Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1174596
OCTOBER 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 11 Speaking of which, we start this month's is- sue off with an interview with two senior de- signers, Mike Creeden of Insulectro and in- structor Rick Hartley. They discuss the cutting- edge technologies of today, some promising materials and processes, and why the design- er's job is more critical than ever. Then, we have Part 2 of an interview with Chris Beeson of Digi-Key, who explains how the company works with designers and how EDA tools are a lot like a bag of golf clubs. Lee Ritchey of Speeding Edge puts the "faster, smaller" con- cept in perspective with a surprising look at how fast PCBs have become in just the last de- cade or two. We also have columns by Stephen Chavez, Istvan Novak, Vern Solberg, Bob Tise, John Coonrod, and Alistair Little, as well as an ar- ticle by Brent Klingforth of Mentor, a Siemens business. There's a lot going on in this indus- try right now, and we'll be there to bring you the information you need to know. See you next month! DESIGN007 Andy Shaughnessy is managing editor of Design007 Magazine. He has been covering PCB design for 19 years. He can be reached by clicking here. Cut to the downturns of 2002 and 2008, when we saw designers leaving to become Apple consultants and photographers, just to name a few that I recall off the top of my head. That was a truly volatile time when PCB designers were looking for work. But the design segment, and electronics—in general—has been on an upswing for about six years. If you know of any PCB designers looking for work, have them call me. Young people want to be PCB design - ers again, and senior designers are happy to have their sons and daughters join them in this industry. It's a 180-degree turnaround. We're cool again! Well, almost cool, at least. The IP C Executive Board of the Designers Council meeting attendees were a microcosm of the design community. Held during PCB West, the meeting was led by Gary Ferrari, Mike Creeden, and Stephen V. Chavez. The lit- tle conference room was full of designers and EEs ranging from age 25 to 75. Yes, most of us were closer to the higher end of the age scale, but it was great meeting young PCB designers, including some newly-minted CID students from Kelly Dack's class. These young people were excited to be designers; they were thirsty for knowledge and ready to absorb whatever they could from the senior designers and en- gineers. Anyone who has watched long lines of waves roll off of a ship's stern has seen what physicists call a soliton—a sin- gle wave that keeps its shape while moving at a constant speed. These complex phenomena are a unique type of wave whose motions physicists and engineers are trying to better understand. In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, Jordan Raney and graduate student Chengyang Mo of the University of Pennsylvania used a custom mechanical metamaterial—an artificial structure with proper- ties that are defined by geometry instead of its composition—to study this phenomenon. Made out of hundreds of interconnected rubber squares that each contain a ball bearing, researchers in Penn's Architected Materials Laboratory used a high-speed camera to record the soliton's movements after it was hit with a mallet. Their study is the first to show how these unique non-linear waves travel in a soft, two-dimensional system. (Source: UPenn) Making Waves With Metamaterials