40 The PCB Design Magazine • July 2017
interview, they discuss the importance of bringing
youth into the PCB industry and how Noisebridge
has inspired people of all ages to get started creat-
ing their own electronics.
Global Impact on European PCB
Fabrication: EIPC Summer
Conference 2017, Day 1
Electronics industry professionals from 13 coun-
tries, mainly from Europe and Scandinavia, others
from the USA, but some from as far away as In-
dia and Japan, gathered in Meriden, the centre of
England, for the EIPC Summer Conference.
Innovator Bob Tarzwell Retires from PCB
Industry to Focus on New Career in Art
I have known Bob Tarzwell for more than 18 years,
since he first called me looking for some help with
his company. His first words to me were, "Hi, my
name is Bob Tarzwell and I own a shop in Carleton
Place, Ontario. I need your help."
All About Flex: Back-Bared
Flexible Circuits
Back-bared pad flexible circuits are a distinctive
type of single-sided flexible circuit providing some
advantages over more standard circuits. In the
printed circuit industry, back-bared pad circuit de-
signs are also referred to as dual-access or reversed
bared.
14th Electronic Circuits World Convention
The 14th Electronic Circuits World Convention
(ECWC14) started in Seoul to the usual fanfare af-
ter the opening ceremonies of KPCA 2017. The
ribbon-cutting ceremony was conducted by KP-
CA's Jung Bong Hong and the representatives of
the other WECC members.
Eltek Appoints Kathy Nargi-Toth as
President of Eltek USA Inc.
Eltek Ltd., a global manufacturer and supplier of
technologically advanced solutions in the field of
printed circuit boards, has named Kathy Nargi-
Toth as president of Eltek USA Inc., the company's
US subsidiary, effective June 5, 2017.
I Never Realised it Was so Complicated!
How many designers or assemblers have ever set
foot in a PCB fabrication shop? Nowhere near
enough! An initiative by SMART Group and Am-
phenol-Invotec gave a group of engineers from
design, assembly and quality assurance positions
the opportunity to learn a little about the realities
of high-end PCB manufacture.
Fein-Lines: Virus, Phishing,
Ransomware…Oh My!
Malware, the collective name for viruses, Trojan
horses and other malicious software that can infect
your computer, has been in the news lately, prob-
ably more than at any time I can remember. Over
the years, malware has evolved; it can affect smart-
phones and tablets as well as all computers.
Deep Into Technology at Compunetics
There aren't many printed circuit companies in my
neck of the woods. There is one, however, that has
always fascinated me, and that is Compunetics, in
Monroeville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh.
Having worked with them on the electrophoretic
photoresist, a PPG product, many years ago, it
was great to stop by and catch up with CTO Tim
Schmitt and others.
HDP User Group 2017 European Meeting
Highlights Technology Progress
The conference facility at the offices of Oracle,
in the royal burgh of Linlithgow in West Lothian,
Scotland, was the venue for the 2017 Europe-
an meeting of the High Density Packaging User
Group. I was delighted and privileged to be invited
once again to sit in on the open session, an intense
programme of technical presentations and dis-
cussions, project reviews, status updates and new
project proposals.
Mitch Altman Discusses Bringing Youth
into the PCB industry
Publisher Barry Matties is joined by Mitch Altman,
creator of TV-B-Gone, a device that can turn off TVs
in public, and co-founder of Noisebridge, an edu-
cational hackerspace based in San Francisco. In this
PCB007
Highlights
