Hi Joe,
We've known each other for quite a few years and you know I hold you in high
regard and appreciate your "very out of the box" thinking and your
contributions to the industry. You also know that I have a very open mind to new
technologies and processes.
I've also known Dr. Ron Lasky for many years and consider him a close friend
and valued colleague. Dr. Ron is a very open-minded and objective thinker.
While he does have a consulting affiliation with a solder company, he is an
independent thinker and beholden to no one. He does not "sell solder" nor
does he have any vested interest in any solder or materials company. He is
foremost, among other things, an accomplished and popular professor at Dartmouth.
Anyone who has ever met Dr. Ron and engaged him in conversation soon realize
that he is an incredible "thinker".
I personally believe that some of the "downsides" of the Occam process Dr.
Ron has presented are quite legitimate. They are worthy of consideration and
discussion and should not be dismissed as something akin to "conflict of
interest".
It would be in the best interests of everyone, Joe, if you address the
issues Dr. Ron has raised and, perhaps engage him in debate rather than dismiss
him in a way I really don't think you meant to.
Sincerely,
Phil Zarrow
ITM Consulting
Durham, NH USA
_www.ITMconsulting.org_ (http://www.ITMconsulting.org)
In a message dated 2/17/2008 5:08:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Hello Robert,
I trust all is well with you in the great Pacific Northwest. It has been a
while since we've crossed paths.
Thanks for taking time to pose your questions. I'd like to share my
thoughts
with you on the subject.
First, I personally don't think there is any such thing as a panacea. Nor
must the Occam process be a panacea to be considered a success, it must
simply
fill a particular need successfully.
That aside, over time there have always come along some new technologies
that had some advantage in some areas over some incumbent technology or
process
solution. But in the present situation, solder is not going to go away
immediately because of Occam. There is simply too much invested in
equipment and
people will want to take advantage both of what they have and what they
know.
As one bit of supporting evidence, I would note that you can still buy DIPs
even though they are clearly cannot match the size, performance or
manufactured
cost benefits of SMT parts.
As for Dr. Ron Lasky's "less than all embracing" attitude, he is selling
solder technology for a living and is not likely to be supportive of any
assembly method or process that proposes to obviates solder's use. Dr.
Ron's "meet
the enemy at the gate and attack the threat" approach is thus easy to
understand (though his problem statements are a bit off track in my humble
opinion).
Sierra Proto is not as easy to explain since they have been talking about
researching the embedment of resistors and using plating for
interconnections.
No worries, in either case, technologies evolve at their own pace and there
are those who choose to risk and drive evolution and those who choose to
play
safe and follow. It is normal. Then again, if some folks in this industry
did not risk developing soldering equipment many years ago, we would still
be
twisting wires together, so "hats off" to those who chose to drive that
early
change from which we have all so greatly benefited. Another good thing, at
least in this industry, there is room for everyone at the table even those
who
question the need to change.
Back to your comments... You might have read last week that Georgia Tech
has
just announced its own efforts to eliminate solder but that is just the
latest. There is a growing number of house hold name companies around the
globe
that have nascent efforts underway to examine the potential of solderless
assembly of their products especially in high reliability applications. For
example a company in Brazil has built and in building assemblies for
evaluation
for a customer greatly concerned about all of the problems of lead-free
that
continue to be discussed on a daily basis in this forum.
Of course, the proof will be "in the pudding" as the saying goes. and to
answer the question daisy chain assemblies will be run side by side with
lead-free assemblies. Which ones will fail first? That will be seen and you
might
have your own predictions but to be honest with you, I have never seen
anyone
shake, mechanically shock or thermal cycle the circuits traces off of a PCB
and industry experience with over square aspect ratio plated copper vias
has
been very good.
Ultimately, it is about have some small measure of willingness to embrace a
little change and as the editor of one Japanese technical magazine said to
his readers in an article he wrote about the Occam process late last year:
"When evolution happens, always there is resistance". Fortunately, he was
someone
whom it appears is in favor of change and evolution or he would not have
written the article.
I look forward to showing you some of the demonstration assemblies that
have
been already built the next time we meet. I'll buy the beer... :-)
Very best,
Joe
In a message dated 2/17/2008 8:05:26 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
I have been reading about the OCCAM process and the rebuttal of people like
Dr. Ron Lasky and companies like Seirra Protr Express. Does anyone have an
opinion regarding the process and what are its chances of being the panacea
for eliminating the lead free process?
Robert Hanson
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