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The Shaughnessy Report: Continuing Designers Day's Momentum

Designers Day is over, and no matter how you look at it, the Las Vegas event was a success, despite a drop in attendance.

Anyone could figure that attendance at Designers Day and at APEX overall would be down from last year; after all, the electronics industry itself is down about 30%. But the PCB designers and EEs who made it to Designers Day made up an enthusiastic bunch of people.

Speakers like Rick Hartley, Happy Holden, Dieter Bergman and Eric Bogatin discussed the latest design tricks and techniques, while keynote speaker Joe O'Neil, CEO of Hunter Technology, provided a look at design from a manufacturer's viewpoint. Hunter has offered design services for years, so Joe knows what he's talking about. Check out my interview with Joe on our Real Time With Designers Day site.

IPC was kind enough to let us set up our cameras in the hall outside the design classes. Everyone, including journalists from other industry magazines, had to walk through our studio gauntlet to get into the rooms in that hallway. Funny how that worked out.

Our studio was a busy place during Designers Day. Throughout the day, PCB designers, electrical engineers and even a few manufacturers dropped by to chat or be interviewed.

Nolan Johnson, Sunstone Circuits' CAD marketing manager, sat down with Guest Editor Kelly Dack and me to discuss Sunstone's drive for Design For Profitability, or DFP. Sunstone is working with Digi-Key, National Instruments and NXP on the ECOSystem project, and Nolan explained how DFP fits in with Sunstone's goals.

Kelly also interviewed Lee Ritchey of Speeding Edge on the topic of layer count. Lee explained why reducing layer count is not always the cheapest way to go, or the best.

Guest Editor and signal integrity evangelist Eric Bogatin discussed his class and his latest quest: Debunking myths in the power distribution network.

Dr. Craig Hillman, CEO of DfR Solutions, chatted with us about his class on designing boards for reliability, and explained how PCB designers can actually eliminate many reliability issues up-front in the process.

Eric and Vern Solberg of STS talked about Vern's work with the IPC-7093 design and assembly specification for bottom terminal packaged parts, and the challenges they create for PCB designers.

And Happy Holden of Mentor Graphics listed a few free sources for PCB design training and information that he discovered while doing research. As Happy said, good training might keep you from being laid off, or at least make you the last one laid off.

Everyone gathered at a reception later, and we met a genuine newbie PCB designer, a young lady who designs boards for tasers. She came over from the manufacturing side and was excited to be attending her first Designers Day.

Most designers and EEs shared her excitement. But now that now that Designers Day is over, what can you do to keep that excietment alive?

First of all, if you're not already a member, join the Designers Council. It costs $50, but you'll get a coupon worth $50 off any classes sponsored by the council. (And no, IPC is not getting rich from designers' fees.) Click here to find a Designers Council chapter near you. 

Next, join the Designers Council e-mail forum. You can ask your peers for help on a particular design or pose hypothetical design questions, and you don't have to be a member to join. Every now and then you'll see a great thread that applies to your job. The Designers Council saves the longer threads for quick reference.

Read a good book, for free. Happy Holden's HDI Handbook is available free of charge, as is Joe Fjelstad's Flexible Circuit Technology and Steve Williams' Survival Is Not Mandatory.

And, get design training any way you can. No doubt your company's travel budget is tight or non-existent right now, but many EDA tool vendors offer free Webinars. We regularly publish news articles about training Webinars. Also, check out the Web sites and/or blogs by Eric Bogatin, Colin Warwick and Doug Smith. These three post all kinds of interesting high-speed design and engineering information.

Finally, if you attended Designers Day and have some feedback, contact either of IPC's program managers, Anne Marie Mulvihill or Tina Nerad. They'd love to hear from you (I asked them, just to be sure), especially if you have input about next year's event. If you have an idea for a class, let IPC know.

Designers Day 2010 might be a really big deal. The stock market has been making gains lately, and we may be at or near the bottom of the downturn.

When the economy turns around, the companies that have continued to innovate will reap the benefits. And the designers who kept up their design education and training will be in demand.