Dr. Baratunde Cola, founder and CEO of Carbice, sits down with Zod Mehr, an expert in supply chain and electro-mechanical engineering and former global quality engineer at Apple. Together, they discuss the challenges of thermal interfaces, the hidden costs of rework, and why Carbice is revolutionizing the industry.
Chapters
- [00:00] Introduction and Background
- [00:01] Zod’s Journey in Semiconductor and Electronics
- [00:02] Experience at IBM and Motorola
- [00:03] Time at Dell
- [00:04] Role at Apple
- [00:05] The Importance of User Experience in Quality
- [00:06] What is Supplier Quality Engineering?
- [00:08] Scaling Manufacturing Operations
- [00:09] Why China Became the Global Hub for Electronics Manufacturing
- [00:11] The Cost of Manufacturing Delays
- [00:12] Agility in Large-Scale Manufacturing
- [00:13] The 1999 Article on Heat Sink Attachment & Its Relevance Today
- [00:14] The Challenge of Thermal Paste in Manufacturing
- [00:21] The Shift Toward Sustainable Manufacturing
- [00:27] The Future of Electronics Manufacturing & The Role of Leadership
- [00:34] Final Thoughts and Takeaways
(This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity while maintaining the original voice and authenticity.)
[00:00] Introduction and Background
Bara: Hey, good morning, Z. How are you doing?
Zod: Hi, Bara. Good morning to you.
Bara: You know, when we met, we always have these really interesting conversations. So I thought it'd be nice today just to kind of be a little bit more formal—well, not too formal—but talk a little bit about your background, the semiconductor and electronics manufacturing industry, and your perspective. I mean, you're a very experienced guy. You've spent decades in semiconductors and electronics. Maybe as an easy way to start, tell me a bit about your background.
[00:01] Zod’s Journey in Semiconductor and Electronics
Zod: Sure thing. I have a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Upon graduation—in the late eighties—there were a number of different venues open. The majority of the venues at the time were oil and gas, electronics, and, less so, automotive and defense.
I had been really using the Apple Macintosh and had become quite fond of it. I wanted to use my mechanical engineering education to go down that route. I didn't end up at Apple then, although I applied. Much later, I did end up working there.
[00:02] Experience at IBM and Motorola
Zod: I started working in semiconductor manufacturing for IBM back when they had a mainframe business. I was doing that for a few years, then moved to Motorola Semiconductors, specifically their automotive division. That group eventually became part of what is now called ON Semiconductor, or Onsemi.
[00:03] Time at Dell
Zod: After that, I was with a couple of small startups, but then I joined Dell. I was at Dell for about 11 years, mostly working on new product introduction for the portables group. Later on, I transitioned into supplier quality engineering and eventually became a supplier quality engineering manager.
The area that fell under my supervision included desktop motherboards, graphics cards, and the chassis—essentially the entire desktop product and supplier management for it.
[00:04] Role at Apple
Zod: Then, after almost 11 years at Dell, I joined Apple. I led a supplier quality engineering team and later expanded to general procurement of mechanical enclosures for Mac and portables. I also took on a global quality leadership role for Apple audio products, the Apple Watch, and the iPad.
Since then, I've held leadership roles at a number of different startups. But what's really relevant to this conversation is my experience at Dell as the supplier quality lead for motherboards for desktop, and occasionally server applications.
Bara: So you've been around. You've worked for a few small companies.
Zod: That's right.
Bara: Did hair.
Zod: No, no, I did not.
Bara: It looks great on you.
Zod: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:05] The Importance of User Experience in Quality
Bara: One of my favorite Apple stories is how, before Steve Jobs' obsession with customer experience, you'd receive your desktop or laptop and have to charge it first. Apple asked, “Why not ship them charged?” To me, quality is not just about technical specifications—it's about the user experience. When a customer opens a box and it just works, that's powerful.
Zod: That's right.
Bara: Tell us a bit more about your experience specifically in quality. What's that like? What's a typical day? What are some of the joys and frustrations?
[00:06] What is Supplier Quality Engineering?
Zod: I got into quality through a bit of a transition. I was a manufacturing and process engineer. As Dell's production—and the suppliers that furnished those motherboards—started moving overseas, my job transformed into a supplier quality engineer.
That means working with suppliers to ensure the products they ship to our assembly facilities—what we call FATP (Final Assembly, Test, and Pack)—require no incoming quality inspection. They should go straight from the box into the desktop chassis.
We worked to reduce their defect rates in surface mount technology lines. It's not just about catching defects at the end of the line—that's too late and too expensive. It's about improving their manufacturing process so that they're more profitable and we get more reliable products.
It's supplier development. For example, when a contract manufacturer like Flex or another comes to us and says, “We have a facility in Penang, Malaysia. Would you be interested?”—we assess it. If it offers better scalability or cost, my team oversees the transfer of manufacturing from one facility, one geography, or even one continent to another.
