SEM Lab, Inc.
The technical background behind SEM Lab’s review and knowledge model.

About

About Ed Hare and the experience behind SEM Lab

SEM Lab’s consulting model is built on long-range experience across manufacturing, engineering, failure analysis, materials, and field-return problem solving.

Ed Hare portrait
Ed Hare Founder, SEM Lab, Inc.
48 Years in the U.S. high-technology manufacturing industry
47 Years in engineering across AS, BS, MS, and PhD training and practice
29 Years as owner and operator of SEM Lab, Inc.

Coverage

Full-lifecycle hardware perspective

Ed Hare brings unusually broad consulting coverage across the full lifecycle of electronic hardware, from materials selection through manufacturing, reliability, and field-failure resolution.

His experience spans major component classes including passives, semiconductors, magnetics, interconnects, and protection devices, along with the materials systems that govern their behavior, such as solders, platings, ceramics, polymers, and specialty alloys.

Core strengths

Applied engineering support across recurring technical problems

  • Manufacturing process challenges including soldering, assembly defects, and contamination control
  • Reliability risks tied to thermal, mechanical, and environmental stress
  • Failure analysis involving corrosion, fatigue, fracture, delamination, electrical overstress, and latent defects
  • Interpretation of physical evidence using SEM/EDS, cross-sectioning, and spectroscopy

Why it matters

Microscopic evidence linked back to real engineering decisions.

In practice, this experience supports a wide range of use cases: troubleshooting yield issues, qualifying new materials, investigating field returns, narrowing likely mechanisms, and preventing recurrence.

Yield and process troubleshooting New-material qualification Field-return investigation Failure mechanism explanation Root-cause linkage Recurrence prevention

Use this experience

Bring in SEM Lab when the evidence is complex and the decision matters.

The consulting format is intentionally focused, but the underlying experience is broad. That combination is what allows SEM Lab to stay selective while still being highly useful in difficult cases.