FEATURES

• RoHS Transition
  Pb-Free Manufacturing from a Tier III EMS Perspective
  The Pb-free transition was daunting even for larger EMS firms, but had a major impact on smaller firms that lacked abundant engineering resources. How did we do it and how has the process matured? Here’s how one company made the switch.
  Greg Caswell

• Standards Development
  ‘Living Documents, Subject to Change’
  The origins – and future – of standards, the foundation of electronics manufacturing.
  Michael L. Martell

• Reflow Soldering
  Creating Ideal Solder Joints
  Reflow soldering is a superset of an accurate thermal profile. A poorly devised profile can have devastating (read: expensive) repercussions. Same goes for the stencil.
  Zulki Khan

• Cover Story
  An Alternative Drying Process for MSDs
  Components baked at 70°C for 24 hr. in a vacuum passed IPC and EIA testing.
  Charles S. Leech Jr.

• SEAs 2007
  ‘Customer Satisfaction is More than a Score’
  For five-time SEA winner DEK, it’s about continuous improvement, not the highest scores.
  Chelsey Drysdale

• iNEMI Roadmap
  Optoelectronic Substrates: Will They Happen?
  Optoelectronic interconnects can provide increased bandwidth and other advantages for special applications over copper, but implementation has fizzled. What changes need to occur to make this mainstream?
  Jack Fisher

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  Show me(ans) the money.
  Mike Buetow

• Talking Heads
  Photo Stencil’s Keith Favre.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Focus in Business
  Trimming the excess.
  Susan Mucha

• Global Sourcing
  The top PWB fabricators.
  Mike Buetow

TECH TALK

• On the Forefront
  Wafer thin, but getting bigger.
  E. Jan Vardaman

• Screen Printing
  ‘Sensing’ a huge medical advance.
  Clive Ashmore

• Better Manufacturing
  Narrowing your supplier list.
  Peter Grundy

• Tech Tips
  Wire harnesses and cable routing.
  American Competitiveness Institute

• Wave Soldering
  Setting up the wave.
  Ursula Marquez de Tino

• Process Doctor
  Selective leakage.
  Terry Munson

• Test and Inspection
  Data: that big CAD.
  Stacy Kalisz Johnson

• Getting Lean
  The power of incremental improvements.
  Marty Neese and S.M. Kong

• Materials World (or 160KB PDF file in Chinese)
  Edge and corner bonding.
  Dr. Renzhe Zhao

• Equipment Advances
  Inovaxe’s MSD storage unit.

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Product Spotlight
Assembly Insider
Ad Index

On the cover: A novel solution to component moisture problems. (Photos by Kuzma and Li Kim)