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18 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2019 the early stages of design through the manu- facturing process. Do you see more of that? Creeden: I don't think we're where we need to be yet. Hartley: Is there much collaboration these days? No, and there never has been. It's terrible. Matties: What advice would you give to a com- pany that's looking for designers or wanting to strengthen their design team? Creeden: Designers have often been the Rod- ney Dangerfield of engineering; "they get no respect," but I think those days are over. A lot of people are now doing some incredibly high- speed, high-tech, high-production, and high- yield layout. Stay determined. Hartley: There are a lot of good designs, but unfortunately, for every good design, there are probably at least several that are terri- ble. I've had managers say to me, "We have some new EEs, and we're losing our design- ers. How can we turn these EEs into board designers long-term?" The first thing I tell them is to educate their EEs up front. Their next question is, "Where?" Start by sending them to PCB West. Once they have enough knowledge from that, figure out what's miss - ing from their education, and fill those holes as quickly as you can. Matties: More and more, we hear about com- panies creating their own in-house designer training curriculum. Students don't graduate from college, saying, "I'm going to be a PCB designer." Hartley: That's right. Creeden: There used to be no definition for the PCB layout profession. The Technical Adviso- ry Committee at IPC, under the direction from the IPC Designers Council Executive Board, came up with a definition. A designer must look at it from three perspectives—layout solv - ability, performance, and manufacturability— and Stephen Chavez called it "the designer's triangle." You cannot look at designing the layout from a compartmentalized perspective; you must look at all three simultaneously. Hartley: I started in '65 as a technician, and then became an EE. Along the way, I designed a few circuit boards. In '76, the company I worked for said, "We have this glut of circuit boards that need to be laid out, and you've done some lay - out. Would you be willing to work in that de- partment for 20 hours a week for six months?" I said, "Sure." About halfway through that six months, two of our manufacturers came to our facility and said, "We understand that, in the eyes of the engineers, you are great, but when it comes to manufacturing, you're idiots. The stuff you're designing is so unmanufacturable that it's beyond belief." It took me a week to drag my ego out from under the floor. I didn't know much about manufacturing, and our company set out to solve that. They hired Norm Einarson, author of the Bare Board PWB Design Manual. He came to our company and did a weeks' worth of training, and everyone in engineering was required to be there. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that's what started me on that road in 1976. Most engineers don't understand the criticality of manufacturing. Creeden: I am an EPTAC teacher for IPC's CID and CID+ courses. Although these classes may not be perfect, they're one of the best educa- tion tools we have. We teach students about materials, layout, signal integrity, manufactur- ing processes, etc. When someone takes one of those classes, it can make a huge difference in their careers and in the quality of their com- pany's products. Hartley: It can. Shaughnessy: Gentlemen, this was a great con- versation. Thanks for your time. Creeden: I agree. Thank you. Hartley: Thanks for inviting us. DESIGN007