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I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

It's been a chilly week for most of us in the United States, and whether you’re in the frozen Pacific Northwest (where I live) or the windswept plains of the Midwest and beyond, you were hunkering down and fighting to stay warm. What better way to pass the time than these editorial offerings. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Mya Gatzke: Mapping Out Her Future

I attended PCB Carolina at NC State’s McKimmon Center. This year’s event was the biggest show in its 10-year-plus history, and many engineering students were among the usual veteran PCB technologists. I spoke with several engineering students from the Class of 2027, and their excitement about this industry was contagious. One such freshman, Mya Gatzke, sat down for an interview. As she points out, an electrical engineering degree will come in handy in a wide variety of careers.

Save Your Design by Understanding Fab Processes

At PCB Carolina, I met with Laura Martin, director of applications engineering for Summit Interconnect. Laura has been at Summit for about a year, moving into the role from a similar position at Insulectro. She has now become Summit’s go-to design for manufacturing (DFM) expert, and she’s working to move DFM further up in the design cycle, eliminating unpleasant surprises at CAM.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Welcome back, readers! Glad to see you. I hope you had plenty of rest over the holidays and you don’t need a vacation from your vacation. This week, our five must-reads include articles and news items on global fab trends and challenges, a breakdown of M&A activity in 2023, Ventec’s move into the equipment arena, the opportunities that arise from designer-fabricator communication early in the design cycle, and a new kind of AOI that’s driven by an AI neural network.

What Do You Know About PCB Manufacturing?

What manufacturing concepts are designers missing? We posed this question to Tony Bell, division manager of San Diego PCB Design, which was acquired by APCT in April 2023 and continues to operate under its original name, although with plans to transition to its official new name of APCT Design. Tony has experience in PCB design, fab, assembly, and test, so we asked him what PCB designers need to know about manufacturing. He said the need for designers to continue learning about fab and assembly processes throughout their careers, and why asking questions is not bothersome, it’s necessary for the job.

Beyond Blueprints: Early Involvement Shapes Superior Fab Outcomes

PCB fabrication is the cornerstone of innovation in electronics, transforming intricate circuit designs into crucial PCBs. As technology advances, the demand for reliable PCBs with ever-increasing circuit density surges and highlights the pivotal role of fabrication in shaping the electronics landscape. In this intricate dance between innovation and execution, a symbiotic relationship emerges between designers and fabricators. This forms the core of success.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

The Christmas and New Year’s holidays made for much-appreciated off-time in the U.S. and Europe, but there was still a lot of good industry reading for all to enjoy. From Happy Holden’s influence on our youngest and brightest to the cost of rework, policy challenges ahead for European PCB and PCBA companies, to new faces in the industry—with some bonus R2-D2 thrown in for good measure—these articles are worth a few minutes of your time. Here are my picks from this past week in industry news and feature articles.

Book Excerpt: 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Designing for Reality,' Chapter 2

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Don’t expect manufacturing to be perfect. There will always be variations from optimum at every step of the manufacturing process. Designers should recognize that variation and physical challenges within the PCB manufacturing process can be exacerbated by their design decisions.

EDA Tools and Unconventional Geometries - Designing Embedded Components

Designing PCBs with embedded components has never been a simple task, and traditional EDA tools required designers to employ a variety of workarounds. Fortunately, the EDA software tools of today are much better equipped to work with embedded components than previous design tools.

Happy New Year 2024 From I-Connect007

As we bid farewell to a remarkable 2023, let's welcome the New Year with renewed hope and endless possibilities. Though we are taking the day off to spend the holiday with our family and friends, the entire staff at I-Connect007 wishes you a happy and prosperous new year.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Most-returned Holiday Gifts

It’s the last Friday of 2023, and a relatively quiet news week here for the industry. Most of our staff has been spending time with family and friends. Still, the news never sleeps, and I encourage you to revisit our websites and see what’s been happening. Now, we all appreciate great gifts, but sometimes they just aren’t what we need—or want. So, in keeping with the holiday spirit, here are the top five most returned gifts.

UHDI Fundamentals: Talking UHDI with John Johnson, Part 2

American Standard Circuits is an early adopter of Averatek’s A-SAP™ process for its ultra-high density interconnect (UHDI) products. I had the opportunity to sit down with industry veteran John Johnson to discuss this. John, who previously worked at Averatek, currently works as vice president of business development at American Standard Circuits where he oversees quality.

