As I’ve mentioned a few times, I tend to have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with technology. While I love new toys, I’m always leery at first. I waited years to get a digital camera, didn’t get a cell phone until my car broke down and left me stranded enough times, and I didn’t get an iPod until Christmas ’05.
by Stephanie J.Church | November 11, 2008 | Comments (0)
Today I ran across an interesting news release from iSuppli Corp. Apparently, in 2009, more than half (58 percent) of all cars sold in the U.S. will support iPods. This compares to just 39 percent of U.S. vehicle models that are iPod compatible in 2008. A recent iSuppli survey of 2009 model year vehicles proves that automakers are placing greater emphasis than ever before on technology features.
by Stephanie J.Church | October 14, 2008 | Comments (3)
If you know me at all, you know I’m not likely to call you. I’m going to email you, perhaps even send you a text message. I also work from home, so while many of you “know” me, you probably don’t see me often, if we’ve even met face to face. This usually works fine, given the nature of the industry and what I do (isn’t it my personal duty to support the electronics industry at all costs? Hello, new toys for me!).
by Stephanie J.Church | September 25, 2008 | Comments (0)
I’m a Google girl. I heart Google. I still vividly
remember my first day of my first real job, sitting down in my new cube, and my
new cubemate saying, “You should check out this new Google thing.” And since
that very day, I’ve never once gone back.
by Stephanie J.Church | September 4, 2008 | Comments (2)
In CircuiTree’s August issue, several of our regular
columnists tackled the topic of photovoltaics. In his Fein-Lines column, Dan
Feinberg wondered if photovoltaics is perhaps the best opportunity since plated
through-hole, catching the eye of one of our readers in Poland.
by Stephanie J.Church | August 28, 2008 | Comments (2)
The wafer thinning process and subsequent backside processing require wafer support systems, typically a support or carrier wafer that is attached to the device wafer by a temporary adhesive. The material requirements for such a support system are daunting. It is hard to imagine that there are solutions that meet all needs, although some systems such as the Brewer Science/EVG system and 3M’s approach have made inroads.
PCBs are the backbone of most electronic equipment, and printed circuit board manufacturing has unfortunately become the poster child for low-cost country outsourcing. Looking at historical data over the last 20 years provides some interesting perspectives on the printed circuit board manufacturing industry.
by SteveWilliams | November 13, 2008 | Comments (2)
I, like many, spent the better part of Tuesday evening watching the election returns come in (don’t run away—this is not a political rant, I promise!). I remember the first time I voted—I won’t say who was running at the time but it’s safe to assume it was some time ago. I entered the poling booth, closed the curtain, and picked up a stylus pen to “punch” my vote (no, I was not living in Florida). Fast forward a “few” years and I am standing at a table feeding my ballot into a scanner that immediately recorded my vote, tallied it on the LCD display, and sent it over the phone line to the State Election Office to be duly counted.
by MarkVerbrugge | November 6, 2008 | Comments (0)
When most flex circuits are in the design stage, there is usually a behind-the-scenes arm wrestling match going on between the mechanical folks and the electrical folks. And all too often only one of them will get their way. From my perspective, I have found that the electrical folks tend to get their way a lot more often than the mechanical folks.
Signal loss along transmission lines has become increasingly troublesome as frequencies increase to achieve higher bandwidth. A common measure of such loss is the attenuation per line length unit (e.g., dB [decibel]) per inch. As it turns out, minimizing loss comes at a cost. To understand this, we need to take a look at the sources of loss.
Is it just me, or is anyone else totally ticked off at footing the bill for the government’s USD 700 billion bailout of Wall Street? Adding insult to injury, this gift comes on the heels of the USD 85 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG that the government granted a month earlier. A reasonable person would not only expect, but demand, accountability at the top of these organizations, but sadly that does not appear to be the case.
by SteveWilliams | October 16, 2008 | Comments (1)
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