doesn't mean that they're doing something wrong; it means that their board has changed and it's no longer happy with a little bit of residue left on it. Education seems to be the best way to drive that point home. Shaughnessy: It does sound like an order. "Do not clean." Konrad: Right. "No clean. Yes, sir. I'm not going to clean it." Shaughnessy: Is there anything else you want to mention? Konrad: I'm glad you're here. It's a great event, and there are a lot of good speakers. Shaughnessy: Thanks for speaking with me to- day, Mike. Konrad: Thank you. PCB007 Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are taking inspiration from neural networks to create computers that mimic the human brain—a quickly growing field known as neuromorphic computing. By replacing traditional memory and CPUs with electronic neurons and syn- apses, scientists aim to create systems that solve complex problems more quickly using less power. "The computing commu- nity is starting to understand that this future beyond the GPU-CPU environment is coming," ORNL's Catherine Schuman said. As scientists imagine supercomputers after ORNL's Summit—the world's fastest super- computer—and its successor—Frontier— they will look for ways to surpass power and performance limits of traditional computing. "One of those paths forward is to incorpo - rate more novel computing architectures into the supercomputer," Schuman said. (Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Building a Brain