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Wikipedia update on the term "electronic packaging" 3

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Tunalover

Tunalover

Mechanical
Mar 28, 2002
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This is an FYI post.

Folks I've been doing electronic packaging for longer than I care to admit, but in my career whenever I tell someone that I do "electronic packaging", unless they ask what it means or unless I volunteer what that means, most non-engineers walk away with the belief I work with bubble wrap and cardboard boxes. To confuse the situation further, there are "packaging engineers" who do package products for retail sale and/or shipping using plastic films, paper, cardboard, etc. Whenever I've been on the market for a new job I still get calls from recruiters who are really looking for a "packaging engineer" and I know that most recruiters, even ones that claim to be "technical" recruiters, don't know what it an electronic packaging engineer does.

The Wikipedia definition was weak. For one thing it started out by saying that electronic packaging is a branch of electrical engineering. NOT! So I decided to update the definition of that term in Wikipedia. I added a hyperlink to my email signature block so when people get my emails they'll have a way to quickly get to the definition. If you're in the same business, you might want to do the same.

Thanks,



ElectroMechanical Product Development
(aka Electronic Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
I'd change my moniker to "electronics packaging" if you must keep the same confused naming, or much better: "Electronic Device Packaging". Or, what I often see as "Electronic Product Design" but which has its own confusion level.

Anyway, I know you weren't asking and thanks for that heads up.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
Would the word 'Enclosure' be more specific and a better word choice than 'Packaging'?

As in: Electronics Enclosure Design

--

When I mention "Communications", a common assumption seems to be 'Public & Media Relations' (PR).

Or even worse, people may assume I'm interested in 'TCP/IP and Computer Networking' as a daily chore.

I've been forced to enter "Communications (Radios, Antennas)" on one website to force them off of their PR assumption.

 
VE1BLL this forum category was created years ago at my request however the site admin chose the title and placement against my recommendations. IMO it needs to go under Mechanical Engineering and the title changed to just Electronics Packaging. The words Electrical Enclosures in the title makes the category much too narrow and reflects the admin's misunderstanding. EM packaging involves so much more yet so many unknowing people are walking around with false, over-simplified notions of what it is.

electronics packaging defined: Link


ElectroMechanical Product Development
(aka Electronic Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
Tunalover,

Is "Electronics Packing" a term officially defined by some professional body we all recognize? My official title now is Product Developer Mechanical. I tell people I am a mechanical designer. Most of my experience has been with optics and electronics.

--
JHG
 
drawoh,
You and I have done a lot of the same things. I too have done optomechanical design but most has been in electronics. I believe electronics packaging is well-understood by those "in the know" but it is not officially defined anywhere that I know of. ASME knows what it is because they publish The ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging. The minute I start using the title ElectroMechanical Design Engineer then anyone looking for an Electronics Packaging Engineer is likely to walk on by. Also, there are chip designers who are also do electronic packaging when they design SOCs and such. Now even the term electromechanical is unclear since many people confuse it with mechatronics which, if I understand correctly, deals with electronically-controlled moving parts in machinery. I don't work much with moving parts. So in my headline on LinkedIn I have Electronic Product Development (aka Electronic Packaging). That should be enough IMHO!

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(aka Electronic Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
It also seems to me that "enclosure" would make a better fit than "packaging" in that the term "packaging" is used more often to refer to things one ships with the goal of the item being shipped to survive reasonably expected shipping and handling abuse. I would categorize the discipline as perhaps Systems Engineering given the necessary consideration to cross-discipline -- mechanical, electrical, thermal, etc issues. If I understand correctly, the objective of the packaging engineer is to identify the requirements and design an encapsulated device providing some specific modular function such that the encapsulated device minimalizes impact to its surrounding environment, while also minimizing the impact of the surrounding environment to the devices/function/performance of the encapsulated device. Seems somewhere in that circuitous definition should be the need to provide an interface/operation from the surrounding environment (human controls, etc) and the term optimization. I'm sure someone could come up with a less wordy definition.
 
BlackJackJacques,

Most of my experience has been with airborne hardware. The package must be rugged. The package and its contents must remained attached to the airframe during a survivable crash. EMI/RFI must be controlled. Heat must be removed somehow. The system must be easy to assemble and test. The mechanical parts must be documented sufficiently for fabrication. I am part of a team which includes some sort of electronics designer at the very least.

I have had some, but not a lot of experience with sealed, and explosion proof enclosures.

Other than EMI/RFI shielding, none of these skills are exclusive to electronics packaging. If I have to hire some kid straight out of college, I would hire a mechanical engineer or a mechanical engineering technologist. Almost all of the curriculum is useful!

