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78 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 My circuit design experience also included rigid board design, which was different than flex circuit design, but the basics were the same. Aer my circuit design experience, I was a technical support engineer for the flex circuit materials division of Rogers and later a techni- cal support engineer for the high frequency cir- cuit materials division of Rogers. In the techni- cal support role, I worked directly with our cir- cuit fabricator customers and that caused me to work with many processes for making flex circuits and rigid high-frequency PCBs. Also, because I worked at a materials company, I had to understand the material engineering aspects of the circuit material, how it interacted in dif- ferent PCB processes, and its end-use. Addi- tionally, I was a part-time student in electrical engineering at ASU during most of my engi- neering experience in the industry. My diverse engineering experience was influenced by the engineering theory while I was working in the industry. e overall diversity of my engineer- ing background has proven to be extremely beneficial for me at Rogers Corporation. My point is that having a very diverse engi- neering background is extremely beneficial for understanding PCB designs. I think most engi- neers today probably do not have the oppor- tunities I had. I would strongly recommend design engineers get very involved in circuit processing, manufacturing, and circuit materi- als engineering. When a PCB designer under- stands these different aspects of PCB technol- ogy, they will certainly be able to deliver cir- cuit designs that will be more robust and have better manufacturing yields. e high-volume manufacturing yields of a PCB are directly related to profit and that is the connection between good circuit design and a successful circuit-product. An aspect related to PCB design is soware. ere are many different soware programs that the circuit designer needs to work with, and some of these programs allow the designer to run simulations. is is another tool for designers to build on their design expertise. e simulation soware can be used to model a circuit design, change different features of the circuit, run the simulation again, and learn what the design change will do for circuit per- formance. e benefit of running many differ- ent simulations can be very educational for a circuit designer. Another aspect of engineering that can be beneficial for the PCB designer is having a good understanding of practical statistics. Since PCB design is focused on the customer's specifications, it is beneficial for the designer to have a good understanding of standard devi- ations, CpK analysis, histograms, box plots, etc. ese statistical tools help with the circuit design process, but they can also help with optimizing yields, troubleshooting, failure analysis, and design modifications. In summary and in my opinion, the follow- ing topics need to be well understood for a PCB design engineer to gain expertise: circuit materials, major processes in PCB fabrication, defining stackups, understanding the PCB build sequence, statistics, and simulation so- ware. Additionally, there are many resources for PCB design at IPC.org, IEEE.org, and the websites for companies that make PCB so- ware for routing and stackups. DESIGN007 John Coonrod is technical marketing manager at Rogers Corporation. To read past columns or contact Coonrod, click here. My point is that having a very diverse engineering background is extremely beneficial for under- standing PCB designs.