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36 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2018 _______________________________ Chapter Spotlight by Bob McCreight SILICON VALLEY CHAPTER PRESIDENT The IPC Designers Council is an international network of designers. Its mission is to promote printed circuit board design as a profession and to encourage, facilitate, and promote the exchange of information and integration of new design concepts through communications, seminars, workshops, and professional certifi- cation through a network of local chapters. This month's spotlight is the Silicon Valley Chapter. We held our fall quarterly meeting on October 25, 2018, at none other than Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California—yes, the site of Super Bowl 50 and the soon-to-be 2019 College Football Playoff National Champion - ship game. This was made possible by our host, Sierra Circuits, and sponsor, Altium. We thank them both graciously. Out of 33 total RSVPs, 24 were able to attend the lunch - time meeting. Fun fact: of the members who RSVPed, six of them were CID certified and 10 were CID+ certified with Faisal Ahmed being the most recent (hear more from him later). Amit Bahl After addressing some chapter busi- n e s s, A m i t B a h l , director of sales and marketing at Sierra C i r c u i t s , s p o k e about a newly pat- ented process called CATLAM. Watch for a new term they are coining—trench circuit board (TCB). The secret sauce they are devel- oping involves etching a trench in the PCB material and filling it with copper by an elec- troless process, for which there are numerous benefits. Ben Jordan Following that, we introduced Ben Jor- dan, director of com- m u n i t y t o o l s a n d content at Altium. He gave us a brief preview of Altium Designer 19. Not to give away too much right now, but library management has some really cool new features, some of which will leverage their Octopart extension. For the main presentation, Ben gave an over- view of multi-board design, which involves projects that have more than one PCB and are interconnected by either plug-in con- nectors, wire harnesses, or another method. Some of the examples Ben demonstrated were very cool, like his own guitar mixer box. One point that he stressed was to put plenty of thought into how you divide the boards up. For instance, the power supply can be on a simple two-sided board while the communi- cations can be on a more complex multilayer board. Mixing them may have signal integrity consequences. Following the conclusion of the meeting, the networking portion of the agenda was blended into a stadium tour. From our sev- enth-floor boardroom, we went up the eleva- tor to the NRG Solar Terrace, or "Green Roof," where there is a thriving, sustainable garden that basks in the brilliant sunlight. From part of the terrace, you get a grand view of the field plus Silicon Valley and the southern San Francisco Bay Area, which you can also rent for events. Next, we visited the Verizon Press Level where all the media hangs out during game day action. We ended by visiting the field itself, including being able to look up at all the seating, lighting, and signage. It's a very nice stadium if I do say so myself. Too bad the home team is not doing so well this year (sad face). Below is our tentative 2019 meeting sched- ule (exact dates may vary): Amit Bahl Ben Jordan