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The Shaughnessy Report: Designers Hit Jackpot in Las Vegas

If you didn't make it to Las Vegas for IPC Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and the Designers Summit, you missed one good show. And I'm not just saying that because I came out a few dollars ahead overall. Very few.

This show was hopping. I can't count how many attendees told me, "This is way better than last year," referring to the 2007 APEX show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Attendance numbers for the Los Angeles show were down about 1,000 from the 2006 event in Anaheim, so IPC really needed a win in the 2008 column. And they won big in Sin City. We chronicled the entire show on Real Time With...IPC, with hours of event coverage and interviews with the industry's biggest names. The exhibits floor was busy right up until the show closed - I didn't see any exhibitors breaking down their booths early on the last day. There were too many attendees still streaming onto the show floor a half-hour before forklift time.

When was the last time you attended a trade show that had a strong last day? Hold on, I'm thinking ...

Of course, much of the conference and exhibiton was tailored to the needs of fabricators and EMS companies. Especially EMS companies.

But this year, IPC offered a much fuller set of events for PCB designers than in years past. Designers were everywhere, taking the CID certification classes and exams, and attending classes during the technical conference.

Designers Day, the highlight of the Designers Summit, featured classes by design gurus like Eric Bogatin, Rick Hartley, Gary Ferrari and Richard Snogren. Jean Hebeisen, director of the Designers Council and director of professional development, said Designers Day snagged 85 attendees, the highest attendance ever.

Nilesh Naik, CEO of One Source Group, gave a presentation on the future of the North American and global PCB design industries. He sees design going down the path of segmentation, just as fabrication and assembly did in the last decade.

For IPC, standards committees are where the rubber meets the road. Director of Technology Transfer Dieter Bergman says that this year IPC has more first-time committee attendees than ever.

One of those first-timers was Jack Olson, a PCB designer with Caterpillar. Jack couldn't believe how easy it was to get involed with a standards committe. He was also happy that he learned something new, and he was ready to take his new current-carrying knowledge back to his office.

Ruth Delker, a senior designer with Cipher Systems and past president of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Designers Council, talked about what goes on in the DC's education committee and how she motivates her council chapter. She even explained the "wrath of Ruth."

And I discovered that veteran instructors can easily step into a reporter's shoes for a day. We hired Rick Hartley as a guest editor, and he came away with some fantastic interviews. Rick spoke with Kelly Dack, a PCB designer for a gaming company, about designing for profitability. (Kelly passed his CID+ exam in Vegas.) He chatted with Javier Jimenez, owner of Dynamic Engineering and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Designers Council, about HDI design. Javier is currently creating a hands-on training class on designing HDI boards.

Rick also interviewed Martyn Gaudion, sales and marketing manager for Polar Instruments, about Speedstack, a tool that create stackup documentation in a format that designers and fabricators can handle. If you're a North American designer using a fabricator in Asia, this kind of tool can come in handy.

After you watch the work-related videos, check out Steve Gold's coverage of the IPC CCA Golf Outing that began in surprisingly cool temperatures north of Vegas. These golfers braved winds of 40 miles per hour in the name of hitting a little ball around. Now that's dedication.

All in all, I think IPC is pretty happy with the Vegas location. They've already inked an agreement for next year in the same venue, the Mandalay Bay Conference Center, March 29 - April 3, 2009.Maybe I'll win again next year too.