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Design007-Jan2024

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14 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2024 process to fill them. But contract manufactur- ers insisted that microvias be plated shut, which is a 15% cost-adder. They refused to improve their process and instead pushed it onto the fabricator at a 15% increase in price that was not necessary. Bell: Happy, I think there are some assemblers who wouldn't mind charging 15% more for process steps, especially process steps they're good at. e reality is that many customers won't pay that 15%. e mature CEMs will continually refine their process, and train their people so that their offerings can be agile to the board that comes to them. I believe the less mature assemblers or CEMs that have fewer capabilities are get- ting to the point of just no-bidding a design that they can't reasonably build. Now, that doesn't mean they don't have the capability, but they likely don't have the people to refine the process such that it can handle those very small parts. A lot of OEMs have a large hardware team, but only one or two on their team will do design. Some OEMs will have a dedicated design staff or offload design responsibilities to a con- tract agency. Some companies have a person who they'll train specifically (organically) as a designer, and this allows them the ability to truly develop design techniques, whether that be learning the IPC rules (CID and CID+), fabrication capabilities, etc. ese are areas where a designer becomes the liaison between your hardware team and your fabricators. Nolan Johnson: Tell me about your hiring process for designers. What do you want designers to know before you hire them? Bell: If I'm going to go hire a designer, I'll ask, "What is your main tool flow?" Most of the time, they say they are primary in one spe- cific tool. en you can dig in and ask, "What would you do if you were implementing par- ticular types of solutions? What would be your approach in this or that situation?" DDR is one example, but it's a good question, and it's used all the time to find out a designer's approach to more complex solutions. Most junior-level designers haven't designed many DDR circuits, while intermediate designers have done dozens of them. Do they truly understand the digital design process, or do they only understand how one EDA tool flow addresses it? You can find out whether their approach to DDR is tool-agnostic by asking, "What's your process for DDR design?" If they say, "I'll go into the constraint manager and set up net groups," then this sounds like tool-specific ver- biage. But a designer who understands a tool-agnostic approach might say, "I need to understand the interface. Is it an FPGA or an ASIC? Are there pin package delays that need to be implemented from the processor or DDR substrate? How far apart will the parts be from each other? What is the implied topology? What do the via structures look like on the board?" You need to know how to use the tool to implement the right solutions, of course, but these are provocative questions that I am looking for a potential designer to ask. Shaughnessy: What final advice do you have for new designers about manufacturing processes? Bell: Never stop learning about fabrication, assembly, and test. Learn everything you can. Don't be afraid to ask if you don't understand a certain process or industry nomenclature. Just ask. If you don't get the answer from the first person, you need to ask another person until you find someone who has the answers. Keep learning and keep asking questions. Shaughnessy: Thanks for your time, Tony. Bell: ank you. I enjoyed it. DESIGN007 A lot of OEMs have a large hardware team, but only one or two on their team will do design.

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