Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/845602
74 The PCB Magazine • July 2017 Keynote Presentation: What Makes our Organization a Global Leader Phil Titterton, President of the Aerospace & Defense/Specialty Business Unit with TTM, pre- sented tools, techniques and lessons learned on what it takes to be a successful PCB fabricator in today's global environment. Phil discussed the importance of DFM and its impact on reliabil- ity and the need to share best practices with- in our industry. Phil's advice to "park the ego at the door" was particularly telling as he ex- plained that collective minds versus islands is critical to solving discrete problems and stream- lining processes. This really resonated with me as some companies still believe that the key to success is to protect their trade secrets. There re- ally are very little secrets; the key to success is in the execution! Building Reliability In: Design for Reliability FTG Director of Technical Support Gary Ferrari presented on a variety of issues that af- fect reliability, such as life cycle development and the considerations of materials, construc- tion, failure modes, and the effects of surface finish and via fill materials on reliability. One of Gary's key takeaways was that performance may equal reliability, but reliability absolutely equals performance. Gary presented a four-step process in life cycle development of: 1) Identi- fy reliability requirements; 2) Identify life envi- ronment; 3) Identify storage environments; and 4) Analyze and selection of components, mate- rials, processes and strategies. A key portion of his presentation dealt with typical microvia fail- ure modes and how to avoid them. Generic Protocols for Capture and Transfer of Design Data with IPC-2581 Gary Carter, principal of ThingWeaver So- lutions, presented on the importance of col- laboration in product development between all interested parties in the supply chain. Gary highlighted the perils of relying solely on Ger- ber data and focused on the need to employ intelligent data transfer to improve efficien- cy and quality in PCB design, fabrication and manufacturing assembly. He presented case study results and the "Smart PCB Digital Fac- tory" solution that seeks to remove inefficien- cies that exist across electronics design, fab- rication, and test processes by replacing the "shopping cart" of engineering files with IPC- 2581B. Reliable Use of Embedded Passives Jimmy Baccam, senior electromechanical designer for Lockheed Martin, educated us on what embedded planar capacitance is and is not, along with the pros and cons of this tech- nology. Jimmy continued with lessons learned from fabricating with thin dielectrics, thermal stress and shock testing. A great deal of techni- REVIEW OF THE 2017 IPC RELIABILITY FORUM Figure 2: Gary Ferrari, FTG. Figure 3: Gary Carter, ThingWeaver Solutions.