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Beyond the Rulebook
What happens when the rule book is no longer useful, or worse, was never written in the first place? In today’s fast-moving electronics landscape, we’re increasingly asked to design and build what has no precedent, no proven path, and no tidy checklist to follow. This is where “Design for Invention” begins.
March Madness
From the growing role of AI in design tools to the challenge of managing cumulative tolerances, these articles in this issue examine the technical details, design choices, and manufacturing considerations that determine whether a board works as intended.
Looking Forward to APEX EXPO 2026
I-Connect007 Magazine previews APEX EXPO 2026, covering everything from the show floor to the technical conference. For PCB designers, we move past the dreaded auto-router and spotlight AI design tools that actually matter.
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Happy 99th Birthday to Harvey Miller!
November 23, 2021 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEstimated reading time: 1 minute
PCB manufacturing industry veteran Harvey Miller celebrates turns 99 years old today. The founder of Fabfile Online often jokes that he wants to break the Guinness World Record for longevity set by Jeanne Louise Calment, who died at 122 in 1997.
Harvey is still very active at 99, and at the rate he's going, he just might wind up making it to 123 years old. Let's raise a glass in Harvey's honor.
To your health, Harvey!
Learn more about Harvey in this interview from 2016: What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been—and It’s a Long Way from Being Over.
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Elementary, Mr. Watson: The Design Matrix—Revealing the Hidden Truths of Reality
05/12/2026 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. Watson“It seems you've been living two lives.” In one life, you're the respectable and responsible PCB design professional who follows the rules, works, pays taxes, meets deadlines, runs the checks, and even helps the landlady take out her garbage. In the other life, you’re the PCB designer who senses that something is wrong, searches for the deeper meaning behind their work, and can no longer fully accept the design world exactly as it has been presented. Welcome to the Design Matrix.
It’s Only Common Sense: Complexity Is the Enemy of Profit
05/11/2026 | Dan Beaulieu -- Column: It's Only Common SenseComplexity is expensive, but it doesn’t look that way at first. In fact, it often disguises itself as sophistication, flexibility, or customer responsiveness. But peel back the layers, and you’ll find bloated costs, diluted focus, exhausted teams, and shrinking margins. Common sense says that if something is hard to understand, execute, and explain, it is probably hard to make money doing it.
Designing Without a Rulebook: When Engineering Becomes Innovation
05/05/2026 | Stephen V. Chavez, Siemens EDAWhat if the very rules that made you successful as a PCB designer are the ones now holding you back? This reminds me of walking the floor and attending sessions at both PCB West 2025 and APEX EXPO 2026, where one common theme stood out: More designs with traditional PCB “best practices” simply don’t apply. It’s not because they’re wrong, but because the problems we’re solving have fundamentally changed. In some cases, those best practices can actually limit performance. This is where PCB design moves beyond optimization and into something far more challenging: designing without a rulebook.
ASC’s John Johnson Bullish on the U.S. and High-tech PCBs
04/28/2026 | Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007It was a good couple of days at the SMTA UHDI Symposium in Avondale, Arizona, in early April, where John Johnson, head of technology at American Standard Circuits (ASC) and resident PCB expert on UHDI in the real-world of manufacturing, was a presenter. As the symposium ended, I visited with John, who reflected on what he considered most important and what had made the greatest impression on him.
Wire Harness Taking a Step in the Right Direction
04/08/2026 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineTo fully understand the modernization of wire harness design and assembly, we met with members of the Innovation Advisory Team for the Wire Harness Manufacturer’s Association (WHMA) to outline the current challenges facing wire harnesses and the specific steps to implement a digital data flow from OEM to manufacturer and back. In some ways, the wire harness industry is moving from 19th-century to 21st-century technology. But in the meantime, the real challenge isn’t building the harness—manufacturers are very good at that.