Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1518649
APRIL 2024 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 51 the increasing need for drill documentation in PCB stackups. I also mentioned that sometimes a product doesn't end up where you thought it would. In the early 2000s, Polar was nudged in the direc- tion of providing a simple stackup documen- tation tool—SB200, the forerunner of today's Speedstack. With the aim for a no-frills stackup tool, we added impedance control to the tool as that was what we were known for then. Over time, we added more impedance capability and extended the tool to cover insertion loss. At the same time, there was a drip, drip, drip of requests for more drill-related documentation. Back then, there was some HDI, but noth- ing like the widespread adoption of complex drilling we see now. Now, the prime drivers of Speedstack are customer requests on the doc- umentation side, especially drill-related ones, plus the sharing of that documentation infor- mation with other tools in use by the industry. It will be interesting to see where our customer base takes us in the next 20 years. Drilling capabilities have changed radically and the variety of drills and fills available to fabricator and designers mean that a variety of challenges in high power and high speed can be addressed in ways that would have seemed impossible or just an R&D dream a mere 10 or so years ago. DESIGN007 Martyn Gaudion is managing director of Polar Instruments Ltd. To read past columns, click here. Martyn is the author of The Printed Circuit Design- er's Guide to… Secrets of High- Speed PCBs, Parts 1 and 2. Figure 4: A 10-layer HDI board illustrating just a few of the via fills and drills available to the PCB designer.