Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520492
122 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2024 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE O nce again, IPC APEX EXPO had more content than I could take in. Of course, I could not attend all 20 committee meetings that I had marked on my calendar, so I strategi- cally focused on key meetings. It is espe- cially important to provide input from a wider variety of industry members to ensure that the best standards are produced. On a personal note, I lost 6 kg from all the walking, and that's almost never a bad thing. I was fortunate to chair two subcommittees: 7-32c Testing and D-67 for additively-man- ufactured electronics (AME). The 7-32c meeting initiated discussion on a proposed revision of IPC-9252B, Require- ments for Electrical Testing of Unpopulated Printed Boards, to update the standard's pur- pose and add the more than 20-year-old IPC- 2581 and ODB++ data formats, as the existing version only discussed native CAD files and Gerber data. Data was presented showing that the IPC-D-356 netlist (last updated 22 years ago) has a defect that was resolved years ago in IPC-2581 and ODB++. We also discussed why an edited netlist should be generally used for production continuity and isolation testing vs. the provided netlist. The D-67 subcommittee discussed the A-Team draft of IPC-6905, AME Perfor- mance and Qualification, created over the past 10 months. This was the first release to the committee, so the FDIR level review can commence shortly. IPC-6911, AME Accept- ability, and IPC-B-xx (no number assigned yet) AME 3D coupon standards activity launched at the meeting. These are the first standards for a 100% additively manufac- tured circuit board. My other committee focus was on design documentation and data transfer. There was excellent progress in general and significant interest in how IPC can help and/or push the industry to create design packages that don't require additional editing by the manu- facturer. The Design Town Hall on Thurs- day could have run for many more hours because there were so many great ques- tions for the expert panel. IPC is working to develop tools that, once completed, could significantly help. As expected, the show floor was large. Many people indicated that the attendance seemed light but that those wandering the show floor tended to be decision-makers. It was somewhat sad to see the PCB fab- rication supplier base shrink relative to the Show Review by Dana Korf Making Progress on IPC Design Standards