For those of you at my PCB West session on the Sept. 27, thanks for attending. Here’s the final presentation as delivered:
http://screamingcircuits.typepad.com/files/pcbwest2012-duanebenson-reliablemanf.pdf
Duane Benson
Tag Archives: printed circuit board design
Laminate Libraries?
I was chatting today with Manny Marcano, the relentless force behind EMA Design Automation. He mentioned the company’s webinar tomorrow on library creation and management has several hundred designers registered.
“It is amazing to me that library creation and management is still a big challenge for CAD guys,” he noted. Given the advancements in software, he should be right, but the new parts keep coming even faster.
It did get me thinking, however: when will we see CAD tools begin to incorporate laminate data in the way they currently have the parts libraries? There are so many flavors of laminate these days, it’s nearly impossible to keep up. Yet the material choice plays a huge role in the manufacturability and performance of the finished product.
Thoughts?
Missing CAD
Am I the only one concerned that on the recent analysts call with Mentor Graphics, not once were the company’s printed circuit board design tools mentioned?
The conversation, both from the company and the analysts, revolved solely around the company’s semiconductor design and emulation product lines.
If analysts are focused only on the semi side, then that’s how they will value the company. And the company will orient its internal efforts to align with the analysts.
This bears watching.
Socially Speaking
You might say humans are predisposed to chatting. The art has taken a few twists and turns over time: in the past 50 years the back-fence gossip session gave way to party lines (for some), then to online means so popular and ubiquitous it made AOL for a time one of the most valuable companies in the US.
To be sure, the AOL-style chat rooms were (are?) fun, but ultimately more of a time-waster than a problem solver. (Unless, of course, wasting time is the problem to be solved.) But the basic concept – interacting with peers without leaving the cozy confines of your home – is transcendent. For years, we’ve been working at developing a mechanism that emulates and captures the essence of online shared group communication without all the chaos of a free-form chat room.
At long last, we think we have it.
A year ago, we acquired BeTheSignal, the brainchild of signal integrity guru Dr. Eric Bogatin, in large part for the slick web-based platform he had developed. We rolled that in to Printed Circuit University, our founder and owner Pete Waddell’s vision for a comprehensive website dedicated to training printed circuit board designers, fabricators and assemblers.
On the heels of that acquisition, we began in earnest to develop a unique “moderated chat” environment, under which our readers could engage in question/answer sessions with experts on a particular topic. The idea is simple: Chats are conducted online at a set date and time. Attendees can privately submit questions via email in advance of the chat, or through the site itself while the chat is “live.” The moderator – typically an expert in some aspect of PCB technology – can review the questions and choose which to answer. As questions are answered, they appear online in sequential fashion.
Each chat session will have a specific time length, after which a transcript will be made available for on-demand viewing. Most sessions will last for 60 to 120 minutes. We foresee chat session topics ranging from the broad to the specific. In some cases, the topic will be the driver, such as discussions of market or packaging trends, for example. In other cases, the presenter will be the attraction, because of their “name” and reputation in the industry.
UPMG plans to enlist the leading names in electronics design from around the world to hold chats in their respective regions. The emphasis in most sessions will be on the specific over the general; for example, “layout and routing of cellphone boards” would be preferred to “layout and routing.” (For our advertisers, sponsorships will be available on a one-per-chat basis.)
PCB Chat is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for tens of thousands of industry technologists to come virtually face-to-face with their peers to ask questions and share problems and solutions in real time. Needless to say, we are thrilled at this development. Visit PrintedCircuitUniversity.com for a look, and watch our websites and digital newsletter for the first scheduled chats to be revealed.