[00:08] Scaling Manufacturing Operations
Bara: You mentioned scale. I want to dig into that a bit. What does it mean to scale better? You mentioned cost, but is it just about cost? What are people really looking for?
Zod: That's a very good question. Many people think it's all about cost, but that's not true. Scaling better requires not just a more attractive cost structure, but also the individuals and the talent needed to make these things.
For the past 25–30 years, that's been China. It's about having individuals with the right training, education, ambition, and mindset—and enough of them—to build consumer electronics for the world. That includes Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and many others.
It also requires infrastructure: roads, reliable electricity, water access, and food supply for the largely migrant workforce. These are all critical when we talk about scale.
[00:09] Why China Became the Global Hub for Electronics Manufacturing
Bara: So it's not just about cost—it's about possibility. If you don't have the conditions in place, you simply can't get anything done. And even if you can, you risk disruption. So speed matters. Delays matter. Were there a lot of delays in this industry?
[00:11] The Cost of Manufacturing Delays
Zod: The cost of delays is extremely high. That's why we work with contract manufacturers—often large Taiwanese companies with significant operations in China. These companies know how to scale. They've done it before.
When a company is growing rapidly, these manufacturers offer solutions. For example, when the Eastern Chinese seaboard becomes constrained, they may say, “Would you consider moving operations inland? Perhaps to Chengdu in Sichuan Province?”
Then they lay out a full workstream: buildings to be constructed, factory floors to be installed, and volume forecasts for the next year. That kind of agility is hard to find anywhere else.
[00:12] Agility in Large-Scale Manufacturing
Bara: That's important. When you're offered that kind of opportunity, and you get it, the last thing you want is disruption. You're buying accessibility and speed.
Zod: That's right.
[00:13] The 1999 Article on Heat Sink Attachment & Its Relevance Today
Bara: There was an article that I think I shared and we talked about from 1999.
Zod: Yeah.
Bara: About heat sink attachment and thermal interface effects on production, assembly, and repair. That's right. And we both kind of looked at it like, wow. Like, this is still relevant today, because these issues still exist. Right?
Back in 1999, there were no $30,000 chips. The reality is electronics have gotten more expensive, more important, more geopolitically important for countries and societies. Yet you still have this issue where heat sink attachment and production, assembly, and repair are important.
One of the takeaways I got from that article is that the more expensive the product, the more you need to rework it. Sometimes they're overlooked.
(Read the article: Heatsink attachment and thermal interface effects on production assembly and repair)
[00:14] The Challenge of Thermal Paste in Manufacturing
Zod: That's right. Any new product that has electronics in it—well, there's physical reliability tests, drop tests, vibration tests—but then there's also a burn-in test. What does that mean? You take the motherboard or the specific PCBA card and run the electronics and the test through it hundreds and hundreds of times. These boards will never be reused—they're sacrificial—so that you learn how the electronics operate in gaming situations, highly demanding graphics simulations.
All of these are running on rows and rows of racks in these factories. As these are running, leadership at a computer company—let's say Lenovo or HP or Dell—says, “We're supposed to run for a week straight of simulation. We've run through 80% of it. We're pretty confident, everything is fine. Let’s do a risk ramp.” Which means start building at volume. Fingers crossed the last 20% isn't going to give us major heartburn.
Most of the time that works. Occasionally, you find a specific chipset has a corner-case issue that shows up after a number of iterations and tests. Now what do you do with the first 10, 15, 30,000 motherboards that you've already built and are making their way to the channels?
You can either fix on fail—customer comes, you give them a new board—or proactively go and rework everything. When I was a supplier quality engineer, I was responsible for doing that for a certain Intel chipset. This was 15, 20 years ago. That chipset had an issue that required rework. Every single BGA had to be removed and replaced with a fresh batch with corrected silicon.
Obviously, that was stressful and fraught with opportunities for error.
Bara: That was a good example. I think I remember you telling me that your favorite part of that process was thermal paste.
Zod: It was not.
Bara: I like how you said it with an absolute straight face.
Zod: Yes. No, it was not. First of all, you have to remove the cooling module—the heat sink—and then it's got all kinds of paste underneath. You have to clean the paste, then remove the paste from the top of the chip. Anyone who has removed caulk from their bathroom or tape—it's really dirty. It's not efficient. And the most important part: it's not repeatable. You're relying on different people with different levels of care to do this.
I have two kids. Part of their job is after they brush their teeth, to clean the sink of any residue toothpaste. From night to night, son to daughter—it's taken me a year to get them to perform at the same level, regardless of morning or evening.
Bara: You sound like someone who has experience with thermal paste that you even specify that to your children.
