Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Nolan’s Notes: Let Your Walls Down

I’m careful about not complaining too much in my life and in my professional writing. Complaining usually gets you nowhere. Back in college, I heard a quote that has stuck with me: “If you’re going to complain about a problem, have a solution to offer along with your complaint. That’s the way to move things forward.” So, pardon me while I lodge a complaint and suggest a change in behavior about PCB fabricators and designers.

As long as I’ve been in this industry, fabricators have been downright territorial about their processes. It doesn’t matter whether it’s capabilities, limits, CAM processes, or even the chemicals used in the plating and etching processes: fabs don’t divulge that information. Meanwhile, they want OEMs and designers to improve the manufacturability of their designs by working closely with the fabricators, and PCB customers should better understand what goes on inside the fab.

While it seems those two goals contradict each other, it’s not necessarily true. There are plenty of examples of innovators giving their disruptive technology away:

• Volvo developed the seat belt, then chose not to patent it.
• Bell Labs developed and gave away TCP/IP. That’s the data packet technology that makes the internet work.
• Speaking of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee gave away HTTP, allowing browsers to proliferate in our lives.
• In fact, this giving model became a philosophy in and of itself, giving birth to open-source software. Today, most high-complexity business operations software and data centers run on open-source software.

In these cases, these innovations arguably made the world a better place. Open access to the protocols enabled entire industries to be created. Holding onto processes and process data likely hampers the ability of industry to grow cooperatively. The less black magic there is in designing for fabrication, the more likely folks are to try their hand at making a board for themselves. The more fabricators are forthcoming about their processes, the more interchangeable fabricators become. That’s a good thing because now you’re competing on your value-add.

In the late 1980s, I was a new software engineer writing code for a fresh young startup called Mentor Graphics. In a company meeting, COO Gerry Langeler was celebrating something like 12 consecutive quarters of record sales, and stated that the reason for Mentor’s success was, “Once you have them by the database, their hearts, minds, and wallets will follow.” Back then, Mentor Graphics had a “walled garden” approach to the data, something it maintained for quite some time.

The challenge with a walled garden strategy is that, unless you can do 100%+ of what the customer desires, there will inevitably be a “compelling event” that will justify giving up on your products completely to shift to another vendor with that key feature. That was the way of the world in Mentor’s market back then. By embracing interchangeability and inter-platform communication, customers didn’t have to dump everything just to add a piece they needed. By knocking down the walls of their garden, those EDA companies grew even faster.

If prospective customers knew more, they’d be better able to determine that some of their marginal fab work at “Vendor A” would do better with you. Sure, you might lose a part number or two to another fab, but chances are good your customer will only move the work you struggle with anyway, allowing you the capacity to take on more business that’s in your most profitable sweet spot.

In the January 2024 issue of PCB007 Magazine, we investigate how to build a good communication relationship with your customers. Dana Korf, an I-Connect007 columnist, discusses how designers and manufacturers should be synchronized. NCAB’s field application engineers explore how to foster loyal customer/vendor relationships. Don Ball of Chemcut uses his column space to talk about the ins and outs of getting to know your vendor, and in an interesting interview, Sean Patterson of Summit Interconnect talks about creating a culture of operational efficiencies—something we can all learn from.

In addition, this month we bring you a 2023 IPC APEX EXPO technical paper on new resin systems for board fab issues (AGC), and columnists chiming in this month include Steve Williams, Paige Fiet, Happy Holden, Henry Crandall, and Mike Carano.

Now, I’m not saying that you should open everything to the world but give some thought to what knowledge really needs to be secret, and what more you can open up to help designers understand you better. Remember, designers have a history of using new knowledge in creative and, sometimes, revolutionary ways. Let’s take a listen.

This column originally appears in the January 2024 Issue of PCB007 Magazine.