The printed circuit design industry’s choice for comprehensive training and certification. This 40-hour live curriculum was developed by leading experts and includes a 400-page handbook containing information on everything from parts libraries to high-speed design.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – MARCH 10, 2025 – CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY today announced the 2025 New Product Introduction (NPI) Award winners for electronics assembly equipment, materials and software.
The 18th annual NPI Awards recognize leading new products during the past 12 months. An independent panel of practicing industry engineers selected the recipients.
The winners are:
“Judges this year praised the winners for improvements in versatility and speed,” said Mike Buetow, president of PCEA, in announcing the winners. “They were notably impressed with equipment that added functionality without increased footprint, and materials that required very little process change.”
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – March 5, 2025 – Registrants for PCB Detroit this June will gain access to several technical sessions and a tabletop exhibition, the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) announced today.
The sessions take place on June 2-3 on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, and cover topics ranging from controlling noise, using AI in hardware and PCB design, flex and rigid-flex materials and DfM, HDI via design, and PCB cost drivers, among others.
Conference sessions include:
PCB Detroit will also feature a tabletop exhibition on June 2 with fourteen companies including: A2Z Electronics LLC, ADCO Circuits, AllSpice.io, ASC Sunstone Circuits, BarTron Inc., Cofactr, DirectPCB, DownStream Technologies, Electronic Interconnect, K&F Electronics, Polyonics, RBB, Summit Interconnect, and Zuken USA.
A free reception on June 2 and special designers meetup (registration required) on June 3 will be held after classes end those days.
“PCB Detroit is the only place the electronics industry can see Rick Hartley, Susy Webb, Dan Beeker and Steph Chavez together at the same time in the Midwest,” said Mike Buetow, president of the Printed Circuit Engineering Association. “And the opportunities not just to learn but to network with fellow designers and engineers should not be missed.”
Registration for the two-day technical conference and the tabletop exhibition takes place at events.american-tradeshow.com/pcbdetroit/begin. Conference registration is required for both the conference and table top exhibition. Plus, lunch will be provided to registrants.
Wayne State University is Michigan’s third-largest university, and a licensee of the PCEA Training Certified Printed Circuit Designer curriculum.
For more information about PCB Detroit, visit pcea.net/pcb-detroit or contact pcbdetroit@pcea.net.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – FEBRUARY 27, 2025 – The PCEA membership elected its board of directors for the next two years at its annual meeting in October.
Returning to the board are Jim Barnes, Stephen Chavez, Tomas Chester, Doug Dixon, Justin Fleming, Rick Hartley, Matt Leary, Anaya Vardya, Susy Webb, and Eriko Yamato.
New board members include Charlene McCauley, and Juan Frias, who was voted in following the meeting as a replacement for the retiring Scott McCurdy.
As president of PCEA, Mike Buetow retains an automatic appointment to the board.
At its scheduled February board meeting, Chavez was reelected chairman, Webb vice chairman, Fleming secretary and Vardya treasurer. Dixon was appointed chair of the Strategic Planning committee and Leary was named chair of the Membership committee. Chester was reappointed chair of the Education committee.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – FEBRUARY 23, 2025 – PCEA Training today named respected industry veteran Paul Fleming technical director, PCB design.
Fleming has a long and storied career in printed circuit design both as a designer and with various ECAD companies. He has design experience with various blue-chip OEMs and running a service bureau. He also spent time as a software QA engineer and applications engineer with Siemens/Mentor, Cadence and Intergraph. Fleming is a former chapter president of the Designer’s Council and a master instructor in the IPC CID program.
Fleming will oversee the printed circuit board technical programs for PCEA Training. He will be responsible for coordinating updates to the Certified Printed Circuit Engineering curriculum, including adding targeted modules. He will also be staff liaison to the Conference task group responsible for the technical programs for PCB East, PCB West and PCB Detroit.
“The success of the PCEA programs dictated the addition of subject matter experts, and we have a great one in Paul,” said Mike Buetow, president, PCEA. “He is well regarded by peers as being knowledgeable, pragmatic and easy to work with. We think Paul will make an outstanding addition to the PCEA team and contribute immediately to our mission of enhancing the careers of professional PCB designers and engineers.”
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – JANUARY 30, 2025 – CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY today opened registration for its annual Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) for EMS providers and electronics assembly equipment, material, service, and software suppliers.
Now in its 33rd year, the SEAs honor companies for excelling in the critical area of customer service, permitting participants to benchmark customer service against their peers. It is the only industry awards program that uses direct customer feedback to determine best-in-class. The deadline to enter is March 31, 2025.