Holiday Greetings From the Staff at I-Connect007

The staff at I-Connect007 wishes you and your loved ones a happy holiday season. Today is Christmas Day, and we wish all those celebrating this holiday a merry and carefree time.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week—Holiday Movie Edition

Every year, my friends on social media have a discussion about Christmas movies. It starts with someone asking whether “Die Hard” qualifies as a Christmas movie. Then everyone speculates about which Christmas movies are the best or worst of all time. Here are the top five highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Ever notice how the end of the calendar year creates a “tennis spectator” effect in our thinking? Let me explain. We’ve all seen the video of people watching a tennis match, with their gazes moving back and forth, left to right, as the ball moves between the contestants; that lazy head-shake led by the gaze of the eyes, right? Well, as we reach the end of a year, we seem to take stock in what’s happened behind us (reflectively gaze to the left), and what is coming in the future (expectantly gaze to the right.) Our thoughts bounce back and forth as if time were the tennis ball. In this week’s must-reads, however, we keep our gaze firmly affixed to the right, as it were, considering the future. If you only read five pieces of industry news this week, here are my suggestions.

Unconventional Geometry Design Techniques

We survey our readers from time to time, and a number of respondents have mentioned that designing boards with odd geometries can be a real challenge. We asked design instructors Kris Moyer and Kelly Dack to discuss the challenges related to designing odd-shaped PCBs, as well as some solutions for designing today’s boards that are anything but rectangles. What’s the craziest-shaped board you’ve ever worked with?

Engineering Their Future at PCB Carolina

At the PCB Carolina show in Raleigh, North Carolina, I had the opportunity to speak to several engineering students from NC State. I sat down for an interview with Cayden Longwell, a member of the class of ’27 in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at NC State. Even as a freshman, Cayden already has a basic roadmap for his career in electronics.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

Every year, companies in the consumer electronics segment look forward to the Christmas season. Some of these companies make almost half of their revenue in November and December. What are the hottest electronics gadgets this year? According to the Consumer Reviews Guide, these are the top sellers in the electronic gadget market this holiday season. Do any of these gadgets strike your fancy, as my grandmother used to say? Check them out.

Your Thermal Designs Are Inefficient

Most designers rely on the trace widths suggested in IPC-2152, the “bible” for calculating high-current trace widths (unless you have read our book). IPC-2152 is the best, most thoroughly researched study of trace currents and temperatures available. But it does have some weaknesses. One weakness is that it (by necessity) studies 6-inch-long traces in isolation. But traces are not all 6 inches long nor in isolation.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

This week’s news items taught me a few things I didn’t know. For instance, there’s news about the new equipment for THT work, governmental support for advanced packaging technologies, an upcoming webinar from iNEMI on counterfeits, an interview with U.S. Rep. Blake Moore, one of the sponsors of the bipartisan Protecting Circuit Boards and Substrates Act, and columnist Tim Haag, using Star Trek to illustrate why simplicity is, ahem, paramount.

8 Simple Rules for Streamlining Your Design

There are many ways, dozens to be sure, and most likely many more, to streamline a PCB design. My goal here is to pick a single-digit number of rules to abide by, that can be reasonably adhered to, and provide some bang for the buck. These rules are meant to reduce design scope creep, avoid PCB respins, and improve production yields.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

I learned to cook late in life, and Allrecipes.com is my go-to recipe source. Their recipes are peer-reviewed, you might say, and they’re always dead-on. So, this week, I present my top five recipes for traditional Thanksgiving dishes; these will also work well for Christmas dinner, or any big family gathering. Enjoy!

UHDI Fundamentals: Talking UHDI with John Johnson, Part 1

American Standard Circuits is an early adopter of Averatek’s A-SAP process for its ultra-high definition interconnect (UHDI) products. I sat down with industry veteran John Johnson to discuss this. John, vice president of business development, oversees quality at American Standard Circuits, and previously worked at Averatek. In the spirit of full disclosure, we will be discussing and sharing photos, slides, and materials with permission from both ASC and Averatek. This is the first of a three-part interview. 

Real Time with... productronica 2023: Neil Chamberlain Discusses Polar’s Vast Database 

Neil Chamberlain, European sales manager for Polar Instruments, and Editor Pete Starkey discuss how the company responds to industry's need to analyze a huge variety of materials. Neil explains how Polar has rolled with the punches as the number of materials continues to grow each year.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

On a global scale, productronica has been dominating the news this week, mostly with announcements and show preliminaries. It’s been a long and full week for those who have exhibited and attended the trade show (despite the November rain), and I encourage you to review our productronica coverage from this week. In the coming days, we’ll be showcasing more photos, videos, and interviews, so please stay tuned.

