Epec's Blog | Electronics Manufacturing Solutions

Miniaturization in electronics drives the need for both component and printed circuit board designers to work within ever-shrinking footprints in order to remain competitive. The signal routing requirements for many ball grid array (BGA) components are such that through hole via drilling is becoming less and less practical. This makes it necessary in many instances to use blind vias to form interconnections between layer pairs.

In 2017 it is very rare to find someone whose job isn’t impacted by the Chinese New Year (CNY). Over the course of the last 15 years, the CNY has changed. It was once a complete 2-3 week blackout shutdown, no contact with anyone. It has since evolved into a 2-3 day no-contact window with a 5-10 day manufacturing shutdown.

When designing and manufacturing passive broadband high frequency cascaded LC filters (inductor and capacitor), a lot of undesirable component interactions can occur if not properly managed. The goal is to minimize the difference between an RF microwave filter design constructed with ideal components and one using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and custom manufactured components.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) continue to shrink. As each generation of miniaturized components comes along, board designers find themselves able to work within ever-smaller PCB footprint sizes. While this is great news for consumers (compare the size of a 1994 portable phone to one of today’s models) it presents difficulties for fabricators.

Over the last 25 years, the evolution of touch screen technologies has brought sweeping changes to how society uses human-machine interface (HMI) products. Originally touch screens were small, monochrome, and required a stylus and single touchpoint to operate.

Even though the last financial crisis was over 8 years ago, most engineering departments at electronic OEMs have never fully staffed back to the levels that they were before the economic disaster. That means that there are many engineers doing two or more jobs, all while their senior management still insists on meeting tight timelines with limited budgets.

How do you ensure that your manufacturing talent is an asset to your business? Consider a typical manufacturing organization. Qualifications for many entry–level shop floor positions are modest. New hires range from novice all the way to seasoned manufacturing professionals with specialized skills.

Sometimes it is an employer’s market and at other times, there is a scarcity of suitable job talent. In this ever changing environment, how do we keep the most ambitious, hardworking, and engaged workers?

Manufacturing complete human-machine interface (HMI) assemblies can be a complex and difficult journey, which is especially true if it involves more than one supplier. This blog post mentions a few of the great advantages of being able to work with a single full service HMI supplier.

Within industries like electronics manufacturing, suppler self-surveys are very popular. At any given moment here at Epec, we are processing five or so supplier surveys. We send them out ourselves. I have dealt with supplier surveys, one way or another, for the last twenty something years. But, what purpose do they serve, and more importantly, what value do they provide to your organization?

As printed circuit board (PCB) designs have increased in complexity, they have both decreased in size and increased in density. Physical changed to circuit boards have forced PCB designers and manufacturers to develop new PCB layout strategies aimed at making full use of all available surface area.