I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Every year, I know exactly when fall has arrived. Like clockwork, the tire pressure idiot light in my Mazda “luxury SUV” (according to my owner’s manual) comes on every September when the temperature drops below 50 degrees. It takes a week or so for the car to get used to the colder temps, and then the idiot light goes into hibernation for another year.

And every fall, the action in the world of PCB design and manufacturing begins to pick up again. No more out-of-office email replies; summer vacation is over, and it’s time to get back at it. This week’s Top Five is a veritable pastiche of columns, articles, and news from the electronics industry.

COVID or not, this fall promises to be a vast improvement over last year’s season. We hope to see you all in person soon.

Siemens Global Webinar: Data-Driven Manufacturing in the Electronics Industry
Published September 22

Technical Editor Pete Starkey brings us a review of a Siemens webinar on data-driven manufacturing, hosted by Sagi Reuven, Frank Schaldach, and Tovi Yadin. As Pete summarizes, “…only smart usage of the digital twin information will open the doors to improvements and business success.”

IPC Unveils Golden Gnomes Awards at IPC SummerCom 2021
Published September 17

At SummerCom 2021, IPC launched the Golden Gnomes Awards to honor standards development team members for accomplishments during the previous year. These unique Golden Gnome trophies were created with a 3D printer and painted by an IPC staff liaison. Award winners included Dave Hillman and Doug Pauls of Collins Aerospace, who took home Gnoble Gnome Awards.

Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: Own Your Weird
Published September 23

Columnist Dan Beaulieu has a review of Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love, a cool book written by Jason Zook. You may remember Jason as the creator of such innovative businesses as IWearYourShirt and BuyMyLastName. Jason is a quirky guy, but as Dan points out, he’s also fearless and extremely creative, and there are plenty of lessons here for PCB industry technologists and managers.

SMTA Welcomes New Board Members
Published September 24

It’s fall, and that means it’s time for SMTA to announce the newest members of the board of directors. Let’s all welcome Jason Keeping of Celestica; Adam Klett of L3Harris Technologies; Cheryl Tulkoff of National Instruments; and Kirk Van Dreel of Plexus. We know serving on a board can be a thankless job, so best of luck to them. 

Beyond Design: PDN Trends and Challenges
Published September 23

Columnist Barry Olney has a great article on strategies for designing power delivery networks. As he explains, many PCB designers and design engineers still do not include PDN analysis in their design cycle. Barry points out why the low DC voltages and high transient currents in today’s processors can be a recipe for PDN and signal integrity problems.