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PCBD-Nov2017

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8 The PCB Design Magazine • November 2017 What percent of your designs are HDI? Q1: 9% 19% 16% 56% 1-25% HDI DESIGNS 26 - 50% HDI DESIGNS Respondents Respondents Respondents Respondents 51 - 75% HDI DESIGNS 76 - 100% HDI DESIGNS What percent of your designs are HDI? Q1: 9% 19% 16% 56% 1-25% HDI DESIGNS 26 - 50% HDI DESIGNS Respondents Respondents Respondents Respondents 51 - 75% HDI DESIGNS 76 - 100% HDI DESIGNS When I first started covering this industry 19 years ago, I kept hearing about this thing called HDI that was about to take off. I'd go to trade shows and hear, "You watch…next year, or maybe the year after, most PCBs are going to be HDI. It's inevitable. You watch." There were roadmaps, white papers, and ar- ticles advocating HDI. Happy Holden and Mike Fitts taught a class on HDI design, and the room was usually packed with designers hungry for information about this new technology. Everyone was hot for HDI, and soon it re- ally did take off…in Asia. Like a few other technologies, HDI was born here, but mas- tered by companies in Asia. That's where the handheld devices like cellphones, cameras and camcorders were being manufactured, and Asia became the center of HDI devel- opment. It still is, for all practical pur- poses. But HDI has come full circle, as we found when we surveyed readers for this issue. A lot of you are spending at least some of your time designing HDI boards. As you can see in Question 1, less than 3% of respondents said they never deal with HDI boards. Over half of respondents said HDI makes up only 1-25% of their work, and for almost 10%, HDI is a regu - lar part of their job. Designers used to tell me, "HDI design won't really be possible until the EDA companies get on board and give us more functionality so we can stop doing workarounds." Well, the sur- vey results in Question 2 indicate that the EDA companies have heard your pleas. When we asked if your EDA tools were ad- equate for HDI, over 77% said yes. Maybe EDA companies do listen to designers af- ter all, or they just knew they could charge more for software that can do HDI. Ei- ther way, it's a good by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Is HDI Making a Comeback in the U.S.? THE SHAUGHNESSY REPORT

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