Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1361971
APRIL 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 77 es must be controlled within the stated lim- its. is will go a long way in preventing costly rejects. I am a true believer in the inter-relatedness of processes and the origin of process-relat- ed defects. It is helpful to keep a few things in mind when troubleshooting a process issue. To be successful at troubleshooting a prob- lem, common sense usually applies. Basically, one must first: • Identify the problem or problems (be as specific as possible) • Determine possible causes (looks for links to those other less obvious processes) • Methods and procedures to test to see which causes are most likely • Test the assumptions • Implement corrective action While this sounds like an oversimplification, this approach is required to properly identify and attack the problem at hand. A structured routine is really what is required. Remember the most critical success factor is being able to get to the root cause of the problem. Stop the finger pointing and get the different process teams to work together. In these columns we will attempt to provide some insight as to the cause or causes of these non-conforming defects and the potential solu- tions. We will discuss process parameters and the importance of control of the processes. PCB007 Michael Carano is VP of technol- ogy and business development for RBP Chemical Technology. To read past columns or contact Carano, click here. In recent years there have been exciting break- throughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatch- es that can monitor your breathing and blood oxy- gen levels. But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique? What if the wear- able were something you'd actually already be wearing, like a shirt of a pair of socks? That's the idea behind a new set of MIT-designed clothing that use special fibers to sense a person's movement via touch. Among other things, the re- searchers showed that their clothes can actual- ly determine if someone is sitting, walking, or doing particular poses. The group from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) says that their clothes could be used for athletic training and reha- bilitation. The team's "tactile electronics" use a mix of more typical textile fibers alongside a small amount of custom-made functional fibers that sense pressure from the person wearing the garment. According to CSAIL graduate student Yiyue Luo, unlike many existing wearable electronics, theirs can be incorporated into traditional large-scale clothing production. "Traditionally it's been hard to develop a mass- production wearable that provides high-accura- cy data across a large number of sensors," says Luo. "When you manufacture lots of sensor arrays, some of them will not work and some of them will work worse than others, so we developed a self- correcting mechanism that uses a self-supervised machine learning algorithm to recognize and adjust when certain sensors in the design are off-base." (Source: MIT News) Tactile Textiles Sense Movement Via Touch (Image courtesy of Nature Electronics)