Avoid the ‘Ferrari Problem’ and Simplify Your PCB Design

When I last spoke with DirectPCB cofounder Greg Papandrew, he mentioned that many boards are designed like Ferraris when what the product really needs is a Ford Pinto. Those of us who work in PCB design education, whether on corporate training or on the conference scene, tend to teach new designers how to build Ferraris.

Simplifying Your Design

For this issue on simplifying PCB designs, the I-Connect007 Editorial Team spoke with IPC instructor Kris Moyer about ways that designers can avoid over-constraining their designs and making them needlessly complex. As Kris says, streamlining your design comes down to having a solid understanding of fab and assembly processes and the silicon tradeoffs that can simplify or overcomplicate your design, as well as the need to start working with fabricators early in the cycle.

PCB Carolina 2023 Breaks Attendance, Exhibitor Records

Call it a good problem to have. PCB Carolina 2023 was so big that that exhibitors were literally spilling out of the show floor at NC State’s MacKimmon Center for Continuing and Lifelong Education. This year, PCB Carolina drew 1,200 attendees and so many exhibitors that some “overflow” booths had to be set up in a classroom near the show floor, as well as in the registration area. Where did all these attendees come from? The line for lunch and dinner looked what you’d see at DesignCon

Insulectro: Education Begins with the Designer

During PCB West, Insulectro held an educational showcase at its office in San Jose that focused on flexible, printed electronics, and advanced materials. After the courses concluded, I spoke with Chris Hunrath, VP of technology, about the company’s efforts to educate PCB designers, and the variety of material options available for customers who want to push the envelope of innovation. 

New Materials Simplify Fab and Design Processes

During PCB West, Andy Shaughnessy and Kelly Dack met with Paul Cooke, senior director of business development, Ventec International Group. In this interview, Paul discusses some of the global trends he’s seeing in new materials that address the issue of stacked microvia failure, and his drive to educate North American designers about the use of pure resin and no-flow materials. 

Managing Design Standards

IPC provides a wide range of standards that cover PCB design, fabrication, assembly, materials, components, land patterns, and much more. Design standards fall under the purview of Patrick Crawford, so I asked him to share some background on the processes for developing and updating standards. Patrick explained which design, fabrication, and assembly standards PCB designers should be familiar with, and how standards can help designers avoid making costly mistakes.

Planning, DFM, and Inspection: Key to High-reliability Fab

At PCB West, Andy Shaughnessy and Kelly Dack spoke with Marc L’Hoste, VP of West and South Americas for ICAPE Group, a company that supplies and manufactures high-tech PCBs at locations around the world. We asked Marc to share some advice regarding high-reliability fab. In this conversation, Marc is clear that planning, pre-work, and inspection are the key ingredients to high-reliability success.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

I don’t know everything, but I know one thing: This job is never boring. Here’s just a sample of what we’ve published online in the last week: an article on zero liquid discharge technology, an interview with a flex fabricator about avoiding DFM issues, a feature on the use of AI in smart assembly processes, a news item about investment in advanced substrate development in the U.S., and a story about one woman’s journey in electronics, starting when she learned to solder at 11 years old.

UHDI Fundamentals: Ultra HDI Pushes PCB Manufacturing Capabilities

Ultra high-density interconnect (UHDI) is a term used in the electronics industry to describe a cutting-edge technology that pushes the limits of fabrication capabilities for printed circuit boards (PCBs) and semiconductor devices. UHDI represents an advancement in miniaturization and integration, allowing for the creation of electronic components and systems with extremely high levels of functionality in a smaller footprint.

IPC Standards: Ticket to a Safe Passage

John Watson, CID, is a customer success manager with Altium who also teaches PCB design at Palomar College in Carlsbad, California. He’s noticed that most of his students are primarily new to the industry and not familiar with IPC standards. In his classes, he teaches how to use these standards while trying to help students access the documents more easily. When we met with John, we asked him to discuss the importance of understanding IPC standards, the price you’ll pay if you decide not to follow them, and his plans for getting new designers on board with standards as early as possible in their careers.

With Flex and Rigid-flex, Ask the Right Questions

I recently met with Tony Plemel, senior applications engineer with Flexible Circuit Technologies. In this interview, Tony discusses when flex designers need to break the rules, when they can’t break the rules, and why it’s so important for fabricators to ask designers the right questions to ensure a successful build.

