Written by Chelsey Drysdale
Friday, 18 April 2008

ATLANTA – After 50 years in electronics, Jim Raby believes the industry’s greatest invention was not the transistor, but the plated through-hole.

The guru of electronics, Raby led what an audience member called a “fireside chat” at yesterday’s Atlanta SMTA Expo. He warmly shared stories from the dawn of the modern electronics industry. Raby, founder of STI Electronics, and a few others brought an Electrovert wave soldering machine from Canada with fake “Made in the USA” stickers on it.

They ultimately used peanut oil in the machine to bring the flashpoint down, causing a massive fire, since the machine was sitting next to drums of alcohol.

“Wave soldering machines were dangerous things,” he chuckled.

After a long career in the military, Raby started a new career with NASA in January 1970. His job there was electronics prototyping. He recalls with humor, “I was one hot-shot technician.”

When Raby started, he asked about the hours, to which his boss replied, “See that light under your door? When the light is on, you are to be here.”

It turns out that light came from his boss’s office, and his boss was always there. He said, “And sometimes the light was on even when he wasn’t there, so I worked a lot.”

“It was an interesting time because electronics weren’t going anywhere.” Pointing to his laptop, Raby noted, “This has more power than the whole Saturn Apollo program. Everything was done with slide rules. It took a long time.”

His boss at NASA wanted everything to be tested thoroughly. Raby and his colleagues made thousands of solder joints at NASA, assessing them with the early version of pull tests. “That’s how we came up with temperatures and dwell times.”

He marveled at the progress through the years. “PCBs are the key item in our whole industry. We went from single-sided, to double-sided, to double-sided with through-holes, to multilayers.”

And ultimately, “the problem we have encountered is cracks in solder joints on one side of the board.” He then stressed, “All solder joints will fail with time and stress.”

He also emphasized, “The best invention in my time was plated through-hole,” as opposed to the transistor, which he mentioned is what many people say is the best invention.

Then came surface mount. “It scared me to death. What kind of stresses would there be on just the surface of the board?” As usual, daunting problems were overcome through engineering and a little ingenuity, as when they learned that preheating could control wave-soldering operations.

Still, there were hurdles. One unexpected problem was no-clean fluxes. “The industry fell in love with them,” Raby recalls. Even so, he said, “Most of the failures we see are caused by no-clean fluxes,” noting that given enough time, temperature and a little humidity, dendrites will grow. As such, STI steers clear of such chemistries. “I still have my military hat on; I don’t want my name on it if it’s going to fail.”

The future of electronics, Raby noted, is “closer to the board, smaller components, less space.” That means devising methods to clean flux residues from underneath those low-profile parts. This will require better cleaning methods, Raby believes.

Raby finished his discussion with information about current technology: imbedded component/die. With imbedded component/die technology, we can “achieve near hermetic environmental protection,” he said. And, “We are able to dissipate an awful lot of heat.” (Raby holds a patent in this technology.)

He reports similar success with aluminum wedge bonding. “We have not had one failure. We have used the same board and tested it a lot of times. We have gone up to 20,000Gs of shock with no failures.”

Raby received a round of applause when he said, the technology “won’t go offshore in my lifetime.”

Raby made a name for himself as a master of soldering, thus his final prediction might surprise some. “We won’t be soldering 10 years from now on new designs,” he asserted.

The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) announced its recent partnership with MentorNet to help facilitate a growing demand for mentorship opportunities for its student members. The partnership allows members of the SMTA privileges to resources offered by MentorNet such as its one-on-one program, easy matching to SMTA members, and the résumé database for students.

The SMTA was saddened to learn of the death of our Association’s first president, Norb Socolowski. Norb passed away on February 14, 2008 at his Las Vegas home. He was 85 and is survived by wife, Jean.

I met Norb many years ago; before I was involved in the SMTA. As an industry icon and solder expert, he was always willing to share information with others in our industry. He was a kind and generous man and such fun! As the SMTA’s first president, he spent many hours devoted to the association that he was so proud to be a part of. Long after his tenure as President (1985), he continued to support the SMTA with papers and presentations, and was always willing to respond to a technical question or share his wealth of information.

During the early years of SMI in San Jose, Norb and Jean would always stop by to visit and bring a treat for our staff members to share. At the time of our 20th anniversary I received a large (and well packed) box that contained a ceramic Wizard, which had been given as a speaker gift at the first SMT conferences. It sits on the file cabinet in my office and reminds me of the many contributions made by one of our early industry pioneers, Norb Socolowski.

Norb was manager of product development at Alpha Metals, Inc., and spent 18 years with the company (now Cookson Electronics) in development and engineering of solder assembly materials, focused on SMT and hybrid package assembly products. He had also worked at Thiokol Chemical Corporation and Curtiss-Wright Corp. Beyond the SMTA, he held industry memberships in ISHM and SME. Norb earned a bachelor's in mining engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and a bachelor's in industrial engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He remained active in the SMTA throughout his life, including his term as president, and also served as chairman of the IPC Solder Paste Specification Committee.

Prior to his retirement Norb lived in Denville, NJ where he served for 16 years on the City Council. Following retirement he and Jean divided their time between homes in Little Egg Harbor, NJ and Las Vegas. Norb suffered with Parkinson's disease and long-term diabetes. Those who knew Norb well knew his love of casinos. On February 14th, while in a wheel chair, he spent a few hours at the Tropicana playing his favorite game of poker on one of the machines. He went home, and passed away peacefully during the night.

Funeral services will be held on April 14, 2008, at the Presbyterian Church in Parsippany, N.J. The family has requested that donations in Norb’s memory be made to SMTA’s Charles Hutchins Educational Grant. The SMTA has lost a leader, and I have lost a friend. Norb will be missed by many of us, but memories that we shared will allow him to live on in the hearts and minds of many in our industry. The SMTA Board of Directors and our Staff extends our sincere sympathy to Jean Socolowski. If you would like to send her a card or note, it can be mailed to PMB 339, 4001 S. Decatur Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89103.

JoAnn Stromberg, SMTA Administrator