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IPC Midwest Review
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Since I originate from the Midwest, I packed in a visit to relatives and friends on my way to the IPC Midwest Conference and Exhibition, September 2228. So, with a copy of the Michigan Yooper DVD "Escanaba in da Moonlight" in my briefcase and gifts of fancy jewelry and hand-tied fishing flies tucked in my suitcase, I took the Amtrak train to Union Station and began the business side of things. It was quite a change from Michigan, where sugar-beet mounds, carrots, and corn could be seen at every available spot to fatten up local deer for hunting in November, to Chicago, where commerce is bustling. What I heard around IPC Midwest in the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center, Schaumburg, Ill., was that the electronics market was strong and ready for new equipment, and that efficiency is key.
MicroCare: Mike Jones talked about his company's new chemistry for lead-free cleaning, which is doing well. Though life sciences is the highest growth area for the company, the market is strong in electronics and fiber optics for this family-owned business. "You will continue to see our aerosol cans everywhere," he stated.
Leica: Pam Jandura agreed that life sciences is a high-growth area for their sales of stereo-scientific microscopes. New products for electronics are the M205 C stereo microscope and the M16 C microscope. Both new products use FusionOptics (blending of images), with one eyepiece focused on magnification and the second on fine resolution. The human brain processes these images in a fused-resolution manner.
YesTech: Troy Johnson talked about how this U.S.-based company, recently purchased by Nordson, would be affected by the sale. "We have automated some of the back-office work. Our budgets have increased. We're still known for customer loyalty, and now that 3D stacked chips are in the marketplace, inspection will be even more important than in the past. YesTech is more in-line now," Johnson concluded
KIC: Brian O'Leary talked about their KIC Explorer, a unit that is light yet contains many thermocouples. Since reflow ovens operate most efficiently within their process window index (PWI) for reflowing a particular board, the Explorer finds the best PWI for the board while power minimization finds the newest energy recipes. "We do installs on customers and find that many have been doing the same process for 10 years and are overdue for checking to see if they're in spec."
Omron: Michael Cotton says, "Our VT Win2 series of 2D inspection units offers a high-end, multiple-zoom inspection from 10 to 50 µm level." It's a quality tool for inspection of solder joints that measures the percentage that solder may be off the pad. The company also reps the CKD for 3D inspection (in the CKD VP3000L unit.)
Zestron: Sylvain Chamousset says, "In the cleaning market we always want to differentiate ourselves. We offer cleaning chemistries and that requires an R&D focus with lots of technical expertise." Both lead-free board cleaning and the build-up of chips in a vertical stack have proven to be helpful to the growth of this company. Their Germany facility is expanding to include an applications lab similar to their lab in the U.S.
These were just a few of the companies who had much to say. We visited lots of technical presentations as well. Of special interest was the rework-and-repair session on package-on-package (PoP). This will be an interesting topic as we move into vertical packaging at the board level.
And finally there was the usual gossip from "movers and shakers." Speedline's Keith Favre's move to head up Photo Stencil, Universal's new president Jean Paul Pelissier, and finally Dave Torp's move to the IPC. More news on that will be forthcoming.
Ah Chicago, the city that works, will support the IPC Midwest. Now onto the next big conference, SMTAI, October 811 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, Fla. I cannot wait.