Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1436094
18 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2021 change in the middle of a design, like Barry was saying. W hen I de s ig n a piece of art, it has an evolution. It starts as a big lump of clay, and I start changing it until it becomes the thing I'm creating. Oentimes as I go along, I'll see a way to make it better, to make it more expressive, or to make it more exciting. e same thing happens with board design. I'll put down a circuit, maybe I've got a group of components that really want to be a family. ey want to stay together. ey don't want to be very far apart. I'll do a lot of that in the beginning when I'm designing the board and then I'll take those groups and find the best way to put them into the package so that they maximize all the other criteria that are part of the design. And the two processes are very similar. I think we tend to use the tool we like the best to get the results we want. It may not be the fastest but I'm not working in a service bureau, with somebody standing over my shoulder, so I don't have that problem. Now I can spend more time making sure I meet all the criteria of the design and it's not just slapped together, out the door, and then, "Oh gosh, we got a problem in environmental, or we've got a problem in assembly, or we've got a problem here, p r o b - l e m t h e r e." You don't w a n t t o f i n d t h o s e w h e n they get out to the c u s t o m e r s . Yo u want to have it all thought up ahead of time, checked, and ready to rock and roll. Most of my boards are right the first time, and every so oen the second time, but usually the first time. Olney: Bill, a good designer prevents problems. If it works beautifully, it keeps working and it's reliable, then you've done a good job. Brooks: Yep. Pfeil: One of the problems with soware development is that it's always behind the technology curve. If you have new technol- ogy, new circuits, new kinds of components, and much higher speed circuits, when the soware developed over the previous two or three years comes out, it is automatically behind the technology curve. Designers who use their imagination and their problem-solv- ing capability will still be essential because the automation capability will always be behind the curve. Brooks: Good point. Shaughnessy: We've found that you can teach the science part of this. Can you teach the artistic side too? You know, EEs get this rap that they're not artistic enough, and you know how it goes. Can you teach the artistic side to someone who's more science-oriented? Olney: No. I think people either have it or they don't. I've taught a lot of PCB design and these guys are all very capable. You chose them because they're smart people, but most of them are very logical and they'll do things properly, but there's a difference between peo- Bill Brooks Image by Barry Olney.