Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1101604
APRIL 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 9 ers have seen in Asia might actually help sway the "mature" technologists on our shores into adopting smart manufacturing. Freedom CAD's eBook Now Available If you design sophisticated circuit boards for a living, you're in luck. Our friends at Freedom CAD have just written a new I-Connect007 eBook, The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Executing Complex PCBs. Freedom CAD's Scott Miller provides a set of guidelines for designing the most complex, high-speed circuit boards. He and his veteran PCB design team share real-world examples that can help designers like you, from the plan- ning stages and schematic capture through documentation and successful data handoff. It's also an entertaining book to read. Sure, I may be a little bit biased because I helped edit it, but check it out for yourself. It's free to download; just click here. And if you're not already a subscriber to Design007 Magazine, what are you waiting for? Subscribe here. 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. Next, columnist Michael Ford, senior di- rector of emerging industry strategy for Ae- gis Software, discusses some of the challenges ahead for smart design and manufacturing, in- cluding the need to embrace "adaptive" plan- ning, which may be best achieved by utilizing a combination of formats, such as IPC-2581 for design data and CFX for manufacturing. Then, we have a short feature by Technical Editor Happy Holden who offers some back- ground on computer-integrated manufacturing and investigates the way CAD data fits into the equation. Switching gears, Denis Morin, Karel Taverni- er, Jean-Pierre Charras, and Marius Matioc of Ucamco take the reader through the new XNC format—a collaboration by Ucamco, KiCad, and PentaLogix—which updates the Gerber drill data transfer process. We also have an in- terview with Robert Huxel, XPLM's director of business development, who outlines the com- pany's PLM software and XPLM's role in in- tegrating ECAD and MCAD data and explains why this convergence is so important for the future of PCB design. Next, we feature a great article by Keysight Technologies' Chang Fei Yee who focuses on the impact of copper pour on insertion loss and impedance. We also bring you columns by our regular contributors, including Stephen V. Chavez of the IPC Designers Council, Bob Tise of Sunstone Circuits, Alistair Little of Electrol- ube, Barry Olney of iCD, and John Coonrod of Rogers Corporation. Thus far, the facts point to smart manu- facturing being the way forward for PCB de- sign and manufacturing. By relying on adap- tive planning instead of the old long-term way, companies should be able to make quick, da- ta-driven decisions that cut costs and drive up productivity. But the hoopla also reminds me of the early days of Lean. Everyone wanted to say that their company was Lean, but many companies wound up paying a Lean expert six figures to show them how to implement a plan that they never used. Have company owners learned from that experience? Being late to the party isn't usually a good thing, but the success that smart manufactur-