Julie Silk dedicates her personal technical expertise and leadership to a collaborative approach for technology development. She truly believes in the power of collaboration and demonstrates that through her leadership within INEMI and numerous other industry collaborative engagements. Julie has been a member of the INEMI Technical Committee since 2011 and Chair since 2021. She has directly participated in several INEMI projects, contributed to numerous roadmap chapters, and been involved with INEMI’s Technology Integration Groups (TIGs) to develop the INEMI Technical Plan, which defines collaborative projects to address gaps identified by the roadmap. She has contributed directly to 10 industry conference papers and presentations sharing INEMI project outcomes with the industry, several of which were recognized as Best in Proceedings.
Julie has been involved in transiting the electronics industry to lead-free solder since the introduction of the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation. Recognizing that individual companies could not tackle this issue alone but would require supply chain support and industry expertise for success, she contributed to the definition and launch of more than five INEMI projects on lead-free solder. These projects produced valuable results for INEMI member companies on materials offerings, assembly processes and end products.
When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe in 2020, Julie proposed an INEMI project to produce guidelines on disinfecting electronics assemblies. Early on, health and safety recommendations were extreme in terms of chemicals and application methods with no thought to the impact on electronics and sub-systems in manufacturing. Julie’s objective was to publish an electronics industry guideline quickly, covering unacceptable and acceptable practices. The project launched under her leadership in May 2020 and in July, INEMI published “Recommended Best Practices for Protecting the Reliability and Integrity of Electronic Products and Assemblies when Disinfecting for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).” The paper was widely referenced for best practices.