Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1285883
80 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2020 explained why, and it all made sense. By the time it was sent to fabrication, we'd ironed out all the issues. Shaughnessy: We've heard from CAM people who have customers who say, "Why are you asking me all these questions? The other shop never asked me that stuff. Why don't you just build it?" Kolar: And some shops to do that. We've had issues with that because a lot of times, we do earlier builds for customers that will later go to production. If they don't hear issues because the assembler just happened to manually work something in or we don't know the fab vendor scrapped half the boards, then the customer won't learn until way too late downstream. We educate our vendors not to be a black box so we can learn from the builds. Internally we try to be that special magic for our custom- ers and hide as much of the mess under the covers as we can, but we want to make sure they're learning anything important from it at the same time. However, you're right that a lot of shops, depending on the philosophy of the shop, it's about being close enough to go, and at close enough, they go. Matties: I appreciate your passion. It's exciting to hear your excitement as you discuss what you do and how you follow a process. Warren: Thank you. Shaughnessy: What advice would you give to new designers as far as creating fab notes or documentation in general? Kolar: Think in terms of quality and the things that you need to convey. We have a whole series of things we ask customers when doing a layout. We don't assume what is or isn't high current. We ask a ton of questions up front. What is it that you want to be known about this so that it doesn't get screwed up? What's going to happen if somebody picks it up in five years and you're not available, and they go to build it? Will they be able to do it? Is it a stand- alone package? When we have EEs who were doing the design and their own layout, they almost never do fab notes. For them, part of it is helping them treat lay- out as a first-class task and not as a second- class task and having them understand how important that is in the process. A number of our customers are at companies that feel like, "Any EE can do layout." There's very much that philosophy. Warren: Care about and take pride in your work. Learn from your mistakes and take time to do it right. A good layout is visually great to look at; it's clean and organized. Don't be sloppy, and don't think you know everything. Happy Holden: I'd like to reiterate what Barry said. It's really a pleasure to talk to an organi- zation that has the customer and quality and the process in mind. I want to commend you for that. I'm glad to see that there are organiza- tions like you out there, and we need to spread the word. What percentage of fabs that you work with are capable of thinking like you and working on some of these tough, new things that are coming down the line? Kolar: We carefully pick our vendors. We don't use any "bucket shops." Sometimes, we just have simple four-layer test boards, but we work with our customers and vendors as part- ners. We try to have them see that if they're struggling with something or we're struggling with it, we're in it together. We're pretty good at picking partners who want to do the same thing. We've worked with the best shops. We try really hard. We don't just put our partner under the bus. Holden: A couple of weeks ago, in a conversa- tion with a fab vendor, we heard the same kind of story: The fab notes seemed to be this lost, ignored art. But as both of are saying, there are best practices out there. Some people make money by throwing it over the wall because it seems like a quick and cheap way to do it. But in the long run, it always comes back. Some- body's going to pay for it.