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.
Today, March 27, is the first anniversary of U.S. President Joe Biden’s “presidential determination” (PD) on printed circuit boards (PCBs), advanced packaging, and IC substrates – a milestone action by the U.S. government that has paved the way to U.S. government investments in these technologies under Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA).
The Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing Systems (ICAMS) at Auburn University is again conducting a study on behalf of the Department of Defense to understand the issues and hurdles manufacturers face when adopting smart manufacturing technologies. That information then helps inform development of solutions to overcome those challenges and help manufacturers become more successful. You can read last year’s results here: Smart-Manufacturing-Study.pdf (auburn.edu).
Today, IPC delivered a letter to Congress signed by 49 industry executives urging them to sustain current investments in the electronics industrial base or risk putting the United States even further behind the global competition.
The European Commission takes a closer look at EMS and PCB sectors.
Meijing Liu, CID+, is a senior PCB designer for Microart Services, an EMS company in Markham, Ontario, Canada. She recently took a six-week milaero PCB design class from IPC’s Kris Moyer, and she was surprised at how much content she was able to absorb in such a short time. I spoke with Meijing and we discussed some of her takeaways from the class, and how it has inspired her to pursue more design education in the future.
IPC, the Consumer Technology Association™ (CTA) and Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) filed a joint comment to the Environmental Protection Agency reinstating the importance of an articles exemption to proposed Significant New Use Rules (SNUR) on three flame retardants, TCEP, TBBPA, and TPP.
In short, 2023 has been a very interesting year for the electronics industry in the halls of government. So far this year, we have witnessed many policy developments that IPC and its members and allies have been advocating for years.
IPC and Continental Automotive’s HERMES Day Successfully Held at Continental Jingyue Branch in China
To help the industry better address the challenges of Industry 4.0 and transition towards digital intelligent manufacturing, IPC, in collaboration with Continental Automotive China SMT Club and Continental Automotive Electronics (Changchun) Co., Ltd. Jingyue Branch, successfully held HERMES Day at the Jingyue Factory on August 16.
IPC is advocating for a 13.5-year minimum transition period to the European Chemical Agency’s (ECHA) proposed restriction on all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The ECHA proposal was put forward by five Member States in the European Union (EU) and would ban manufacture, market placement, and use of all PFAS.