76 The PCB Design Magazine • April 2017
1
I-Connect007 Launches The
Printed Circuit Designer's Guide
to…Secrets of High-Speed PCBs –
Part 1
I-Connect007 has released the
next book in the micro eBook
Design series, The Printed Cir-
cuit Designer's Guide to… Secrets
of High-Speed PCBs – Part 1, by
Martyn Gaudion of Polar Instru-
ments. Written to assist EEs,
PCB designers, procurement
professionals, and PCB fabrication professionals
and managers at all levels, this book offers the
greatest benefit to design and procurement peo-
ple by helping them understand what can realisti-
cally be achieved in the final product.
2
Rigid-flex Design Tips and
Best Practices
While the traditional "design-separately-then-as-
semble" approach minimized potential issues with
the flex portions of the product, it also had several
inherent disadvantages. These include the cost as-
sociated with the physical connectors; the space
required for the physical connectors; the need to
properly manage interconnects that have to tran-
sition between the separate rigid and flex PCBs;
and, of course, the time and cost associated with
assembly.
3
EMA PCB Clustering for OrCAD
Accelerates Design Reuse and
Component Placement
PCB Clustering for OrCAD resides directly in the
OrCAD PCB Editor canvas. Related components
are typically grouped together in the schematic.
PCB Clustering can leverage this information to
auto-generate tiled placement clusters. These
clusters can be based on hierarchy, pages, refer-
ence designator prefixes/suffixes and/or ROOM
properties defined in the schematic. This allows
designers to get a quick logical grouping in the
physical realm, enabling faster placement.
4
Perpetual or Subscription EDA
Tool Licenses? That is the Question
I've been wondering about the
pros and cons of perpetual vs. sub-
scription EDA software licenses.
I wanted to learn firsthand from
PCB designers what kind of ben-
efits they received and challenges they faced as a
result of how EDA companies offered design tools.
I reached out to a variety of sources to get a broad
slice of insight into this evolving issue, and thus
began my trip down the EDA software rabbit hole.
TOP
TEN
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