Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1245291
20 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2020 that's my firm belief. I'm sure there is, but most of them don't come to work, thinking, "I'm go- ing to make this one unmanufacturable." They don't know. It's a lack of communication. Matties: There are finally some fresh new de- signers coming into the industry who don't have much experience. What should we expect from them if they don't have the experience? Korf: I once made a presentation to the top tech- nical/political person in Asia. He asked, "What do you think about these engineers here?" I said, "They're highly trained, very young, and very smart, but they haven't made enough mis- takes yet to know what's wrong." He was in a chair, and he looked up at me and said, "Sir, you're absolutely right. This is why we need experienced people like yourself here to help us because we don't have the experience yet." A new designer comes in and doesn't know what kind of mistakes they're going to make because they haven't made them yet. The training doesn't have time to cover the kind of issues you might run into. Matties: Is there an advantage for a supplier, a fabricator, or an assembler to be able to iden- tify the level of experience that this design is coming from? Korf: It's funny. Sometimes, a design would come in, and I'd say, "Is this designer 22 years old?" They'd say, "How did you know?" I'd say, "Be- cause they specified a 5-ohm impedance (laughs)." Matties: There's a lot of reliance on tools; that reliance is growing, and the demand for more features to support them is certainly there. Korf: I've seen designers with 30 years of expe- rience or engineers that lay their own boards out and always build it at their U.S. board shop that now have been forced to go to Asia. The capability is different, and changes are re- quired. The response to the proposed modifi- cations is, "No, you can't do that." "I've al- ways done it that way." The rules in the tools need to match manufacturing capability. Matties: That might be the other flag—the ones of 30 years (laughs). Korf: I can be stubborn at times. Matties: We all can. Now, you brought up a good point. You mentioned DFM, SI, power distribution, and all these disciplines that a de- signer needs to be knowledgeable in. There's quite a bit of weight or expectation is too great that they would know all these disciplines. Part of the problem is there is an expectation that they should know or will know it, and it's overwhelming. Korf: Yes. To your point, the designers should have various levels. There are people design- ing a single-layer board, consumer products with no SI or anything—just safety just punch it out. Then, there's the person who's design- ing a router board, a medical device, or some- thing mission-critical. There are radically dif- ferent skill levels and knowledge required be- cause they have to worry about more things as they move up that skill chain/ladder. I don't think that the industry pays them in such a way, or they get acknowledged or certified in such ways. It's so obvious when a layout is not performed by the appropriately skilled person. Matties: That goes to another point of expec- tation. We talk about manufacturing process knowledge, but there are also a couple of bar- riers—communication with material suppli- ers before taking on the design and commu- nication with your fabricator. It seems to me that you often hear that there needs to be more communication, and there is a level of expec- tation there, but oftentimes that communica- tion does not exist. Korf: Over the years, material suppliers have done a very good job of getting into the de- signers' camp—spending a lot of time with OEMs getting their specific resin designed in, which is a very good business model, and it has worked very successfully for them. Issues will arise when the designer picks a specific vendor and resin, and they move it to a shop,