80 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2022
Several years ago, a report came out of St. Louis of a strange
apartment on the market. It was in the community of Central
West End. With a small floor plan of only 200 square feet, the
entire bathroom was placed right in the middle of the kitchen.
It gives new meaning to the studio apartment. In real estate,
it's pretty uncommon to find the bathroom in the kitchen;
but metaphorically speaking, it's done all the time in a PCB
design (ouch).
PCB Carolina has been growing consistently for the past
decade, and this year the show reached a milestone: more than
1,000 attendees. The show was the busiest I've ever seen it; I
almost had to park off the NC State University campus. Fortu-
nately, I'm an expert at "the parking lot game." I waited until a
guy was leaving and then I sniped his spot. Bam!
Inductive kick has
been a well-known
phenomenon in the
electronic industry
from very early on.
First associated
with motors,
AC-mains transformers and mechanical
relays, people noticed large voltage spikes
when the current-carrying circuit was
opened. Later, as more sophisticated
electronic circuits emerged, the same thing
was noticed any time current was chang-
ing through an inductor, or for that matter,
through any inductance.
To facilitate new
generations of
high I/O semicon-
ductor packag-
ing, circuit board
technology is
undergoing significant refinement in both
fabrication process methods and base mate-
rials selected. Many of the new high-function
semiconductor package families require sig-
nificantly more terminals than their predeces-
sors. Interconnecting these very fine-pitch,
high I/O semiconductors can dramatically
affect the procedures used in both circuit
board design and assembly processing.
TOP TEN
PCB Carolina Breaks Attendance Record
Quiet Power: Noise Mitigation
in Power Planes
Elementary, Mr. Watson: Is Your Bathroom in the Kitchen?
EDITOR'S
PICKS
Designers Notebook: Ultra
High-Density Circuit Board Design
