Explore the world of PCB Board Fabrication and discover the journey of design artwork once it’s dispatched to the board shop. This comprehensive webinar provides insights into the process, making it a valuable resource for Electrical Engineers, PCB Layout Professionals, Supply Chain personnel, and anyone interested in PCB Board Fabrication. In this webinar, we’ll cover:

- Design and layout
- Material selection
- Drilling, imaging, and etching processes
- Plating and finishing
- Solder Mask materials and application
- Silkscreening
- Cost Drivers

One of the most difficult and urgent challenges facing the electronics industry is a chronic shortage of adequately skilled workers. Today, IPC unveiled an expansion of its strategy to address the workforce challenges of the U.S. electronics manufacturing industry and called on its more than 3,000 member companies to join in the effort.

A group of industry experts will discuss the evidence of the root causes of creep corrosion, relevant testing, and effective mitigation strategies available to prevent creep corrosion failures in electronics. Fundamentally, creep corrosion is the product of the reaction of copper with sulfur, which may be mitigated with manufacturing processes, such as the printed circuit board solder mask and surface finish, conformal coating, and enclosure levels, as well as during end use operation, such as filtration. Several types of harsh environmental test methods that are used to evaluate for product susceptibility to creep corrosion will also be reviewed.

Panelists include:
• Randy Schueller, Ph.D., Dell, Director, Client Reliability & Durability
• Christopher Genthe, Rockwell Automation, Senior Principal Engineer
• Paul Leone, Rockwell Automation, Principal Engineer

In partnership with the Institute for American Apprenticeship (IAA), IPC is pleased to announce that there is funding available to reimburse and incentivize registering in our Apprenticeship program!

PCB Design Engineer apprenticeship program

I am proud to share that IPC’s Apprenticeship Program is growing! We have just added our third occupation to our National Standards of Apprenticeship – Printed Circuit Board Design Engineer.  

IPC has announced the expansion of its complimentary training offerings for IPC members with the introduction of a “Foreign Object Debris (FOD) for Electronics Manufacturing” course, now available in French, Spanish and German.

The Clean Electronics Production Network (CEPN) is seeking electronics brands and suppliers to participate in free in-person or virtual beta testing of chemical safety training for workers and management in electronics manufacturing facilities in Vietnam and Malaysia.

My colleague Happy Holden famously stated that only about 10% of design packages received by PCB fabricators are complete and accurate out of the gate. This means unnecessary time and cost are going into the other 90% of jobs. What it also means is that design success and product reliability are in jeopardy if these issues are not identified and addressed. 

Early engagement between a PCB fabricator and a PCB designer is essential to avoid common design issues that will impact the success of any PCB design. Getting the PCB fabricator's engineers together with the PCB designers to understand manufacturing capabilities and collaborate on the optimum design solution for a particular application is mission-critical to the success of the project. This webinar will cover: 
•    Customer service representatives are not engineers; why all technical questions cannot be addressed during the quoting stage.
•    What happens when the customer's netlist does not match the customer's Gerber/3d data.
•    Customer impedance requirements don't match the drawings/data. 
•    Picking the appropriate material set for a given design application.
•    Customized CAM adjustments for manufacturability. 
•    The impact of a PCB designer not understanding fabricator capabilities.
•    Unmanufacturable designs.
•    Inheriting designs from another PCB fabricator.
•    Overdesigning a project from a complexity and cost standpoint. 
•    Early and often engagement; it's all about time and cost.

IPC, the leading association for electronics manufacturing, and the Institute of American Apprenticeship (IAA) will offer two grant opportunities to companies offering apprenticeships.