These are my rants, sadly, a growing list. I’m unhappy that:

• Opening day of Major League Baseball [MLB] is no longer always played in Cincinnati.
• Baseball games take too long to play. Pitchers prance around on the mount scratching and adjusting themselves. Batters prance around home plate scratching and adjusting themselves. Here’s my solution:
  ** Pitcher steps-off the pitching rubber: Umpire calls a ball.
  ** Batter leaves the batter’s box: Umpire calls a strike.

• 2002 All-Star Game, held in Milwaukee, ended when both teams ran out of players available to pitch. At that point, Commissioner Bud Selig declared that the game complete after 11 innings and ended it in a 7-7 tie.
  ** Crowd booed and threw beer bottles onto the field.
  ** Media was highly critical of what they thought was an unsatisfactory conclusion.
  MLB decided that the outcome of the All-Star Game needs to be, meaningful,’ which is stupid. The All-Star Game is an exhibition game. It’s for fun. Oops, I forgot Las Vegas bookies take bets on the All-Star Game. As Roseanne Roseanna Dana said, “Never Mind.”

• MLB decided to transfer the Houston Astros to the American League West late in 2012. This resulted in an odd number of teams in each league. So now, interleague play will occur from the beginning to the end of the season. This:
  ** Affects division races at the end of the year, because the schedule between teams in a division is unbalanced.
  ** Requires that American League pitchers take more batting practice, because interleague games will occur more often, rather than in predicable patterns, like in the past.

• New management of the Houston Astros changed the logo on the players’ hats. Now on the other hand, I don’t care that the Baltimore Orioles went back to that stupid cartoon oriole as their logo, because I was never wild about the ornithologically correct logo that it replaced.
• In the MLB American League, there is no direct way for pitchers to receive retribution after hitting a player from the opposing team with a pitched ball. Except once. In retaliation for being hit with a pitch, Torii Hunter, while with the Minnesota Twins, threw a baseball at and hit Cleveland Indians pitcher Danys Baez in the fifth inning on July 17, 2002 in Cleveland. [Dog bites man. Man bites back – harder]. The umpire ejected Hunter from the game. Later, the league suspended him for 3 games.
• On Thanksgiving Day, Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys no longer play each other.
• National Football League [NFL] games have so many commercial interruptions that games are unwatchable.
• When I was a kid, everyone from New York and New England rooted for the New York Giants. It’s too bad the Patriots have spoiled things.
• Officials do not call ‘traveling’ on players in National Basketball Association [NBA] games as often as they should.
• In the 2013-2014 season, the Blackhawks and Red Wings will no longer play each other in the regular season. Since they first met November 24, 1926, the Blackhawks and Red Wings, two of the ‘Original Six’ franchises of the National Hockey League, have had one of the most intense rivalries in the NHL. Though realignment, the Red Wings will move to the Eastern Conference. Their April 12, 2013 meeting at United Center was their last regular-season game as conference rivals.
• People, both young and old, leave their carts next to other people’s cars in the parking lot at supermarkets [and other stores], rather than return the cart to the cart pen or the store.
• Justin Bieber would win without ‘alternative music.’ And I’m not wild about Taylor Swift, either.
• The cover on the $86 softbound textbook for my CGS2820 course rolls-up on itself like an armadillo protecting itself from attack, ruining the resale value of the book and generally being irritating to use.
• People, while driving their car in left or right outer lane, apply their brakes and immediately drive across traffic to get in the opposite outside lane. Presumably, they’re surprised that the turn that they need to make is in the opposite direction from what they had been expecting throughout the earlier portion of their drive.
• People that replace toilet paper on the roller so that the tab of available paper falls behind the roll, rather than the front. On the other hand, I should stop complaining and be pleased that they’re replacing the paper.

Last week we reviewed the fact that increased visibility is an important reason to add your content to SMTnet.  We reviewed a company that had the top 4 results on Google because 2 of those results were the content that was added to SMTnet.  You can read last week’s internet marketing article here.

This week I hope to further the explanation of the value your company gets by putting content on SMTnet.   In addition to increased visibility for your company by getting more links on the search engine result page, you also get better visibility by putting your content on SMTnet.

What do I mean by better visibility?  Having your content on SMTnet and linking to your site brings RELEVANCE to your website.  Search engines like to group things into categories and when you link from a relevant page to your content, your page can get a boost in rankings.   For instance, the SMTnet targeted ads that link to your site appear on a page that is relevant to your products or services.  If you would like to see an example, visit SMTnet.com and do a search for a ‘reflow oven’.   You should then be able to notice that there is an ad for Heller Industries on that page.   If you click the advertisement, you will see the resulting page is about ‘reflow ovens’.    Search engines like it when the links to your site are from pages about similar content.

