Auto electronics industry still booming and poised for huge growth

The global market for automotive electronics is set to rise to $240 billion by the year 2020, up more than 50% from $157 million in 2010, driven to new levels of prominence by government and automaker safety initiatives, according to a new report entitled, “The World Market for Automotive OEM Electronic Systems.”

A bevy of electronics-based options are driving new car decisions, according to the report. World production of automotive electronics will grow 8.4% this year, up from a 6.8% gain in 2013, says Henderson Ventures in its monthly report.

“Car makers have hit the technological accelerator,” writes Ed Henderson, president of Henderson Ventures. The research firm predicts the market will expand 7.7% and 7.5%, respectively, in 2015 and 2016, when the market will exceed $200 billion.

The sophistication of electronics-based additions has been kicked up a gear with high-tech apps such as adaptive cruise control, collision mitigating systems and automated parking, among others,” Henderson said. “Despite the fact that many of the features are used only occasionally, manufacturers have found that the technological smorgasbord available to potential customers helps to move cars and accelerate profitability.

The US market will see growth of 6.4% and 5.8%, respectively, in 2014 and 2015, down from 9.6% in 2013. Western Europe will rebound from two straight years of losses to post gains of 2% and 2.9%, respectively, in 2014 and 2015.

China and Japan will see the most robust gains. Japan will grow 9.1% and 8.1%, respectively, while China will be up 11.8% and 10.9%.

Inside Coin’s techie vision for the all-in-one credit card

In a compact San Francisco office suite equipped with soldering stations and swipe-testing machines, Coin’s team of seven has been working furiously to perfect the final prototype of an unlimited credit card. No, not one that will let you charge with abandon. Rather, a device as slim as a standard piece of payment plastic that can hold countless credit, debit, and gift cards in its dynamic magnetic stripe.

Kanishk Parashar, the CEO and founder of the Y Combinator-backed startup, embodies the effort-worn entrepreneur. “I got to work out today,” he said, eyeing the limited set of weights in the waterfront suite’s back room, a combination of a hangout and meeting room space adorned with a gigantic television and a beat-up original NES.

It was why he admitted to feeling a bit winded. Running a hardware startup means he doesn’t get much time for anything else. Yet he’s more animated as he glances over to a table lined with what look like flattened Raspberry Pi’s grafted to multicolored business cards.

“I built prototypes like this by hand,” Parashar said, holding out Coin’s first iteration. “It actually works. I was able to pay with this at restaurants.”

DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURABILITY
How to Prevent Tombstoning

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. – Now you may say that this is an “assembly issue????” But not so fast. Yes it is true that assembly materials including solder paste and stencil design, improper profiling or even inaccuracy of the pick and place machine accuracy may cause tombstoning but the PCB layout may be a cause as well. Possible culprits include the following:

• The lack or imbalance of thermal relief’s
• Incorrect land patterns – when in doubt use the IPC standard guidelines

To control the effect as a designer, you have to look after symmetric soldering process on both sides of the component. Make sure there are symmetric pads in your design. This can easily be checked via automatic scripting.

Finally, look to problems in the manufacturing of your PCB’s for potential causes. The thickness of a soldermask is critical. Make sure the mask is below the level of the lands.

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BESTProto has been retooling our look. The outside of our building now has some attractive signage identifying our business location right on the Route 53 corridor. Secondly, we now have a capabiliti

With the kids now back in school I am reminded that we too are constantly learning.

In this newsletter we learn a few more tips on cleaning no clean flux chemistries. BESTProto uses a water soluable flux as its standard processing chemisry, however other chemstires such as no-clean flux system can be specified.

In this edition we discuss the capabilities of BESTProto with respect to hand soldering. If you have specialty electronics assembly requirements then BESTProto is your source.

When there are specialty build items such as odd form factor parts or sub-assemblies or when there are low volume builds where precision hand soldering needs to take place think of BESTProto. When there are assemblies that require soldering or do not lend themselves to machine placement think of BESTProto.
Our assemblers are highly trained who have many years of hand soldering experience and who take pride in their workmanship.

In this edition we discuss the idea of reverse engineering electronic designs. There may be cases where that older product that you have not built (or the company that was acquired had nor built) in some time needs to be built again.There may be other cases where the manufacturer is no longer supporting new sales of a replacement PCB yet you need to keep the equipment maintained. In such cases BESTProto can reverse engineer the product and deliver a BOM, a Gerber , a schematic and even finished assemblies as part of its services. Call us today @ (847) 797-9250 and ask for Laura Ripoli if you are interested in this service.

To kick off 2009 we will be hosting an event that will help you build your prototypes faster in the coming year. Hear from 6 different specific subject matter experts in each of their own areas of the design process. The seminar will be held Friday, March 6th.

The format of the seminar and the quality of the speakers will allow you to gain several knowledge “nuggets” during the day. Bring the tough problems in the prototyping process either before the SMEs 1-on-1 or before the whole group during the roundtable discussion. In addition you may want to exchange ideas on vendors, various aspects of your processes with others in the other to see what works and what doesn’t. Use this opportunity to to expand your knoweldge on various aspects of the prototyping process. A full brochure on the seminar can be found here.