PCB Chat

RM 1834: A Reliability Matters Podcast Year-End Reflection

ince 2018, Reliability Matters has been building a knowledge vault, capturing the wisdom of industry experts for engineers everywhere.  In this special year-end episode, we celebrate the journey, the growth, and the community that made it possible.

RM 182: How to Work Effectively with your CM - with Daniel Stanphill & Sean Kincaid

Mike Konrad continues a dive into the world of contract manufacturing—a vital piece of the electronics ecosystem. Joining him are two industry leaders who know this space inside and out. First, we have Daniel Stanphill, SMT process engineer at Aurora Boardworks, and alongside him, Sean Kincaid, president of K & F Electronics.  Both companies provide contract manufacturing services to a wide range of customers, helping turn design concepts into dependable, production-ready circuit assemblies. In this conversation, we’ll explore what makes for a successful relationship between contract manufacturers and their customers. We’ll talk about the types of customers they look for, the challenges they face in today’s manufacturing environment, and the common mistakes that can derail a project if not addressed early on.  Most importantly, we’ll dig into best practices that can help customers and manufacturers work together more effectively.

RM 181: Working with Contract Manufacturers - with Raymond Novara

The next two episodes of Reliability Matters will be all about contract manufacturing, an area that can make or break the reliability and success of a product.  Mike Konrad's guest on this episode is Raymond Novara, founder and owner of East End Assemblies, a US-based contract manufacturer recognized for its focus on quality, customer service, and compliance with AS9100 and IPC standards. During our conversation, Raymond talks about key questions that every OEM should be considering: * What are the best practices for selecting a contract manufacturer? * What common mistakes do companies make when working with a CM—especially in communication and hand-offs? * How can design-for-manufacturability feedback prevent problems down the road? * What should customers know about transitioning from prototypes to volume production? * And how can contract manufacturers help ensure long-term product reliability, not just passing initial tests? If you’re an OEM evaluating partners, an engineer preparing to hand off a design, or someone interested in how contract manufacturers contribute to product reliability, this episode is packed with insights.

RM 180: Low Temp Soldering for a High-Reliability World

Note: This is the fourth of four episodes on the subject of soldering materials.   Today, we're diving into a topic that's reshaping how we think about thermal management, energy efficiency, and long-term performance in electronics manufacturing—low temperature soldering. Joining Mike Konrad is Dr. HongWen Zhang, principal metallurgist and R&D manager of the Alloy Group at Indium Corporation.   Dr. Zhang is not only a seasoned materials scientist with a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, a master’s in materials science and engineering and in mechanical engineering and a bachelor’s in metallurgical physical chemistry he’s also coinventor of Durafuse, a family of solder alloys that are redefining what's possible at low reflow temperatures—which, reportedly, does not compromise reliability.   In this episode, we’ll explore how low temperature solders are helping manufacturers lower energy consumption, protect heat-sensitive components, and still meet the rigorous mechanical and environmental demands of today’s electronics—from wearables to wafer-level packaging. We’ll also talk about the challenges of brittleness, drop shock resistance, activation and encapsulation of no clean activators, and how cutting-edge materials research is solving problems that used to be considered trade-offs.   Whether you’re a reliability engineer, a process expert, or just solder-curious, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

PCB Chat 147: Matthias Wagner of FluxAI

Today’s guest is Matthias Wagne [https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthias-wagner-5220b047/]r, chief executive and cofounder of Flux. Flux is maker of a Agentic AI-based PCB design platform and programmable simulator that runs in a browser environment. Regular listeners may know we have spoken with Matthias a few times in the past, most recently in February 2024. Since we last spoke, Flux has built out its platform with a variety of tools for design planning, parts searching, netlist generation, design review, firmware coding and testing and debugging, to name a few.   We discuss * AI-powered PCB design challenges * Language prompting capabilities  * Democratization of product design, and * Technical specifications and platform limits.