46 The PCB Design Magazine • September 2015
PCB007
Highlights
front of strategic planning for many manufactur-
ers. Having a supply chain that provides a compet-
itive advantage will be the differentiator in today's
business environment.
Taiwan: The Barometer for
Consumer Electronics
The Tankan Survey is a popular economic survey
of Japanese businesses issued by the central bank
of Japan. The survey focuses on companies with
a specified minimum amount of capital and is a
valuable tool to determine market trends.
A Well-Designed Laminate Supply
Chain has to Own It!
Designing a supply chain for the provision of lami-
nates and pre-pregs to the PCB fabricator shouldn't
be that complicated, should it? The laminate is sim-
ply manufactured and then shipped...what could
possibly go wrong? It turns out it is more compli-
cated, partly because the supply chain is not fully
owned by one supplier, and hence cannot be fully
customized to the needs of each customer.
Start-up Identifies Market Potential
for Flexible Printed Electronics
EU funding has enabled Portuguese printed elec-
tronics start-up Ynvisible to fully assess the po-
tential of applying flexible printed electronics to
consumer objects. The six-month feasibility study
completed at the beginning of August 2015 in-
volved carrying out tests on the new platform
– called PRINTOO – which enabled the company
to better understand the needs of various end
users.
It's Only Common Sense:
Marketing Makes Selling Superfluous
From Peter Drucker: The aim of marketing is to
make selling superfluous. The aim of market-
ing is to know and understand the customer so
well that the product or service fits her and sells
itself. Ideally marketing should result in a cus-
tomer who is ready to buy….the right motto
for business management should increasingly
be "from selling to marketing."
i3 Electronics Wins Medical Opportunity
i3 Electronics, Inc. (i3) announced that it has
earned the opportunity from an industry leading
medical OEM for the development and manufac-
ture of advanced, flexible, circuitized substrates.
The product is a flexible, LCP substrate that will be
used in the neurostimulation market.
IPC Releases White Paper on Conflict
Minerals Due Diligence
The Dodd-Frank Act continues to be burdensome
for companies required to report on the usage of
conflict minerals. In order to address industry con-
cerns, IPC – Association Connecting Electronics In-
dustries has released IPC-1081, Conflict Minerals
Due Diligence White Paper (IPC WP-1081), a docu-
ment designed to help with some reporting woes.
Keeping on Top of Laser Safety
With consumer electronics continuing to get thin-
ner and packed with more functionality, laser pro-
cessing systems have become a permanent part of
the manufacturing landscape. Lasers are used to
produce ever-smaller microvias in increasingly deli-
cate flexible and rigid-flex circuits.
New Battlegrounds Emerge for
Conductive Inks and Pastes
Core applications of PV and touch panels continue
to grow demand, but new opportunities emerge
in the form of wearable technology, circuit boards
and structural electronics.
Is Wearable Technology Just a Fad?
It wasn't too long ago when every techno blogger
was writing about the newest wearable technology,
perhaps predicting the next technology avalanche
that would rival smart phones. The granddaddy of
wearable technology was Google Glasses, which
apparently was leading the revolution. Analysts
were predicting a mega industry upheaval. Then
Google Glasses crashed and burned.
Supply Chain in the 21
st
Century
The shift away from vertical integration has pushed
the topic of supply chain management to the fore-
46 The PCB Design Magazine • September 2015
