Design007 Magazine

Design007-Apr2023

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APRIL 2023 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 51 An example of material formulated specifi- cally for thermal management concerns is a laminate with a thermal conductivity value of 1.24 W/m∙K, considered very good for this property, designed for high-frequency circuit materials. Additionally, the laminate has a low dissipation factor of 0.0017 and is available with a very low-profile copper offering a smooth copper surface. Another property not previ- ously mentioned but that can be significant for thermal management, is moisture absorption. e moisture absorption for this laminate is extremely low at 0.05% and that will greatly minimize the undesired effects that moisture can have on RF performance. ere are several different test methods which can be used to determine the thermal conductivity of a substrate. We always use a test method that does not include the effects of copper, so the stated thermal conductivity of the laminate is that of the substrate only. ere are other suppliers of high-frequency lami- nates, which will include the effects of copper in their testing for thermal conductivity and that will cause the property to appear much better than is actually true of the substrate. For this reason and many others mentioned, it is always good to contact your material supplier when working on a new design that is sensitive to thermal issues. DESIGN007 John Coonrod is technical marketing manager at Rog- ers Corporation. To read past columns, click here. I recently spoke with American Standard Circuits CEO Anaya Vardya about ways to bridge the gap between designers and fabricators, and the need to stay flexible and not be locked into designing boards in one certain way. What issue should designers be most concerned about in circuit board fabrication today? The thing we preach to our customers is this: When you start to design difficult or complex boards, form a partnership with your board shop. Really partner with them, and work with them through the design phase. You can do a lot of things on a computer screen, but can you take that and translate it into something that's manufacturable? Left to their own devices, many times the design ends up being unmanufacturable, or it could be very expensive to manufacture. We've built designs that are just perfect night- mares to build, and customers will pay a lot of money to get those boards because very few fabri- cators will even tackle them. In the end, they could have probably simplified their design along the way, but they are somehow locked into a design and now they can't change it. Do you see more designers engaging in that? We do have a lot of designers who come to us ahead of time with very complex boards that we spend quite a bit of time on. We also have cases where we've had people fly down just to do in- person meetings on particularly difficult designs. Thanks for your time, Anaya. Thank you, Barry. Flexibility, Communication Help Prevent 'Nightmare' Boards by Barry Matties

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