I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Reading time ( words)

We started this week with the solstice. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the winter solstice; south of the equator, of course, it’s the summer solstice. Not only is this a big event on the astronomical calendar, solstice is a busy time for holy days worldwide. Whichever holiday schedule you follow, we wish that yours is festive, restorative, and full of hopefulness.

All that holiday revelry can certainly distract one’s attention; as evidenced in a much slower news week. As a result, this week’s Top 5 brings you the three most important and/or intriguing pieces of news we’ve covered in the last week, and two items from last week that are still drawing reader attention this week.  That’s I-Connect007: Keeping you informed, efficiently.

Enjoy your holiday and Happy New Year!

Prices of Copper-Clad Laminates Continue to Rise
December 18

Recently, two major explosions at epoxy resin plants in China had a great impact on domestic resin suppliers, interrupting the supply of resin and caused prices to increase dramatically. I-Connect007 reports on the market dynamics and effects.

U.S. Congress Approves Funds for R&D on Lead-Free Electronics in Aerospace, Defense and High-Performance Applications
December 22

The press release states, “Industry experts believe a five-year, $40 million investment in a public-private R&D program would yield more than $100 million in U.S. defense savings per year and improve military readiness and overall innovation. The Congress provided $5 million for such R&D in FY 2020.”

For more detail, find IPC President and CEO John Mitchell’s article in Defense News titled, “Protecting America’s military prowess requires an embrace of lead-free electronics.”

COMSovereign Delivers First Tethered Drone-Based LTE Network
December 21

Emergency and disaster response teams are a great example for this new LTE mobile network system. Imagine a wildfire command post setting up on a remote hilltop and launching a series of hovering drones to serve as temporary cell towers in an area otherwise outside cell service.

Dr. John Mitchell on IPC APEX EXPO Going Virtual
December 16

In this audio interview, Barry Matties and Dr. John Mitchell discuss IPC’s decision to move IPC APEX EXPO 2021 to an all virtual platform. Mitchell explains the reasoning for going virtual, and expresses his enthusiasm for the opportunities this presents the conference. I-Connect007 will be providing preshow and realtime coverage of IPC APEX EXPO, so check with us often to get the latest.

Happy Holden: ECWC15 Virtual Event a Success
December 15

Few industry experts are as capable as Happy Holden to review the Electronic Circuits World Convention, held recently in Hong Kong. In this report, Happy summarizes the keynotes from the first day of the three-day event. Keynote speakers include: NT Information Ltd’s Dr. Hayoo Nakahara; James Tam, from Bosch; and Happy Holden himself.

  

04/20/2021 | I-Connect007 Editorial Team

Nolan Johnson, Barry Matties, and Happy Holden speak with Matt Mack, process engineer at ICM Controls. Matt shares a day in the life of a process engineer, along with how he approaches continuous improvement and planning for the future on the floor.

04/19/2021 | Hu Yang, Zhongtai Securities Research Center

According to the CCL Association, copper foil accounts for the largest proportion of raw materials (traditional CCL uses epoxy resin, glass fiber cloth and copper as raw materials). Copper foil in thin plate accounts for about 30% of the overall cost; in thick plate copper accounts for 50%. In CCL production, using Shengyi Technology and Chaohua Technology as examples, the cost of raw materials accounts for about 88% of the total cost, with labor accounting for about 4%. Other costs such as equipment depreciation account for about 8%.

04/16/2021 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007

Nolan Johnson speaks with Arik Einhorn and Yaad Eliya of Israel-based PCB Technologies about how they’ve increased their capabilities down to 1 mil line and space to better support their customers from the military, aerospace, and medical markets.