Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1503357
50 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2023 boards to 16 layers, which wasn't nearly as commonplace then as it is now. Learning as you go was the name of the game, and there was a lot to learn. e technology wasn't nearly as demanding as it is now, but for the CAD and manufacturing technologies available at the time, it was fairly tight. ere were other boards, like the power control board I mentioned earlier, that had "traces" several inches wide to absorb huge amounts of energy, if necessary. We ended up using dumb graphics to design portions of that one because the CAD systems we were using couldn't han- dle the width requirements. I rarely worked with the same board shape twice except for the standard com- puter cards we would do from time to time; some of the out- lines given to me were really bizarre. I remember one that had the shape of a skull, and we actually had a lot of fun with it until it was time to settle down and get to work. e parts placement and routing could be just as wild, and I worked on some boards with radial placement and routing. Due to the limitations of the CAD system, I would have to use a 1-mil grid for parts placement with a series of drawn circles on a graphics layer behind the parts serving as a placement guide. Beyond PCB Design Interestingly enough, circuit board types and technologies weren't the only unusual variations in work that the service bureau introduced me to. I got to know different sorts of people too. Some folks would drop off their data and trust us to design the board just as you would expect. However, others would stay with us and monitor the layout throughout the entire process. ere's nothing more "helpful" than having a backseat driver while you are laying out a circuit board (and some of you will know exactly what I mean). One guy sitting behind me would try to "steer" while I routed his board, making a clicking noise whenever I changed directions or dropped a via. I can still hear him in my nightmares: "at should go le… click, ah that's good… no I wouldn't do that… click, straight down now… good… click!" To be fair, though, others made it all worth- while. One of my backseat drivers bought me dinner while "we" were working. e next night he mentioned dinner again, and my boss joined us in hopes of a free meal, only to have the guy give my boss the bill instead. To this day, I can still see the sour expression on my boss's face. Dinner and entertainment; life just didn't get much better at the service bureau. My time at the service bureau also exposed me to some other unique situations. For example, that little one-inch board I mentioned earlier took more than two weeks to design, even though it only had two con- nectors and maybe 75 connections. ey took their time getting us the information we needed, then needed several days to examine my work. Aer some design changes, we had to drive out to their facility for a large-scale design review. Really? For a one-inch board? Meanwhile, back at the shop, I had laid out a standard computer card while waiting for them. at engineer had all his data neatly organized and packaged, and the design went like clockwork en there was the time a group of guys from a large aerospace corporation com- mandeered our conference room for a month while we designed a series of PCBs for their project. I don't think that any of us spoke more than a dozen words to them; it was all very mysterious. White shirts, red power ties, Learning as you go was the name of the game, and there was a lot to learn.