Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1533904
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2025 Nolan's Notes Feature Column by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Looking Deep Into the Future With X-ray We're talking about catching the vision of X-ray technology in this issue of SMT007 Mag- azine, and it's the perfect opportunity to recall those back-of-the-comic books "X-ray glasses" we all fell for as kids. Our hopes and dreams of seeing through walls were quashed by the real- ization that our new specs were merely a rain- bow filter encased in cardboard. Let's be hon- est with each other, because we're all in this business with a similar mindset: You bought some, didn't you? It's okay and only natural. It's what we did with our "Fantastic Four" ambi- tions and "paper route" finances. As a diagnostic tool, X-ray has been around for over a century, and available to EMS inspection for some years. It seems the industry has moved far enough forward to fully embrace X-ray on the assembly line. I'm reminded of Wayne Gretzky's famous comment about the secret to his scoring success: "I skate to where the puck will be, not where the puck is." I liken that to X-ray inspec- tion, which has been standing here all this time waiting for the industry to catch up. Has X-ray's time finally come in electronics manufacturing? We've just returned from IPC APEX EXPO 2025 in Anaheim; you'll find my impres- sions on the show on page 64. I want to take a moment to reflect on the momentum I see recently with line equipment R&D. New pack- ages are pushing pick-and-place machinery to either handle very large components or very, very small ones. New high-performance mate- rials are tweaking the tried-and-true solder- ing processes. ose large packages are hiding all their solder joints underneath the package itself. None of this is really new; rather, it's the