Co-Occurrence is the name being used for this and Google now has a patent for it:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,321,409.PN.&OS=PN/8,321,409&RS=PN/8,321,409″

“Co-occurrence can help pages rank for terms which are not found in the title tag, anchor text or even in the page content. This happens when high authority pages describe your site and Google identifies word relationships that convince the algorithm that the description is more accurate than what is found in the site itself. This mentioning can be with or without links pointing to your site,” according to Marketing TechBlog.   Read more at: http://www.marketingtechblog.com/google-co-occurrence/#ixzz2RzfdQhwM

Published: March 14, 2013 New York Times

Physicists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said Thursday that the new particle discovered with enormous fanfare last summer definitely looks like a Higgs boson, the particle famously predicted by Peter Higgs and others to imbue elementary particles with mass. But they said they still needed more data to understand how it works and what it means for the universe.

How two armies of scientists closed in on physics’ most elusive particle.

• Video: Collision Course
• Timeline: Higgs, From Theory to Reality

“The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent,” Joe Incandela, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and leader of one of the discovery teams, said in a statement released by CERN. “To me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is.”

After rummaging through the data from some 2,000 trillion collisions of subatomic particles in the Large Hadron Collider — more than twice as much data as led to the original discovery — physicists meeting at a workshop in La Thuile, Italy, said that they still did not know if there was only one Higgs boson, as predicted by the Standard Model, the reigning theory in physics, or if the new particle was only the lightest of a whole set of Higgs bosons, a circumstance envisioned by some more advanced and speculative theories.

The verdict will hinge on more detailed measurements of the particle’s properties, like its spin and how it decays relative to other particles. The Higgs boson is supposed to have no spin at all; it is the knuckleball of the subatomic world.

CERN’s collider, just outside Geneva, is now down for two years of repairs, but its teams have stockpiled their unanalyzed data, and look forward to the prospect of more years of high-energy collisions starting in 2015.

5-21f Ball Grid Array Task Group is responsible for the maintenance and further development of IPC-7095, Design and Assembly Process Implementation for BGAs. This document covers the characteristics for all elements of developing a cohesive product that uses BGA packages as components in the electronic assembly. In addition, there are recommendations for void acceptability and defect analysis.

DESCRIPTION of IPC-7095

Implementing ball grid array (BGA) and fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA) technology presents some unique challenges for design, assembly, inspection and repair personnel. IPC-7095C delivers useful and practical information to anyone currently using BGAs or FBGAs. Many issues have become especially important due to the change in the alloys of the ball, the ball shape, and the attachment procedures. The major emphasis of Revision C is to provide information on some of the new mechanical failure issues such as cratering or laminate defects caused after assembly.

In addition to providing guidelines for BGA inspection and repair, IPC-7095C addresses reliability issues and the use of lead-free joint criteria associated with BGAs. There are many photographs of X-ray and endoscope illustrations to identify some of the conditions that the industry is experiencing in the implementation of BGA assembly processes. 165 pages. Released January 2013.

On the first note, BOOTH BABES … First, introductory discussion of booth babes is here IPC APEX 2012 – Booth Babes & SWAG. Nothings changed.

Next, I’m not treading lightly this year. I got called out last year for not making an award in this category. So here ya go …

TOP, NUMBER UNO BOOTH BABES: MIRTEC, Corp.

This is not just my opinion. I have whole hearted agreement from better sources than some goofy engineer … Women always know the location of booth babes. My backup opinion in this was two non-booth babes [Kristy and Francesca at MWA]. They were at the show and saw the whole kit and caboodle, so to speak.

NEXT ON TO SWAG …

BEST SWAG: STI Electronics for Ellen’s [Dave Raby's mom] chocolate chip cookies.

FIRST RUNNER-UP BEST SWAG: JUKI Automation Systems for star with blinky LEDs.

The folks at the JUKI booth were so distraught at the news of their first runner-up in the SWAG category that they could only be consoled by my giving them some of Dave Raby’s Mom Ellen’s cookies.

RUNNER-UP BEST SWAG: Seica Inc for luggage tags with a sewing kit installed.

davef GOOD CITIZENSHIP AWARD: Seica Inc. for travel tubes of antibac hand lotion. This is the second time Seica has won an award in this category.