What courses would you remove from a college curriculum to train an electronics packager? Obviously, you can add some more electronics training.

--
JHG
 
drawoh - we are in agreement. Electrical issues are just one item of the plethora of items you identify. In your case dealing with airborne applications, weight is yet another concern, etc. I wouldn't remove any of the standard rubrics of engineering courses. Probably what I would do to specifically address packaging is to add capstone courses to integrate all of them into thesis type projects, etc. I guess this is what the intention of efforts to identify the Systems Engineer slot. I see this done in the building community with what they call an Architectural Engineer - in theory, someone capable of MEP and structural, etc.
 
Folks,

My May 3rd editing of the definition of electronic packaging was reversed May 4 by another Wikipedia member. Justification was that I cited no references. So I have homework to do (but I saved the material and will submit it as a LinkedIn article next week).


BlackJackJacques not all electronic products and systems are completely enclosed so "enclosure" would be misnomer.

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(aka Electronic Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
In the power world 'electrical enclosure' is typically a junction box, terminal chamber, or similar: something which has a clear meaning in your branch of industry has a totally different meaning in a different industry sector. Who is right? [ponder]
 
Hi Scotty. I think it all has to be taken from context. I've been asked to design "enclosures" by customers that ended up being prefabricated commercial plastic boxes of the typical grey PVC type, completely custom spot-welded electro-zinc boxes with a cover, and even plastic injection molded product boxes.

There are the customers who ask for help putting their products "into an enclosure". And then there are clients that say they need to put everything "into an enclosure" and no one assumes anything different than "go to the freezer and get the box" - a standard Hoffman box that is. Which interestingly is most often called a "box" and not even an enclosure.

This is probably one of those things like Eskimos having 50 words describing snow. We as a technical world have failed to coin completely new words to clearly allow simple description of the thing we wrap electrical devices in.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
forum1616

Your persistence paid off Tuna!
2s76u88.gif


Keith Cress
kcress -
 
Yes itsmoked, the site Admin decided to move the category under Mechanical Engineering at my insistence. He also removed the term "Enclosures" from the title. I did, finally, circle around to read the mission statements for The ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging and the ASME Electronic Packaging and Photonics Division (EPPD). ASME uses the term electronic packaging only in context of "nano", "micro" packaging, and CCA SMT memory and embedded computing devices! Arggggh! So I sent an email to them yesterday...We'll see where THAT goes!

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
Tunalover,

My experience is that electronics packaging is the process of working with electronics people. We need to communicate with each other, and understand and respect each other's expertise, and design issues.

I worked with a power supply designer who systematically heat sunk his stuff to structure. My biggest frustration with him was when I designed a cPCI card cage and I mounted it in front of a honking big fan. He heat sunk his voltage converters to the sheet metal side panels which were not well heat sunk to the rest of the structure. The design violated the cPCI standard, which would have made it difficult for us to select a different card cage vendor if we had had quality or delivery problems.

Quite a few years ago, I took some certificate level electronics courses. I have never used any of it, although I know where to look stuff up. Maybe the biggest thing I took away was RLC circuit resonance. I know why electronics people think they understand mechanical vibrations!

I was hoping to learn to design motor controls. Motor selection definitely is a process of working with electronics people. There are all sorts of mechanical and electronics requirements that must be satisfied on any actuator or drive system. When it comes time for the motor controls to be designed, I will step back and let electronics do it.

We need to watch out for the "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario.

--
JHG
 
drawoh,
Our understandings are close together. I have always viewed E/M Packaging as doing all the things that the EE does not know how to do. In other words, it is the mechanical design of electronic equipment. Certainly most EEs don't know where to turn to find out if a panel will resonate within the frequency range of the host structure. Nor are they generally wise to galvanic compatibility between different kinds of metals in corrosive environments. Nor do they know how to figure the installation torques for various fasteners, nor what fasteners to use in a given situation, nor how to perform thermal analysis to estimate worst-case component junction temperatures. Most EEs also don't have the MCAD skills nor the necessary knowledge to know what sheet metal to use in a given situation. Does he/she know the minimum bend radii for the various grades of sheet metal or the best finishes? Generally not. If the EE designs CCAs with my help (to determine the board outline, mtg hole locations, connector and connector locations, hot components, heavy components, etc.). The packaging engineer is simply an ME in the electronics business who does everything the EE doesn't know how to do. And of course there are places where their knowledge and responsibilities overlap! And God help us if they do away with this ME and let the EEs do it all! And God help us if they do away with the EE and let the MEs do it all!


ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993
 
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