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20 The PCB Magazine • August 2014 IPC Printed Electronics Initiative: Overview IPC has learned a thing or two in its more than 50-year history in supporting rapid tech- nology-to-production transitions, so we set out some guiding principles for this effort. The first is a strong emphasis on collaborative partner- ships with groups and organizations that share common high-level goals. In today's lean oper- ating environment in technical organizations, and in a fast-developing field like printed elec- tronics (or large area electronics, or flex-hybrid electronics, or any of the other near-synonyms used to describe this field), the industry can ill- afford duplication of effort. With the goal of supporting the development of a truly global marketplace, one of the most destructive possi- bilities is having multiple international, region- al, or national groups generating "not-quite- duplicate" or even conflicting documentation to interfere with smooth and efficient exchange of ideas and requirements. We have been fortunate in our collabora- tive efforts and succeeded in releasing the first three operational-level documents (two stan- dards and one design guideline), with help from many international partners, but espe- cially close cooperation with JPCA-Japan Elec- tronics Packaging and Circuits Association. The current standards development landscape is shown in Figure 4. There are at least three items of interest we would like to highlight in this graphic: • First and foremost, in keeping with our goal of fostering collaboration and avoiding overlapping efforts, all three of the documents published to date are "dual-logo" publications, jointly created and managed by IPC and JPCA • Second, even as the first publications were being released, rapid developments in the printed electronics field made it obvious that revision and expansion of those documents, and additional documents covering other as - pects of the technology and marketplace would be needed immediately • Third, with people from many organiza- tions and many nations working on subcom- mittees D61 through D66 (with more to fol- low), the "master" D60 committee had to take an active role in prioritizing efforts, redistribut- ing resources, and maintaining close communi- cation between the subcommittees. This steer- ing committee has had good success to date, and will serve this effort, and the industry, well into the future. PRINTED ELECTRONICS 2014: WORLD STANDARDIzATION EFFORT continues figure 4: summary of the current standards development landscape.