Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
46 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2021 Link: It absolutely is different. If we get them beforehand, we can have a clear conversation with them to say, "Ideally, you're going to be designing around this. When you're figuring this stuff out, don't make line widths less than that because of these conditions." We can spell it out pretty clearly on the design phase. We're working with a new customer now. It's been this way from day one because they're just developing boards and their designer was from the HDI industry. He's not really up to speed on single lam with backdrilled struc- tures, as opposed to just build up, and I'll just build up wherever I want to go and deal with it. It's been hand holding from day one to say where the design needs to be and how it needs to move. It's significantly easier. Sometimes we talk about costs, sometimes we don't. In the end it's going to come back to a cost model that does or does not reflect what I'm actually telling them. Will it cost less or more? Well, the cost model doesn't tell us that, so there's a problem. Now, I get disconnected communication with the customer. We have to be very careful when we talk pricing. And unfortunately, I think that's where I would probably put the AI on the cost, and just be able to say, "If I tweak this line from 4.3 mils to 4.5 mils, what does that do for my cost?" To have that driven by the AI would be much more effective than saying from a design standpoint as to which one is better. Actually, I'd put the AI in costing. Johnson: How comfortable is WUS with shar- ing capabilities out to customers for use? For example, do you give them rule decks? Any- thing like that? Link: We have definitely shared the DRC rules, and we have shared specifications as far as where we are, what we're capable of, what we're not capable of. But we generally wait for them to ask for it. We'll talk about technolo- gy roadmap and say that we're improving from here to here, but we're not stating that we can do A or do B; it's that we're making this transi- tion, and we're going through these improve- ments. Johnson: As a fabricator, what do you want your customer to really understand about DFM? For example, if they could just do this or that, it would be so much smoother for ev- erybody involved. Link: I want them to understand that it's not black and white. e most important message is that, when designing boards, it's not "you can't do this, you can't do that." It is, "is will impact my yield significantly, this will im- pact my yield less." If I have one location on an 18x24, that's three and a half mil spacing or if I have 5,000 locations that are three and a half mil spacing, it's a very different dynamic. And maybe I can do one with 100% yield, but as soon as I throw in 5,000, now my yield goes down to 2%. It's being able to react to that, be- cause it's not just black and white. ere's a trend line based on a number of instances, a number of potentials. And if they're looking for backdrill sliver pro- tection, how many backdrills do I have? at's an important question. Do I have 50 or 20,000? I have a much higher chance of having a sliv- er on one board with 20,000 than I do with 50. It's the great the gray scales. And it's not even a digital scale, it's an analog scale. Johnson: Right. It's like baseball; shortstops usually have a lot more errors because their po- sition means they have a lot more chances. If It's been hand holding from day one to say where the design needs to be and how it needs to move.