While AI offers specialized communication skills, it creates new data-storage and security challenges.

Many of us would struggle to grasp the concept of a zettabyte in any practical sense. Mathematically, it's 1 trillion gigabytes and, between we humans and our machines, we expect to generate more than 180 zettabytes of digital data in 2025. Right now, about 330 million terabytes are being introduced into the world every day – that's equivalent to the entire US population filling their OneDrive allowance on a daily basis. According to this essay on the World Economic Forum, storing our data will present major challenges: the way things stand, in 100-150 years' time there will be more data bits than atoms on the Earth and storage will consume more than the total energy generated today.

Problems notwithstanding, our prodigious output is an impressive human achievement. We have progressed through cave paintings, smoke signals, the invention of paper and books, to the many prolific techniques we have available today. It's all about the drive to communicate and express ourselves, which is embedded deeply in our nature.

Non-value activities are sometimes unavoidable.

One challenge for electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers implementing Lean manufacturing practices can be customer buy-in. While an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) can design a process with minimal non-value-added activity, customer requirements may revive some necessary non-value-added activity and it is up to the EMS provider to find a compromise that satisfies the customer requirements while minimizing the cost of resources associated with the non-value activity.

A recent example of this occurred in SigmaTron International’s Chihuahua, Mexico, facility. A consumer product customer added conformal coating to a product experiencing field failures related to operating environment issues. An automated selective coating machine is used that controls conformal coating deposition areas and application thickness. The customer wanted an automated visual inspection step added to ensure any overspray or missed coating was caught.

IEEE's annual conference of academic and research leaders reveals equipment and process advances.

The heat wave covering much of the Rocky Mountains in June was an apt metaphor for the annual IEEE Electronics Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) in Denver, where some 2,000 attendees heard the latest developments in advanced packaging. Thermal issues were as much a part of the proceedings indoors as out.

The conference in the Mile High City opened with a Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR) session. Presentations addressed the thermal challenges and specifically called out the needs for developments in metrology focused on thermal measurement. The conversation carried over into a parallel special session on metrology where participants from NIST, ASE, Intel, TSMC and KLA discussed challenges and opportunities in advancing metrology for next-generation microelectronics. The discussion culminated with a call to action to incorporate metrology challenges in every aspect of the HIR moving forward and potential for a future NIST workshop.

Our passion for technology can improve services and life experiences for everyone.

Many of us working in the electronics business, wherever we are in the value chain – from design to manufacturing, as well as marketing, sales and support – are more than simple creators of technology. We are also fans, adopters and evangelists. As a species, we have always pursued technologies with the goal of making our lives better.

It's in the interest of humanity that more people can use the technologies we create. Many powerful technologies that define the world we live in today began life as the invention and plaything of a small number of expert users: search engines, digital image sensing, blockchain, AI, even the internet itself, started this way but have become widely used to the advantage of all. This technological democratization is not a new phenomenon. The invention of the printing press is often cited as an early example. In addition to expanding and accelerating the spread of information, its arrival also enhanced the accuracy of the data shared by reducing human error.

For as long as there is invention, action will be needed to mitigate the divide that separates the technological haves and have-nots. The World Economic Forum points out that digital technologies are a driver for fairness and justice, and that equalizing access is essential to safeguard security and human rights. We can celebrate the fact that information services, banking, e-government, and e-health are already widely available and affordable, even in regions that have minimal fixed infrastructures.