ODB++ Solutions Alliance – First Anniversary Celebration

Launched one year ago, under “new stewardship”:

• 3500 members, increasing day by day.   -   Designers, Fabricators, Assembly Engineers
• 27 Solutions Development Partners, more in the pipeline.
• English, Chinese, Japanese.

The last 15 years:

• Introduced to PCB designers in 1997
• Some major manufacturers get 80% ODB++.
• Some manufacturers get 5% ODB++.   -   The main challenge: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (“FUD”) among designers.

The latest news:

• Version-8 just announced
• More intelligence, enables higher levels of automation.
• Evolution, not revolution!

ODB++ Solutions Alliance Resources

From a presentation by Julian Coates, ODB++ Solutions Alliance Director at IPC APEX 2013

#ipcshow have tools, materls & process for ppl, handling side of ESD. Machine ESD damage not talked about. P&P at 400V, AOI at -200V. davef

#ipcshow HeadInPillow: ramp not soak, NC not OA, square not round, SMD not NSMD, large particle size powder, limit TAL, more paste. davef

#ipcshow inspecting for HeadInPillow, CT works who has the time or $? All AXI are similar [don't work] but some can be tuned to work. davef

#ipcshow reworking PTH use SN100C, not SAC; crank-up preheat; convective heat not minipot. davef

#ipcshow New Panasonic AM100 [single-head, single-beam, high-mix] placement machine and SPG screen printer with hybrid squeegee head. davef

#ipcshow IPC-7095C [BGA Design & Assy Process Implemtatn] is new, updated for mechanical factors. Nice document. davef

#ipcshow ODB++ after hours event was THE best event of the show. Good food & drink. Short presentation. Tks Julian

#ipcshow out after hours w/ 11 equipment sales-types, only 1 looking forward to the 2014 show being in Las Vegas. Add me to that list. davef

#ipcshow IPC did a good job organizing the show. davef

#ipcshow on opening day, visitors crashed the exhibit center doors like flat screen TV buyers outside of Walmart on Black Friday. davef

#ipcshow Panasonic tied its press kit on a flash drive to a Starbucks card with a blue ribbon. davef

#ipcshow Parmi showed its paste AOI system that should be considered along with Koh Young. Softer software. davef

#ipcshow While demoing FVX, Manncorp had ppl stacked like cord wood in the aisle waiting for their turn to see the benchtop placer. davef

#ipcshow SMTnet booth has new look with professional retractable vertical banner displays. Very nice. [no biased reporting here] davef

#ipcshow Our friend Tetsuro Nishimura at Nihon Superior received a NPI award for SN100C P810 D4 No-Clean Lead-Free Solder Paste. davef

#ipcshow Nihon Superior introduced a die bonding nano-paste [Alconano] for low temp attach of power modules, LEDs & solar panels. davef

#ipcshow WESecure IP recycles assembled printed circuit boards. davef

#ipcshow So far, ‘nano’ in stencils is either anti-flux, flux repellent [DEK] or anti-adhesion [LaserJob & FCTA]. davef

#ipcshow ‘nano’SomeProduct will be torturing us for years trying to determine what it does. So far, nano solder paste and stencils. davef

#ipcshow AmeriVac has vacuum bag sealers starting at $3k. davef

#ipcshow Philbro does metal recycling. davef

#ipcshow equipment resellers’ image & acceptance changed. from ‘dark underbelly’ to acceptable. They’ve improved.Times have changed. davef

#ipcshow Ingun the ATE test pin manufacturer is opening an office in USA. They sell a matt that can be used to clean probes. davef

#ipcshow EOS see Intel paper: Manufacturing Enabling Guide. davef

#ipcshow EOS is completely different than ESD. It is periodic noise carried by power lines and can destroy electronic components. davef

#ipcshow thermal pads [not that again] of 50%, 60% and 80%, less paste results in fewer voids. davef

#ipcshow someone or other wrote a paper outlining issues that can be caused by using braid for site dressing. davef

#ipcshow 01005 can be reworked, but it is painful. If you need to reposit paste, walk away. It’s not worth the pain. davef

#ipcshow large IO CGA fail on board side, no package side. davef

#ipcshow get the Kyzen white paper on cleaning coated stencils. davef

#ipcshow Hisco’s computer controlled frig for managing solder paste inventory … way more sophisticated than that old white frig. davef