Zod: Dried toothpaste looks like thermal paste, Baratunde.
Bara: It's personal.
Zod: It's personal. I don't want to see any of it.
Bara: So you've got PTSD. You got scar tissue.
Zod: That's right. I've had to chuck expensive chipsets. That's the long and short of it. When you and I started having conversations, and I understood your product and how it works—it was such an aha moment for me. Why isn't everyone running to this solution?
[00:21] The Shift Toward Sustainable Manufacturing
Bara: Before we get into the Carbice solution, you mentioned something breaking, having to take it out. There are different levels of complexity in electronics, right? In many ways, they're getting more complex. So how does rework interplay with increasing complexity?
Zod: To be honest, I haven't been elbow deep in it for years, but I imagine as the demands on computational power increase, and as chip costs go up, there's going to be more opportunities for corner-case errors that need repair.
There are Swiss companies that make a fortune on localized repair setups—because you don't want anything else around the part you're removing to reflow. In an ideal world, you fix that with firmware. But if you must remove it, you want to isolate the component to prevent collateral reflow.
And when you replace it, you want to attach the cooling module again—with the appropriate interface. Ideally the Carbice interface. At this point, it's being done manually. You can't put that board again through the pick-and-place machine. Someone needs to lower it, as perpendicular as possible, to the top surface of the replaced chipset—making sure there are no gaps.
With thermal paste, you get bubbles of air. As a quality engineer, I saw that these boards become like the walking wounded. They last a number of months or cycles—but then they fail. Their failure rate is higher.
Bara: Who pays for that?
Zod: The OEM. Dell, HP, Sony—whoever the company is. The contract manufacturer doesn't pay for it. If it's under warranty, the OEM must replace it. And failure analysis is expensive. In an ideal world, the quality engineering manager would know: what percentage of the returns are parts that were reworked?
[00:27] The Future of Electronics Manufacturing & The Role of Leadership
Bara: We've spoken to contract manufacturers. In some places, only one person in the whole factory can do re-stenciling and paste. It's such a complex process. Rework rates can be as high as 10%. And they don't worry because they don't take the cost—they pass the cost along.
At Carbice, we're intentional about communicating our value: it's a high-performance interface, and the only one made for scaled operations. That last part—you've really helped shed light on that. People don't realize: once you rework, you can't go back to automated assembly. Even first assembly is often done by hand.
What excites you about the Carbice approach and why is it different?
Zod: First of all, it takes the guesswork out of “how much paste should I put on?” The less the operator has to decide, the more repeatable the process is.
I'd walk the factory floor and ask the process engineer: “Are you paying this operator engineering salaries?” They'd be confused, and I'd say, “Because you're asking them to make engineering decisions.” That's lazy engineering.
Paste requires someone to think, “Did I put enough?” With your solution, it's a cutout the size of the chip. You remove the adhesive, and put it on. It's instantly more repeatable. No stencils to clean, no tools to clean.
Even if a chipset needs replacing, it's easier to remove. You can save the cooling module. It's cleaner, more repeatable, better thermal conductivity. It's just a superior solution.
Bara: It's like a toothbrush that brushes the teeth without toothpaste.
Zod: That's right.
Bara: So your kids get 15 minutes back for video games.
Zod: They call it screen time. I call it video games. If I see any specks of toothpaste in the sink, it's 10 minutes removed from the next session.
Bara: It's a high price.
[00:34] Final Thoughts and Takeaways
Bara: We're on a mission to get rid of thermal paste. As we wrap, if you could change anything about electronics assembly and manufacturing—what would it be?
Zod: There are many opportunities, but for this specific area—given your solution—it's a no-brainer. It's a clear opportunity to eliminate an imperfect solution. Forget about application and cleaning. Thermal paste has inconsistencies, and that causes hotspots, reducing reliability—especially at today's operating temperatures.
From a cost perspective, you and I discussed total cost of ownership. It's a clear case for using this solution over thermal paste.
Bara: To close: for engineers dealing with this issue—old, new, or unfamiliar with new technologies—what advice would you give them?
Zod: Design engineers are conservative. They're innovating at incredible speeds. If they can keep certain variables constant, they will. Even if they're convinced your solution is right, the organization must qualify it. That takes time.
Bara: Well, I think Zod, you nicely framed the consequences of really being left behind.
Zod: Yes. I think things move fast and you know what I—what we see—you, you know, you, the world, anyone in...
Bara: Is to be left behind.
Zod: Yep.
Bara: And, um, I just, I want to thank you for having this conversation with me today. It's always—I'm always energized after speaking with you. Um, you know, always have a few good laughs and, uh, always walk away with a few good new insights and nuggets as well. So, thank you.
Zod: You're—you're very welcome. My pleasure.
Bara: All right, until next time.
Zod: Take care.
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