16th Annual Fleck Connection Congress
Summarizes the pertinent issues and topics addressed
by the senior executives who were speakers at the FCC.
Please note that there are a few speeches that
we have been precluded from releasing at the speaker's request
as it is their company policy.
These presentations for download are being made available only
to attendees of the 2004 Fleck Connection Congress with the permission
of the respective contributing speaker. Please do not distribute
or share outside your company. Permission to post these presentations
must be requested in writing and may be subject to the policies
and copyrights of each contributing company.
Please click on the Presentation Title for Summary
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(Listed in Presentation Order.)
Summary
State of the Industry -- the Connector World
Fleck Research kicked off the day and a half of presentations
on an optimistic note, announcing that when the smoke clears
from
2004 activity, “this will be the best year since 2000,” although
company noted it’s been a “very mixed year.”
Worldwide shipments of connectors, cable assemblies, backplanes
and interconnect devices were up almost across the board, Fleck
Research said, the only downside being Mexico and Latin America,
which dropped by nearly 18%. Not surprisingly, China posted the
biggest
percentage increase of 16.2%, with Japan next at 10.7%.
Fleck Research displayed statistics from the computer, wireless,
military / aerospace, automotive, consumer electronics and commercial
aircraft sectors illustrating the advancements achieved in each.
The only negative was telecom. “It was a disaster,” company
said, adding, however, that the telecom slump “has reached
the bottom” with increased shipments in DSL and VoIP technology.
Among the negative factors of 2004 were price erosion totaling
4.3% and the shift to China of some $760 million in business
during the year, Fleck Research pointed out. For 2005, company
forecast increased industry shipments of 5% and a lower shift
to China
totaling
$610 million. 
Connectors With a Conscience
Molex’s Joe King stressed that change in the industry
is inevitable, but that “we must ensure that change is
positive.” He called for renewed consideration for employees,
customers, competitors, the community, the environment and company
shareholders.
“We must challenge ourselves and protect our employees,” King
declared, advocating what he termed “diverse and flexible
work forces.” He favored a 24-hour employee hotline, with
surveys conducted every 18 months to obtain employees’ feedback.
“Profitability is significantly sweeter if achieved with
integrity,” King concluded.
U.S. Wireless Update
John Powers, a senior-level executive in wireless telecommunications
for nearly 20 years and a familiar FCC speaker from years past,
has been involved with over 250 wireless system deployments.
He now is president and CEO of VelociTel.
“The growth in wireless is unbelievable,” Powers
declared, predicting that “2005 will be a watershed year” in
the industry. He described wireless as “a merger-impacted
industry, created in a window of opportunity.”
The industry demand has ballooned from 177 billion subscribers
worldwide in 1996 to some two trillion today,” Powers said,
and noted that continued double-digit growth is probable.
“Wireless opportunity is still huge,” he concluded,
noting that there remain a number of avenues into the industry,
provided we “continue to understand our customers’ business.”
Solving the High Speed Challenge
Benson Chan, an advisory engineer in the office of the chief
technology officer of Endicott Interconnect Technologies, updated
the attendees on packaging trends in today’s electronic
marketplace. Chan is a specialist in electronic packaging from
multi-chip laminate packages to server packaging.
Endicott, Chan pointed out, has over 40 years of experience
in the development and fabrication of leading edge technology.
The company is a global leading-edge supplier of chip packaging,
printed circuit boards and electronic assemblies, electro-mechanical
equipment and services, providing its customers with solutions
in the information technology, communications, instrumentation,
simulation, medical, aerospace/defense and automotive industries.
The challenges of the company, he said, include the reduction
of attenuation from a POR design while maintaining mechanical
restrictions. Parameters to be considered include trace attenuation
and via attenuation.
Chan also discussed the upcoming impact of nano materials in
the thermal, mechanical, electrical, optical and organic packaging
areas. Existing and developing research collaborations are ongoing
with IBM, General Electric, Albany Nanotech and the research
departments of a number of universities.
Radical Thoughts on the Board Markets
VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA) Executive Director
Ray Alderman delivered the liveliest presentation of the conference,
spicing his remarks on board market technology with observations
from individuals such as John Wayne (“Life is hard. It’s
even harder if you’re stupid”).
