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36 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2021 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE of the industry. e key message for me here is that companies need to pay serious attention to Industry 4.0 first movers to remain competi- tive. ey need to begin preparing their own strategies and modernization implementation plans if they have not done so already. Failing to act now risks being le behind and limits a company's competitiveness, agility, and resil- iency moving forward. I thought the three keynotes given by IPC President and CEO John Mitchell, Industry- Week Editor-in-Chief Travis Hessman, and IPC Chief Economist Shawn Dubravac, were spot on. ey all spoke to the fact that the way products are conceived, designed, manufac- tured, and used is changing rapidly. While the keynotes had different focus areas, I noted an important similarity—they all underscored the need for increased industry collaboration to help bring the factory and supply chain of the future to life. No one single company or subset group of companies can do this all on their own. It will take the larger electronics manufactur- ing ecosystem to work and advance together to unlock the true value of what Industry 4.0 approaches have to offer. While it is absolutely necessary to continue being future focused, I think my biggest obser- vation from IPC APEX EXPO was the strong demand for PCB technology advancements and knowledge sharing. roughout the week we saw well-attended and highly interactive technical conference sessions spanning a wide range of topics including embedded technol- ogy for HDI applications, HDI signal integrity, microvia reliability, weak microvia interface, and PCB reliability/advancements. To explain this ongoing demand, we do not need to look very far—new products are continually being designed and built to be smaller, faster, lighter, and with all-in-one functionality. is driving force, in turn, is creating many new challenges to overcome regarding PCB design, signal/ power routing, material selection, and fabri- cation methods. ese product trends explain the reason why these sessions were in such demand. We are thrilled that we were able to connect the industry's leading experts with attendees to share the very latest research and know-how. is year's IPC APEX EXPO Best Paper exemplifies this. e award went to IBM Corporation's Sarah Czaplewski, Roger Krab- benho and Junyang Tang, for their paper titled "Signal Integrity, Reliability, and Cost Evaluation of PCB Interlayer Crosstalk Reduc- tion." Outstanding! New advancements within conventional hardware technologies remain an important element of IPC's technology stack and road- map. For example, this year's conference incorporated new advancements into several professional development courses offered on Monday, Tuesday, and ursday including Power Electronics in Manufacturing, Design and Assembly Process Challenges for Bottom Terminations Components (BTCs); Design- ing with HDI Technology; and Low-Temper- ature Soldering, Assembly, Inspection and Defects—Causes and Cures. As highlighted by Matt Kelly