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April 2014 • SMT Magazine 11 SMT connecTionS verdant Electronics founder and President Joseph (Joe) fjelstad is a four-decade veteran of the electronics industry and an inter- national authority and innovator in the field of electronic inter- connection and packaging tech- nologies. Fjelstad has more than 250 u.S. and international patents issued or pending and is the author of flexible Circuit Technology. SUSTaiNaBiliTY—WhaT aND WhY? continues rials and processes used in their manufacture, it appears we are somewhat living the parable of the blind men describing an elephant. Here again for emphasis is repositioned the nag- ging concern that most of the attention of our electronics industry is focused on serving the needs of just half of the world's population— the top half. We have a long way still to go to meet the needs of those on the bottom, but as the philosopher Edmund Burke observed, "The greatest mistake that one can make is to do nothing because one can only do a little." Making the effort to build truly sustainable products seems a reasonable objective; but do we have the will? The elimination of solder, which is the pri- mary cause of defects and failures, seems to be a likely target, but who in the developed nations will be the first to embrace such a radical con- cept? If coupled with the use of aluminum as a substrate, the impact provides immense ben- efits to those whose birthplace did not do them a favor. Sadly, most corporate leaders today are more akin to sheep and lemmings than to the bold thought leaders of earlier eras. They speak of boldness, but their actions are anything but. Given their self exclusion as agents of change, it will be left to the younger readers of this appeal to deliver the promise because it seems certain that it will not come from those about to retire or hanging around to enjoy the perks. In closing, I am reminded of a senior engi- neer who sat behind me during my tenure at Boeing more than 30 years ago. He tried to calm me when my much younger self expressed deep frustration at the pace of progress with the im- plementation of some of our process improve- ments, by saying this: "Joe, you need to keep in mind the simple fact that everyone wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die." It was and still is the truth. So it goes... Next time, an unflinching look at the dark side of solder. SMT reference 1. Lowell Center for Sustainable Production flawed but colorful diamonds are among the most sensitive detectors of magnetic fields known today, allowing physicists to explore the minuscule mag- netic fields in metals, exotic ma- terials, and even human tissue. university of California, berke- ley, physicist Dmitry budker and colleagues have now shown that these diamond sensors can mea- sure the tiny magnetic fields in high-temperature superconduc- tors, providing a new tool to probe these ma- terials. "Diamond sensors will give us measurements that will be useful in understanding the physics of high temperature superconductors, which, despite the fact that their discoverers won a 1987 nobel Prize, are still not understood," says budker, a professor of physics and faculty scientist at lawrence berkeley national laboratory. "The new probe may shed light on high-temperature su- perconductors and help theo- reticians crack this open ques- tion," says coauthor ron folman of ben-gurion university of the negev. Flawed Diamonds Pick Up small Magnetic Fields