#ipcshow DMI International titanium wave stiffeners. davef

#ipcshow Ascentec titanium wave stiffeners. davef

#ipcshow CountOnTools has new support tool for stencil printing with stiffer support pins to better bear the pressure of printing. davef

#ipcshow World Equipment Source has a very cool board cycling process. It seems to be very well controlled. davef

#ipcshow in the past 6 months, silver has increased 13%. Pure tin costs $30 per Kg less than SAC. davef

#ipcshow coated stencil: Dek Acculon, Siemens LaserJob and FCTA Nanoslic. Cleaning solution off of neutral will attack the coating. davef

#ipcshow Centers for electronic manufacture in China are ChongQing,, Shanghai and Shenzhen

#ipcshow OEM bringing board fab in-house from CEM. Want more control

Learn about and report on new product introductions. There are 250+ new products being introduced. I’ve gotten invites to the breakfast sessions where equipment companies pitch their products to the press. I probably won’t be a be able to stand doing all 250+, but I’ll give it a shot.

Tour exhibit booths to find neat stories about companies’ products. I want to report back my findings by doing something like I did while at SMTAI, only better. There are over 400 booths and untold thousands of products. I’ve got good shoes. So, bunion look out.

Attend technical sessions on:
* Rework/Repair I
* Rework/Repair II
* PCB Materials and Solderability
* Printing I
* Printing II

Participate in a IPC Standards Meeting on bottom terminated components.

Meet with the equipment types on that list to develop contacts that might be able to help us sort through some of the issues that limit output on our production lines. I’ve got a list of threads from 2012 that had no response that will be my starting point.

Follow-up with KIC about a blog article on thermal profiling.

Catch-up with friends and acquaintances while holding a cold, frosty adult beverage in my hand … after hours of course.

If there’s anything that I can do for you, let me know. BR, davef

• AIR-VAC Engineering
• Apex FA/Mirae Corporation
• ASC International, Inc.
• Ash Technologies Ltd.
• ASM Assembly Systems
• A-Tek Systems Group
• atg-LM
• Blackfox Training Institute, LLC
• Chromaline Screen Print Products
• Cincinnati Sub-Zero
• Conductive Compounds Inc.
• Count on Tools
• DEK International
• Digicom Electronics, Inc.
• ECD
• ELANTAS PDG, Inc.
• Exatron
• FEASA
• FocalSpot, Inc.
• Fuji America Corporation
• FUJIFILM Dimatix, Inc.
• GOEPEL Electronics
• Ingun USA, Inc.
• Insulectro
• Ito America Corporation
• JOT Automation
• MIRTEC Corp.
• Nihon Superior Co., Ltd.
• Nordson ASYMTEK
• OK International
• Pillarhouse USA, Inc.
• PDR
• RS Simmons Co., LLC
• Siemens PLM Software
• SmtXtra
• Sono-Tek Corporation
• Speedline Technologies, Inc.
• ViTrox Technologies

A cool, new addition to this year’s show floor is the “New Product Corridor” where exhibitors show off new equipment, materials and services for electronics assembly, test and printed board industries … BR, davef

Steel-cuts oats are easily a 45-minute endeavor.  We’re not early risers and therefore don’t have the luxury to spend 45 minutes on a weekday morning making breakfast.

So we’ve relegated steel-cut oats to the weekends.

No longer!

This ingenious recipe for overnight oatmeal makes cooking steel-cut oats a cinch.  The previous night you boil water, stir in the oatmeal, let boil for 1-minute, turn off the heat and cover.   The next morning, you turn the heat back on and let it boil for 10 minutes.  In our experience, it doesn’t even take that long: after 7 minutes the oatmeal is ready to eat.

Overnight Oatmeal with Almonds and Dried Cranberries

Food & Wine (December 2008)

(This photo: Food & Wine)

* TOTAL TIME: 15 MIN Plus Overnight Soaking
* SERVINGS: 6

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups steel-cut oats
6 cups water
1/4 cup chopped salted roasted almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Brown sugar or pure maple syrup, for serving

Directions
1. In a large saucepan, boil the oats in the water for 1 minute. Cover and let stand overnight at room temperature.
2. The next day, uncover the oats and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently, until the oatmeal is cooked and creamy but still a little bit chewy, about 10 minutes. Spoon the oatmeal into bowls. Top with the chopped almonds and dried cranberries and sweeten to taste with brown sugar or pure maple syrup.

Make Ahead

The prepared oatmeal can be refrigerated for up to 1 week. Rewarm in a microwave oven and thin with water if necessary before serving.