Customers are surveyed to determine their satisfaction with a participating company in various categories, including dependability/timely delivery; ease of use; manufacturing quality; responsiveness to requests and changes; technology; value for the price; and flexibility/ease of doing business. For each EMS category, the overall best-in-show winner is selected.
All customer responses and ratings are tabulated and provided in a confidential report for the participating company.
Participants report using the data to improve their customer response and comply with various quality audits such as ISO 9001 and AS9100.
“Datest offers testing, engineering, analytical, and other value-added services, all geared to speed, flexibility, and results. We need a mechanism for obtaining meaningful feedback from customers on a regular basis. We also share that feedback with our AS9100 auditor. The CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Service Excellence Awards are ideal for capturing those honest reactions that make us a better company,” said Robert Boguski, president, Datest (2024 winner, Test Laboratories).
About the Awards
The SEAs recognize four categories of EMS providers based on revenues (under $20 million; $20 million to $100 million; $101 million to $500 million, and over $500 million).
Equipment, material or software supplier awards will be presented in each of the following categories: component storage systems; automation and handling equipment; cleaning processing or materials; device programming equipment; dispensing; pick-and-place; repair and rework; screen printing; test and inspection; materials (solder, encapsulants and adhesives); soldering equipment; automation/manufacturing software (not ERP/MRP); and supply-chain/ERP/MRP software.
Non-manufacturing service providers will be honored in the following categories: test laboratories; recycling, cleaning or other non-manufacturing process providers; and design service bureaus. Reps or agents and/or distributors will also be honored.
CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY will honor winners in person at SMTA International in October 2025 at the Rosemont Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. Participants will receive their report as an Excel file after the show.
For more information, visit https://
To register, visit https://na.eventscloud.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – JANUARY 8, 2025 – The exhibition floor for PCB West 2025 is now open to any prospective exhibitor, the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) announced today. The exhibition floor is expected to sell out, as it has in 10 of the past 11 years, PCEA added.
PCB West will be held September 30 to October 3, 2025, at the Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center. The event includes a one-day exhibition on October 1.
Booth sales opened in mid-October to returning exhibitors, and the exhibition floor is currently more than 50% sold out.
“PCB West has sold out 10 of the past 11 years, and we fully expect it to do so again,” said Frances Stewart, vice president of sales and marketing at PCEA. “Attendance at the show was up 4% year-over-year in 2024, and attendees have noted the access to vendors and each other as the primary reasons why they come to PCB West.”
Companies interested in exhibiting should contact Frances Stewart at frances@pcea.net for details.
PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Magazine are media partners for the event.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA – JANUARY 6, 2025 – Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) this month will open registration for the technical program for PCB East 2025, featuring more than 75 hours of in-depth electronics engineering training.
Rick Hartley, Susy Webb, Dan Beeker, Tomas Chester and Zach Peterson are among the headliners of this year’s conference. It will be held April 29 to May 2 at the Boxboro Regency Hotel and Conference Center in Boxborough, MA. It features classes for every level of experience, from novice to expert.
The scope of classes ranges from the basics of design engineering, documentation, libraries and circuit grounding to more advanced fare such as RF and mixed signal design, DDR5 routing, board stackups, simulation, controlling EMI, and power delivery system design.
More than half the presentations are new to the conference, including ones on maximizing routing channels, successful design release, differential pair design for 112 Gbps and faster systems, EMI shielding, flex design, UHDI design, controlling for tin whiskers, and AI and other upcoming changes in PCB design.
“PCB East continues to grow as the leading place for learning about electronics design and manufacturing on the East Coast,” said Mike Buetow, conference director, PCB East. “This year’s event offers an array of experts in printed circuit design engineering and manufacturing, and a new emphasis on assembly.”
Registration for both the technical conference and the exhibition takes place at pcbeast.com. Those who sign up by March 17 can take advantage of the early bird special discounts for the conference.
The PCEA Conferences Task Group developed the program from more than 60 abstracts submitted. The task group, chaired by Troy Hopkins, is made up of 10 industry veterans with more than 200 years of cumulative experience in the printed circuit industry.
PCB East is the largest technical conference and exhibition for the electronics design, fabrication and assembly industry in New England.
The one-day exhibition takes place April 30 at the Boxboro Regency in Boxborough, MA, while the four-day technical conference takes place April 29-May 2. For details, visit pcbeast.com.
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The Printed Circuit Engineering Association® (PCEA) is an international network of engineers, designers, fabricators, assemblers, and anyone related to printed circuit development. Our mission is to promote printed circuit engineering as a profession by encouraging and facilitating the exchange of information and the integration of new design concepts through education, certification, communications, seminars, and workshops. This is facilitated by a network of local, regional, virtual PCEA-affiliated chapters and the support of our sponsors.
