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A strong design constraint strategy carefully balances a wide range of electrical and manufacturing trade-offs. This month, we explore the key requirements, common challenges, and best practices behind building an effective constraint strategy.
All About That Route
Most designers favor manual routing, but today's interactive autorouters may be changing designers' minds by allowing users more direct control. In this issue, our expert contributors discuss a variety of manual and autorouting strategies.
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Most-Read PCB Design News Stories of 2015
December 30, 2015 | Andy Shaughnessy, PCBDesign007Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Each December, we like to look back at the year in PCB design news. January seems like yesterday, doesn't it? Since then, we've seen plenty of innovative new tools and a variety of partnerships, and we've said goodbye to a couple of longtime friends. As we approach 2016, enjoy this list of the 10 most-read news items on PCBDesign007 in 2015.
Engineer Steve Weir Has Passed Away
Steve was a power and signal integrity guru with a variety of patents to his name. A fixture of DesignCon and a constant presence on the SI-List signal integrity forum, Steve wrote over a dozen papers on power integrity. He also had a crazy, irreverent sense of humor that you don’t find among most engineers. He will be missed.
Mentor Graphics Launches New HyperLynx SI/PI Product
Mentor Graphics Corporation has announced its newest version of the HyperLynx Signal Integrity/Power Integrity (SI/PI) tool for high-speed printed circuit board (PCB) designs. HyperLynx addresses high-speed systems design problems throughout the design flow—starting at the earliest architectural stages through post-layout verification.
EMA and Arena Solutions Form Strategic Alliance
The OrCAD and Arena integration provides a number of benefits for organizations using both systems. Components from the enterprise PLM system are available directly within the OrCAD Capture CIS design environment making search, selection, and placement very simple. Parts listed as obsolete in the PLM system can be easily identified and swapped out in an OrCAD design.
Sunstone Circuits Chooses InSight PCB Software for Pre-CAM and Sales
Sunstone Circuits has purchased Orbotech’s InSight PCB pre-sales and pre-engineering software. InSight PCB is a web-based tool for managing and assessing incoming customer PCB data for salespeople and engineers who are not CAM experts. From automatically retrieving comprehensive product information to generating precise summary reports, InSight PCB empowers sales and engineering people to work more independently, efficiently and profitably.
Improving PCB Design with Advanced Circuits' PCB Artist
Advanced Circuits' free PCB layout software PCB Artist has become a favorite not only with engineering students but also advanced engineers due to its easy schematic-to-PCB layout, Gerber format, autorouter, and extensive library of over 500,000 parts.
Pulsonix 8.5 Build 5902 is Released
WestDev Ltd. has released the latest version of Pulsonix 8.5, Build 5902. This maintenance update is issued as part of our on-going process of product improvement and response to customer feedback. In addition to bug fixes, the latest release contains several additions to the Report Maker function.
Exception PCB Solutions Design Service Boosts CID+ Qualifications
Heading up the design service is Neil Day, who has completed the IPC PCB Designer Certification Program and became qualified as an Advanced Certified Interconnect Designer (CID+). In addition, Technical Support Manager Paul Beech has completed the IPC CID training course and attained CID certification.
Polar Instruments Launches New Language Versions of The Speedstack PCB Layer Stackup Design System
Polar Instruments has launched new language versions of Speedstack, the industry’s best-selling PCB layer stackup design system. In addition to English, Speedstack is now available in German, Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese versions. Speedstack allows PCB fabricators to fine-tune the stackup design by assessing the impact of different PCB materials on cost, performance and manufacturing yield.
EDA Analyst Gary Smith Dead at 74
Longtime EDA analyst Gary Smith died July 3 in Flagstaff, Arizona at the age of 74. Gary worked at Dataquest from 1994 to 2006, and later founded Gary Smith EDA. He knew more about the EDA market than anyone I’ve ever known. I once asked Gary, “How many PCB design seats do you think are in China?” He sent me numbers for all of Asia and broke them down by country. He loved EDA.
ICD Releases 2015 Version of the ICD Stackup and PDN Planner
In-Circuit Design Pty Ltd (ICD) has released the 2015 version of its popular software. Impedance plots have been incorporated into this new release. “The impedance plots are simulated by multiple passes of the field solver (in the background) to create heads-up graphs of how to adjust the particular variables to achieve the target impedance,” said Barry Olney, CEO.
Suggested Items
Digital Twin Concept in Copper Electroplating Process Performance
07/11/2025 | Aga Franczak, Robrecht Belis, Elsyca N.V.PCB manufacturing involves transforming a design into a physical board while meeting specific requirements. Understanding these design specifications is crucial, as they directly impact the PCB's fabrication process, performance, and yield rate. One key design specification is copper thieving—the addition of “dummy” pads across the surface that are plated along with the features designed on the outer layers. The purpose of the process is to provide a uniform distribution of copper across the outer layers to make the plating current density and plating in the holes more uniform.
Meet the Author Podcast: Martyn Gaudion Unpacks the Secrets of High-Speed PCB Design
07/10/2025 | I-Connect007In this special Meet the Author episode of the On the Line with… podcast, Nolan Johnson sits down with Martyn Gaudion, signal integrity expert, managing director of Polar Instruments, and three-time author in I-Connect007’s popular The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to... series.
Showing Some Constraint: Design007 Magazine July 2025
07/10/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamA robust design constraint strategy balances dozens of electrical and manufacturing trade-offs. This month, we focus on design constraints—the requirements, challenges, and best practices for setting up the right constraint strategy.
The Shaughnessy Report: Showing Some Constraint
07/14/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy -- Column: The Shaughnessy ReportWhen we first decided to cover strategies for setting PCB design constraints, one designer we spoke with said, “They’re not really constraints; they’re more like guardrails that prevent your design from going off a cliff.”
Elementary, Mr. Watson: Rein in Your Design Constraints
07/10/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonI remember the long hours spent at the light table, carefully laying down black tape to shape each trace, cutting and aligning pads with surgical precision on sheets of Mylar. I often went home with nicks on my fingers from the X-Acto knives and bits of tape all over me. It was as much an art form as it was an engineering task—tactile and methodical, requiring the patience of a sculptor. A lot has changed in PCB design over the years.