Advanced Materials Update with John Andresakis

At PCB West, I sat down for an interview with John Andresakis, the director of business development for Quantic Ohmega. I asked John to update us on the company’s newest materials, trends in advanced materials, and the integration of Ticer Technologies, which Quantic acquired in 2021. As John explains, much of the excitement in materials focuses on laminates with lower and lower dielectric constants.

PCBflow Fosters Collaboration Between Design and Manufacture 

During PCB West, I spoke with Susan Kayesar, program manager for PCBflow, a business unit of Siemens that provides a collaboration environment for designers and manufacturers. We discussed the intent behind PCBFlow and how this platform helps to improve pre-manufacture communications. 

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

My must-reads for this week all seem to be forward-looking: an introduction to Factory 5.0, an interview from the floor at SMTA International on rework stations, announcement of a merger of two components suppliers, board of directors news, and an insightful PCB CAD tool market projection report.

Got Questions? Standards Have the Answers

The I-Connect007 Editorial Team recently spoke with Gerry Partida, vice president of technology at Summit Interconnect, and co-chair of the IPC-6012 committee. Gerry has been involved with standards development for years, and he believes that adhering to IPC’s standards and specifications has been a big part of Summit’s success. In this interview, Gerry explains how Summit utilizes standards, manufacturing data, and information to reduce re-spins and scrap while increasing yield and profitability. He also discusses the repercussions that can occur when designers don’t follow IPC standards. As Gerry points out, everything you need to know is in the standards, so why not follow them?

Manufacturing Driven Design: Moving Beyond DFM

Andy Shaughnessy sat down for an interview with Max during PCB West and asked him to explain exactly what manufacturing driven design entails. As he says, MDD isn’t just another term for DFM; it’s a whole new way of thinking. If the industry embraces this concept, it could save companies millions of dollars each year, but it’s going to require companies to work together with their manufacturing partners.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

In this week’s Top 5, we start with a conversation with Mike Soble, who explains why SEL and Chemcut have such a great partnership. We have a review of SMTA International, which took place this week in Minneapolis. We also have a conversation with the design team at Monsoon Solutions; they explain how they geared their documentation process to the requirements of IPC standards. Mike Morando explains how to qualify your rigid-flex manufacturer. And we have an announcement about the IPC Checklist, a very useful document that I-Connect007 recently published.

Insulectro Flex Materials Showcase Offers Tips for Technologists

Insulectro continues its drive to educate PCB designers about the ins and outs of advanced flex materials. On Sept. 19 the company hosted an all-day seminar on flexible and printed electronic materials at its San Jose, Calif., facility.

A Standards-driven Design Environment

For this issue about standards, we interviewed Jen Kolar, VP of engineering, and Cory Grunwald, director of designer development, at Monsoon Solutions, a design bureau in Bellevue, Washington. In this conversation, Jen and Cory explain how they created the company’s internal documentation process around the requirements of IPC standards. They also discuss their onboarding system for new hires, including the standards that the new designers should become familiar with.

Book Excerpt: The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to... Thermal Management with Insulated Metal Substrates, Chapter 2

Historically, engineering teams using some types of insulated metal substrates in high-performance LED applications have noted the formation of solder cracks after prolonged thermal cycles. Solder cracks, as the name suggests, are discontinuities in the solder joint, usually caused by excessive mechanical stress. This stress typically results from a mismatch between the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) of each of the joined components.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

This week, our must-read picks include the PCB industry monthly report, IPC’s Alison James’ statement to the EU regarding the vitality of our industry, an overview of test and inspection, greenfield fabrication facility design, and the future of advanced packaging and solder.

Selecting a Rigid-flex Manufacturer

If you’re coming from the rigid PCB world, you’re probably wondering how to get started and how to select a rigid-flex vendor. If you’re designing PCBs for an OEM that is betting everything on a next-generation rigid-flex design, you would want to use the absolute best vendor for your rigid-flex design. Your new rigid-flex design needs to be put into the right shop to leverage the best manufacturing solution.

Book Excerpt: 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Designing for Reality,' Introduction

Based on the wisdom of 50 years of PCB manufacturing at Sunstone Circuits, this book is a must-have reference for designers understanding the PCB manufacturing process as it relates to their design. Designing for manufacturability requires understanding the production process fundamentals and factors within the process that often lead to variations in manufacturability, reliability, and cost of the board.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

This week’s must-reads cover a little bit of everything: advanced packaging substrates, rigid-flex design, the potential loss of tribal knowledge, ultra HDI processing, and the need for fabricators to begin utilizing Smart systems. In a few weeks, we’ll be attending SMTA International in Minneapolis, and then productronica in Munich. We hope to see you on the road!

