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Brazil - The Next Center for Technology?
June 26, 2008 | Joe Fjelstad, Verdant ElectronicsEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world and the most populous country in South America. It is also home to the world's 10th largest economy and it was not long ago cited by The Economist magazine as being the next likely location for the development of electronics technology following China and India. Personal observations this week at a workshop event sponsored by specialty printed circuit fabricator Micropress in Sao Paolo, Brazil tend to corroborate that opinion. The event was organized by Micropress President Gilmar Souza and Fernando Sanchez, the company's director of technology and corporate strategy. Together with other key members of their team, including Sergio Rodrigues, New Business Manager, who served as host, they drew together top technologists from some of Brazil's and Argentina's leading electronics companies to hear Richard Hartley of L-3 Corporation, one of the world's leading experts on high speed circuit design as he imparted lessons from his 40 plus years of experience in the electronics industry as a circuit designer. Hartley's presentation style, packed with good humor and high energy, kept the audience's full attention as he explained fully and in detail the key factors involved in designing printed circuits that deliver the kind of signal integrity that will be demanded for nearly all future electronics. Hartley also drove home to the audience a number of important points including the inevitability of their having to make the transition to HDI for printed circuit manufacture in the next few years. This, he pointed out, was a direct result of the ever increasing speed of ICs due to the relentless shrinking of die as the semiconductor industry continues to both push on the limits of lithography to keep pace with Moore's Law and squeeze greater profits from the smaller IC die. In spite of the language differences, there was an ongoing and lively exchange between instructor and his audience as they peppered Hartley with questions that gave ample evidence that these engineers were definitely interested in pushing out the edges of the technological envelope in South America. At the end of the day there was little doubt that they were satisfied with their return on their investment as the evaluation forms revealed unanimous top scores for his presentation and appreciation to Micropress for taking a leadership role in driving Brazil and South America into a position where they will be ready to take on the task of making future generation electronics for themselves and the world Another draw for the event was a presentation on the Occam Process for solderless electronic assembly for which the audience seemed to show a high level of interest. It was evident from discussions that Brazil may well become an early center for solderless assembly technology development where the forward looking technologists from Micropress and other companies are thinking they might be able to take a leadership role. There is also an apparent realization among some people in South America of the negative impact that tin mining is having on the rain forest environment but of equal or greater interest is the possibility to create the kind of reliable and cost effective products that will be required to fuel a growth economy. Some prospective projects are already in early discussion phase. In summary, while the demographic sample is small, it appears to this observer based on the attendee sampling at the Micropress event, that Brazil has a number of high energy and very intelligent people interested in helping to shape the country's technological future.