Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1265351
66 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2020 If you are in the electronics industry—and I am assuming you are because why else would you be reading this column—you cannot help but notice the discussion about Industry 4.0, whether you are reading technical magazines or attending physical or virtual shows or con- ferences. No matter what the subject, if it piques your interest, some of you may move from noticing it to wondering about it and may even graduate to digging deeper into that subject. This is what happened to me when I attended IPC APEX EXPO 2019. If you attended the same conference in 2020, you may have noticed a very prominent focus on Industry 4.0 and extensive effort by IPC on developing multiple standards to make the transition to Industry 4.0 faster and easier. In this column, I want to discuss Industry 4.0 as I understand it. I wel- come your comments about my interpretation of Industry 4.0. As we all know, standards make the transition to any new tech- nology faster and cost-effective for the entire industry. The core mission of IPC is to build elec- tronics better by developing stan- dards. As we also know, IPC does not discover anything—the mem- bers do—and when they decide to share their knowledge, IPC devel- ops standards to make progress faster and easier so that everyone in the industry benefits. IPC has released multiple IPC standards related to Industry 4.0 (Table 1). Some of them are old and going through revi- sion, and others are new. Historically, it took about 100 years to move from the First Industrial Revolution or Industry 1.0 (use of steam power, mechanization, weav- ing) around the time of the American Revolu- tion and its resulting independence (during the 1780s, give or take few years) to the Second Industrial Revolution or Industry 2.0 (intro- duction of electricity, assembly lines, mass production) around the time of the abolish- ment of slavery (not the real end, but at least on paper) from 1860–1870. We had to wait another 100 years before transitioning to the Third Industrial Revolution or Industry 3.0 (introduction of the integrated circuit by Intel; use of electronics, computers, automation) in the 1960s, around the time my generation was graduating from high school Industrial Revolution 4.0: Hype, Hope, or Reality? SMT Solver by Ray Prasad, RAY PRASAD CONSULTANCY GROUP Table 1: Factory of the future industry standards at various stages of development and release.