UHDI Fundamentals: A Primer on UHDI 

There has always been pressure to reduce line and space as we have seen the bleeding edge technology go from 8 mils to 5 mils and then to 3 mils. The difference between “then” and “now” is that the prior advancements, for the most part, used the same processes, chemistry and equipment going from 8 mils to 3 mils. But going from 3 mil to sub 1 mil trace and space is a quantum leap in printed circuit board (PCB) technology that requires a whole new set of processes and materials.

Rigid-flex Design Guidelines 

Rigid-flex circuits are unique structures; part rigid board and part flex, they’re increasingly working their way into many of the electronic devices we use every day. There have been many advances in rigid-flex lately as more companies find themselves exploring this technology. So, before I started writing this article about rigid-flex design, I double-checked a few things. Fortunately, there is plenty of rigid-flex information available on a variety of great websites that we all know and trust.

Three Things to Improve High-Speed PCB Signoff, Part 2

Another challenge for SerDes is losses within the channel design. At high speeds, dielectric material can be very lossy, making the appropriate selection of the right material, length, etc., critical for the channel. Many questions about stackup, trace widths, and height from the ground plane need to be defined up front. Simulating a signal with a topology explorer tool extracted from the design can be used to set up and run sweep parameters and push min/max length/spacing values into the Allegro schematic constraint manager (system capture).

PCB West Review: EDA Tool Companies Finally Embrace AI

The weather couldn’t have been better for PCB West, and PCB designers and manufacturers packed the show floor for much of the exhibition on Wednesday, Sept. 20 in Santa Clara, California. The show floor was sold out, and it was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Rigid-flex Stackup: It’s a 3D World

Z-zero founder Bill Hargin has been studying stackup design techniques for years. He developed the company’s PCB stackup planning software, and he wrote an I-Connect007 eBook, The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to… Stackups: The Design within the Design. In this interview, Bill shares his thoughts on designing rigid-flex stackups, the challenges they bring, and what rigid board designers need to know about designing stackups in 3D. “Flexperts” Mark Finstad of Flexible Circuit Technologies and Nick Koop of TTM Technologies also offer insight into the many tradeoffs that rigid-flex designers face.

Book Excerpt: 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Manufacturing Driven Design,' Chapter 5

In chapter 5 of 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Manufacturing Driven Design', the author, Max Clark, looks at transparent collaboration and examines the adoption of cloud-based platforms. He writes, “If the electronics manufacturing industry focuses on formats alone, they are looking backwards, resolving the problems of yesterday and limiting industry advancement in this fundamental area.”

Rigid-flex DFA

Rigid-flex assembly brings its own set of issues, but designers can do quite a bit to make things easier on their downstream brethren. We asked IPC instructor Kris Moyer to give us the lowdown on DFA for rigid-flex circuitry.

I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week

We’ve had a hot week in this industry. In my picks for this week, we introduce a new SMT007 columnist, and we have a look at the CHIPS Act one year later. We have a great article about sourcing diversification, and a look at the latest electronics news coming out of India. And columnist Vern Solberg explains DFM best practices for flexible circuits.

An Overview of Rigid-flex Design

For this month’s issue on rigid-flex design, we spoke with instructor Kris Moyer, who teaches the IPC class “PCB Design for Flex and Rigid-Flex Boards.” In this wide-ranging interview, Kris breaks down the hurdles facing rigid-flex designers and offers a variety of solutions for rigid board designers taking on their first rigid-flex circuits. He also provides a few horror stories to illustrate what happens if you don’t follow sound design practices, rules, and standards. And, as Kris points out, “Your fabricator is your friend.”

Sourcing Diversification – Empowering Your Supply Chain for Success

In today's interconnected and rapidly evolving business landscape, sourcing diversification has emerged as a crucial strategy for organizations aiming to stay competitive and thrive in a dynamic marketplace. The traditional approach of relying on a single source for procurement is being replaced by a more sophisticated and strategic mindset that emphasizes the advantages of exploring multiple procurement channels. This approach not only opens doors to a whole different network of suppliers, but also offers numerous benefits, such as navigating sales increases, ensuring smoother deliveries, and promoting innovation within the organization.

Book Excerpt: 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Manufacturing Driven Design,' Chapter 4

In Chapter 4 of 'The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... Manufacturing Driven Design,' the author, Max Clark, explores industry advancements that bridge the gap between concurrent and intelligent DFM. Both systems complement each other within the typical workflow and represent the beginnings of a transition away from a classical DFM, allowing for an improved NPI process.
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