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Orange Co. Designers Council Meeting Focuses on Embedded Passives
August 9, 2017 | Judy Warner, AltiumEstimated reading time: 1 minute
On July 19, the Orange County Chapter of the IPC Designer’s Council hosted a lunch-and-learn meeting in Tustin to discuss the benefits of embedded passives. Approximately 40 people were in attendance, which was lighter turnout than usual, most likely because of summer vacations. But the crowd was an enthusiastic one, as usual.
The first speaker was Bruce Mahler, vice president of Ohmega Technologies. Mahler was articulate in demonstrating the clear benefits of embedded passives for PCB designers: Increased routing space, improved reliability, improved electrical performance in some designs, and reduced cost. Although not a new technology, the use of embedded resistors has increased particularly in the past 10 years.
Mahler pointed out that nearly every smartphone on the planet now contains embedded passives due to the uber-tight footprint that is crammed with functionality. High-frequency, RF, MEMS sensors and heater elements are increasingly dependent upon resistive materials like OhmegaPly. Mahler also demonstrated the step-by-step process of board fabrication for resistive materials, and he pointed out how this differs from traditional board fab. (To see Mahler’s presentation, click here.)
The second speaker was Jin Hyun-Hwang, an applications development engineer from Dupont. Hyun-Hwang discussed buried capacitance (a pair of power/ground layer pairs) designed for power distribution design options. Hwang discussed 1 mil and 0.5 mil dielectric laminates and the benefits of each. In this case, the number of decoupling caps can be reduced significantly, which frees up design real estate. Other benefits include reducing noise and increasing higher reliability. Process challenges for fabricators were also discussed. (To see Hyun-Hwang’s presentation, click here.)
Orange County Chapter President Scott McCurdy has built and maintained the largest chapter of the IPC Designers Council currently in operation. At this particular gathering, he was celebrating his 59th meeting. The next chapter meeting will be held at Harvard Park on September 26. The subject and speaker will be announced soon on the chapter’s website.
The Orange County chapter will be hosting a full-day Advanced PCB Design Conference in Irvine, California on November 8, 2017. Industry icons Eric Bogatin and Happy Holden will be featured along with several other design experts. Tabletop sponsors are being sought now.
Contact Scott McCurdy by clicking here, or Terri Kleekamp by clicking here, for more information about upcoming Orange County Chapter events.
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