Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine

Features

What’s ahead for antennas, heaters and inks.

In the 39 years I’ve been in the printed electronics industry, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing, influencing and playing a part in life-changing innovations such as the SonoCine ultrasonic breast imaging device and printed wearable therapeutics. As brilliant as these breakthroughs were back in the day, however, they don’t hold a candle to today’s conductive transparent thin films that are enabling limitless design and engineering possibilities.

Different types of nickel corrosion and potential mitigation strategies.

Electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) chemistries were introduced in the mid-1990s to replace electrolytic nickel and gold for high-density circuits. In the mid-1990s, nickel corrosion, soon to be known as the ubiquitous “black pad,” was discovered. Chemical suppliers and board manufacturers took steps to reduce the occurrence of black pad. To that end, in 2002, IPC released IPC-4552, “Performance Specification for Electroless Nickel/Immersion Gold (ENIG) Plating for Printed Boards.”

In the late 1990s, electroless nickel electroless palladium immersion gold (ENEPIG) chemistries were introduced as a universal finish for gold, aluminum and copper wire bonding, with perceived protection from black pad. In 2013, IPC released IPC-4556, “Specification for Electroless Nickel/Electroless Palladium/Immersion Gold (ENEPIG) Plating for Printed Boards.” Today, black pad is still a reality with ENIG and ENEPIG plating.

A noted solutions architect offers an audacious plan for AI acceptance. It just might work.

The talk of AI-based printed circuit design – and the idea that artificial intelligence could theoretically design a board faster and more efficiently than a human – has inevitably led to the fear that designers will be replaced by their algorithmic counterparts.

Rather than stoke those fears, a proposed process for AI implementation presented by a leading ECAD architect at PCB West in October focused on the new opportunities that could come for designers as AI implementation begins to take place.

The annual user event was tuned into AI, but that’s not the only melody being played.

Zuken welcomed customers and partners to Cleveland in September for the electronics design software company’s annual users event, providing an opportunity for networking and a backstage pass to the company’s most recent software updates and future innovations.

Zuken Innovation World Americas, colocated with Vitech’s Integrate24, opened with comments from Kent McLeroth and Enrique Krajmalnik, the chief executives of Zuken USA and Vitech, respectively, and a keynote address befitting its location in the supposed birthplace of rock and roll with Mark Schulman, drummer for such artists as P!NK, Billy Idol, Foreigner and Cher.

2023 saw only a handful of fabricators gain ground, but SE Asia is primed to boom.

Small it was, but the Thailand Electronics Circuit Asia exhibition held in Bangkok in late July was extremely informative as to what is happening in the Southeast Asian nation. According to the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), the PCB output in Thailand may become the third or even second largest in the world. From 2022 to 2026, about $6 billion to $7 billion will be invested in PCB capacity in Thailand (at this moment, 40-plus fabricators from Taiwan and China are pouring into Thailand). Calling Thailand the second-largest PCB-producing country may be a bit of a stretch, but the third largest is not an exaggeration. From the view of “nationality,” however, Thailand-based KCE and a few other small ones will account for less than 10% of the total output. Taiwan-, China- and Japan-based companies will hold the lion’s share of the PCB output in Thailand.

Nine considerations to prevent signal degradation due to crosstalk and EMI.

With demand growing for AI chips the need for high-speed PCBs is on the rise. As operating frequencies increase over 10GHz, the risk of reflections, crosstalk and EMI increases.

For optimal performance, all frequency components of a signal should maintain consistent amplitude changes. Additionally, signals must reach their destination simultaneously to prevent phase discrepancies. Understanding these aspects will help the design of circuits without signal distortion.