Alderman pointed out that, of the total board market of $3.9
billion, the VME segment occupies some $1.3 billion, of which
CompactPCI accounts for $250 million and Advanced TCA $120 million.
The veteran VITA executive also took his audience on an imaginary
tour of Area 51, a secret military facility about 90 miles north
of Las Vegas. The number refers to a six-by-10-mile block of
land, at the center of which is a large air base the government
will not discuss. The facility and surrounding areas are also
associated -- with varying levels of credibility -- with UFO
and conspiracy stories.
Alderman’s straight-talking presentation -- which blended
technical information with homespun humor -- drew an appreciative
response from the audience.
Adoption of Fiber Optics in the Military
Jay Betker, director of business development at ITT Cannon,
focused his presentation on photonics applications and growth
in the military market. He noted that worldwide fiber optic connector
sales to the military totaled $40.3 million in 2002 and are projected
to reach $114.9 million by 2007, an increase of 23.2%.
“The cost to performance ratio of rugged optical components
-- such as transceivers, splitters / couplers and tap monitors
-- has dropped significantly and is enabling the transition to
the future state,” Betker declared. “Interconnect
technology has not followed that path.”
The use of optical fiber solutions will continue to expand,
he predicted, due to the compounding impacts of weight reduction,
bandwidth consumption growth, EMI reduction, cost reduction and
power consumption reduction. Moreover, he added, today’s
interconnection systems do not deliver stable, low-loss optical
performance, are not singlemode compliant in general, are not
cost effective, are difficult to maintain and repair and are
manufactured from materials that require frequent failure diagnostics.
“The industry is just now beginning to understand the
magnitude of the problems and the poor fit between current interconnects
and future system demands,” Betker stated.
Low Loss Interconnection at 30 GHz
Dr. Roger Weiss -- founder of Paricon Technologies in 1997 in
anticipation of the need for very high density, high performance
electrical interconnection products -- updated the assemblage
on the advantages of Pariposer material.
These include, he said, a thin high-performance interposing
fabric with bandwidth greater than 50 GHz, a contact region that
conforms to the geometry of the application and a contact region
that matches the performance capability of the underlying design.
Paricon’s GigaCon connector, he noted, has a demonstrated
performance to 50 Gbps. It is an essentially transparent interconnect
to 40 Gbps, is easily reconfigured and contains bandwidth headroom
for all current and foreseeable future applications.
Prior to founding Paricon Technologies, Weiss spent three years
as vice president of engineering at Augat and reconstructed the
development process to reduce product development time from two
years to six months. This was preceded by 23 years at AT&T
Bell Labs, where he worked in many facets of interconnect technology.
He is the holder of 17 patents with 20 more pending.
PICMG -- Ten Years of Growth
Motorola’s Dick Somes, director of the company’s
Embedded Communication Computing Group, currently is secretary-treasurer
of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG). He
brought the FCC attendees up to date on the group’s first
10 years and the challenge ahead.
PICMG was organized in 1994 to promote PCI passive backplane
technology, and was incorporated the following year, Somes noted.
Membership currently stands at 86 affiliates, 244 associates
and 89 executive members.
Somes outlined the IPR challenge of serial interconnects, focusing
on the new PICMG IPR policy, which includes patent calls at all
meetings, submitted technology accompanied by disclosure and
membership review and adoption including all executive and associate
members.
“Commitment to RAND licensing of IPR is a condition of
PICMG membership,” Somes stressed. “This commitment
is affirmed every time a specification is balloted.”
Innovative Spring Contact Pins
Howard Weiner, senior vice president of Interconnect Devices,
is responsible for engineering, operations and quality for the
world’s largest manufacturer of spring contact probes and
assemblies (a million units per week).
His talk centered on the versatile technology of spring probes,
including their ultra-high reliability and robustness, ultra-low
contact resistance and ultra-high bandwidth. Spring probes, he
noted, encompass a wide range of customizable configurations.
Typical applications for spring probes, Weiner stated, are functional
in-circuit board test, semiconductor packaged device test, ATE
load board interface, battery contacts, docking port applications,
board-to-board interposers and high bandwidth array contacts.
New applications, he quipped, are continually “springing” up.
These include semiconductor testing, high rel military and medical
environments, high bandwidth radar and communications applications,
low resistance battery chargers and portable electronics docking
ports.
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