Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1126810
16 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2019 Feature by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team As a field applications engineer at TTM Tech- nologies, which has fabrication and manufac- turing locations around the world, Julie Ellis sees a wide variety of customer design require- ments. In this interview with the I-Connect007 Editorial Team, Julie explains how PCB design- ers can influence the development of the PCB. She shares a variety of tips and tricks that de- signers can implement early in the design pro- cess to help optimize fabrication and assembly later on and keep small issues from becoming big problems downstream. Andy Shaughnessy: Julie, with your job you have a pretty circumspect view of design and manufacturing. Can you start by giving us an idea about your job and some of the designs that you see crossing your desk? Julie Ellis: My main task is to support cus- tomers' designs for manufacturability by un- derstanding their requirements and providing stack-ups and design guidelines for rigid cir- cuit boards that are within TTM fabrication ca- pabilities and process tolerances. I also help customers understand how fabrication pro- cesses affect capabilities, so they accept design modifications that assist in manufacturing. The work I see coming across my desk in- cludes components for EV charging and pow- er conversion, Lidar, radar, back-up and indus- trial scanning cameras, ultrasound, defibril- lators, and glucose monitoring. They require stack-ups ranging from four-layer heavy cop- per boards to 32 layers with three lamination cycles and mechanical blind holes and ad- vanced HDI, which I define as 0.4-mm pitch BGAs and smaller. Oftentimes, I'm trying to help customers de- sign products that can also easily be transferred over to Asia and run on mass volume produc- tion lines without any advanced requirements that add cost. I work to ensure that prototypes fabricated here in North America are already designed with pre-approved stack-ups to run without modification at the final production