According to an article posted to the website of the Bangkok Post, the ban covers 428 types of electronic waste (e-waste), which is defined by Thailand’s Commerce Ministry as “electric and electronic components and scraps.”

Violations of the newly implemented e-waste ban are punishable by a jail sentence…

ast month’s article, [1], discussed the distribution of a PCB return current in a microstrip configuration. This article discusses the current distribution for the stripline configurations.

The possible plane combinations are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 3 and Figure 4 (on page 14) show the CST Studio simulations of the E and H fields, respectively [2].

Factors Involving ESD Protection Cell Design Selections

ow is the proper ESD Protection Cell chosen for a particular design application? Perhaps there is a more fundamental question—why is there more than one ESD Protection Cell in the first place? The answer to this second question will help answer the first.

An ESD Protection Cell must meet three basic criteria: it must be robust—able to carry required ESD current without being damaged; it must be effective—able to protect the rest of the Integrated Circuit (IC) during the ESD event, and it must be transparent—it must not interfere with normal IC operation. If the only two constraints were robustness and effectiveness, the ESD Protection Cell design would look like a perfect short— capable of carrying large amounts of current with no voltage build-up. Alternatively, if transparency were the only constraint, the ESD Protection Cell would look like a perfect open—drawing no current away from the rest of the IC circuitry. But both sets of constraints do exist, and the ESD Protection Cell Designer is faced with a requirement for perfectly contradicting attributes. The solution is to divide the operational space into multiple regions: a region where the ESD Protection Cell is robust and effective and a region where the ESD Protection Cell is transparent. How the operational space gets divided can have enormous consequences to the overall IC and ESD performance, and no one ESD Protection Cell can divide the space in a way that is applicable to every unique design application. The best ESD Protection Cell for a particular design application is the one that best divides the operational space between the transparency requirements and the robustness and effectiveness requirements.

oftware has assimilated itself into almost every aspect of our lives. It resides within our homes, vehicles, phones, workspaces, and so on. We find it in our televisions, speakers, light switches, and on and on and on. It is everywhere. Resistance to software’s assimilation is futile. It makes our lives easier.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the negative consequences of software-related incidents have drastically increased in the past few years. One of the most recently publicized incidents of software “gone bad” is software’s contribution to the Boeing 737 Max malfunctions, which led to two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. The Boeing 737 Max malfunction is a case where the software’s reported performance appears to have contributed directly to aircraft falling out of the sky. These and other incidents have not just gained the public’s attention. They have also served as a catalyst for changes within the industry, such as the use of quality management systems (QMS) to demonstrate that software does what it is designed to do.

he ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation is essential to consumer product testing laboratories. According to the requirements of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), consumer products shall be sent to third-party testing laboratories for testing before they can be put into the market. The certified third-party testing laboratories must already obtain the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation in the specified test category [1]. The accreditation bodies require the ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratories to regularly join the proficiency testing (PT) scheme in appropriate testing areas.

The Hong Kong Accreditation Service (HKAS) provides ISO/IEC 17043 accreditation services to proficiency testing providers in Hong Kong [2]. Current proficiency testing providers are providing three different proficiency test areas: (1) calibration; (2) medical testing; and (3) chemical testing [3]. As the majority of testing and certification companies in Hong Kong are providing consumer product testing services, they can only join the proficiency testing organized by overseas services providers, such as LGC in UK, IQTC in China, ASTM in USA or IEC. In addition, the HKAS also irregularly organizes proficiency testing programmes to the accredited laboratories (e.g., acoustics testing carried out in 2015) [4]. However; they only invited the laboratories that are already accredited by HKAS to join the programme. Therefore, it is impossible to determine the competitive between HKAS accredited laboratories and other overseas laboratories.

Product Liability Marketing Defects

anufacturers of products and providers of services can be held liable for injury, damage, or economic loss suffered by a customer or a third party based on all aspects of its products and services. This includes the product or service itself, all written materials that accompany the product including warnings and instructions, and all oral and written statements made before and after sale. As a result, manufacturers and service providers must provide a reasonably safe product, competent services, and written and oral statements that do not diminish the quality or safety of the product or service, or confuse the customer into doing something that results in injury, damage, or loss.

These types of lawsuits have become more common as products have become safer and fewer accidents occur, and plaintiffs’ lawyers have looked for other claims surrounding the sale of a product. In some cases, these claims can even be brought by an entire class of people who purchased the product.