At Magnalytix, Co-Inventors, Dr. Mike Bixenman (aka Dr. Mike) and Mark McMeen were bold enough to ask these questions:

“What if we figured out how to mitigate the risk of failure of Our Electronics through real-time Objective Evidence? What if the reliability science and technologies could be as exacting as the complex electronic assembly processes we are running?”

Together, these two renowned industry gurus set out to achieve this revolutionary goal. They formed a bond many years ago at an SMTAi conference and continued to work together over the past two decades. Some say that only Dr. Mike and Mark McMeen would invest the thousands and thousands of hours needed to take on this formidable and worthy challenge in the industry.

Others would say that their savvy network of collaborative electronics experts played a big role in the exhaustive lab and live beta tests, which ultimately provided the real-world advantages of their sophisticated, yet easy to run, reliability testing products and services.  After 30+ years each in the industry, they knew what to do to engineer these revolutionary solutions.

Mark and Mike say they saw what was happening in the industry and the world and they had to do something to make these critical improvements. They say it started with one simple concept:

“Our Electronic devices need to work every day – and even more so when we need them most, as in automatic pilot vehicles, when a medical device cannot fail, when a solider is in a life/death situation, when a family member is stranded, or when a loved one is in danger and cannot reach aid,” says Mark McMeen.

“We believed that we could solve this problem. That’s really how we did it,” says Dr. Mike. “And, you know, it was the result of a lot of things coming together over a long period of time and making sure that we could offer reliable Objective Evidence in real-time. Along the way, I’ve learned a ton from Mark. The real power is in collaborating with like-minded dedicated people who can help the industry. There was a synergy there and we clicked.”

In reaction, Mark McMeen adds: “Wow, if we’re mitigating risk and ensuring that the product is clean enough so it will not have adverse effects in its environment—then we have fundamentally changed the reliability of hardware. That has a huge impact around the world. And, it’s all positive. That’s the deliverable in working on this together!”

As it turns out, the electronics manufacturing industry agrees with the idea of better, real-time reliability testing. Just what Magnalytix is all about.

Reliability is due for a revolution. Liability of electronic device failures is skyrocketing. OEMs are auditing and upgrading their process requirements and testing requirements. And, so is the industry. In response, specifications for cleanliness and reliability were recently and dramatically upgraded by the IPC with the announcement of J-STD-001G-Am1.

Today, the commonly used Rose Test is obsolete. SIR testing is indeed Objective Evidence, but true reliability comes from real-time data on the production line.

Just in time — Magnalytix has emerged as the formidable leader meeting the demands of the reliability revolution for Our Electronics through Objective Evidence.

Magnalytix stands for what is now and what is next in our electronics manufacturing standards, reliability testing and a world where the risks of failure are measurably improved.

The electronics reliability gap from a historic perspective:

A quick historical review of key developments in electronics assembly manufacturing technologies compared with those of cleanliness and reliability testing, reveals the gap between the two processes – until Magnalytix.

As we all know, surface mount has been around for decades, and the pace of package design evolution and I/O counts continues to increase relentlessly. Given the vast changes in every aspect of component and board design, it is remarkable that the elegant ROSE test has remained largely as invented many, many years ago. It is not surprising that in an industry of constant change, that the useful life of the ROSE test has largely run its impressive course. Fortunately, Magnalytix is ready with the next generation of cleanliness, reliability test equipment and cards to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.