Is North America falling behind the rest of the world in HDI technology development? Not if Dan Smith can help it. "The New Mr. HDI" is putting together the first IPC HDI certification course and exam. We caught up with him and discussed the HDI course, what it takes to be an instructor and Happy Holden's 400-gig "data dump."

Flexible circuit cables offer some significant advantages for facilitating the movement of data between elements of a system that must also be moved or flexed. However, there is a balancing act involved and there is more than one master to be served to create a system that is robust, reliable and easily manufacturable.

Casey Cooper, Microelectronics Lab Manager at STI, talks about the company's various educational, training and technology offerings and provides an overview of the company's newly-developed and tested embedded die assembly. The new assembly is being evaluated by some military product developers for high-reliability applications.

Interconnect separation is usually expressed as a crack that propagates at the internal interconnection. This failure mode produces a crack that is wedge-shaped, with the large end on the side of the foil closest to the middle of the PWB. An interconnect failure frequently develops slowly over time, accumulating damage at a constant rate after onset.

Developers of mil/aero and other high-rel applications depend on solid failure analysis. Paul Reid discusses how thermal cycling will cause a robust plated through-hole to crack slowly over time. Plotting a resistance graph of damage accumulation allows technologists to determine onset, rate of accumulation and whether the damage is accelerating linearly or exponentially.

This paper examines the thermal properties of various halogen-free laminates used in handheld electronic products and correlates these properties with manufacturing requirements. Thermal properties investigated include z-axis CTE, time to delamination at 260°C and 288°C and temperature to decomposition.

Lou De Rose asks: With so many notions of value, how do we avoid the danger of oversimplifying its attributes, even its reality? How do we reduce the risk of acting on the assumption that decisions will have desired outcomes, when in fact they're invitations to disaster?

In this paper, the authors report novel printable materials with the potential to surpass conventional materials to produce fine structures compatible with organic substrates. Specifically, the electronic applications of printable materials are discussed, such as adhesives, inter-layer dielectrics, embedded passives and circuits.

According to Mark Thompson, timing can make or break your controlled impedance board. With many jobs going through turnkey environments, late communication about impedance issues takes valuable time out of the fabrication process and can delay delivery of product, leaving the end-user and the turnkey assembler unhappy.

There's a chance that International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) and other regulations that dictate how North American companies handle controlled products will undergo dramatic alterations in the next few years.