Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520701
28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2024 als, including one that, even though it's not the best, still gives a good end-product. e end product is what matters. Kelly Dack: There's no question that consis- tency in materials, manufacturing, and per- formance is key. What are the elements of consistency in your opinion? You need to be able to get the materials, and not just on time. Let's say you call a vendor and say, "I'm going to build these boards six months from now; can you make sure the material is there?" ey'll say, "Sure, material availability is okay." en they go out and buy the material. But now, six months later, the material may be outdated with respect to the requirements we want to meet, and we can't use that material. So, that's a big deal. Dack: Do you mean that the material is outdated from an availability standpoint or because of its shelf life? Shelf life is one of the big issues that I've seen, especially with corrosion. Some materials pro- viders don't consistently follow IPC rules on how to put boards into storage properly so that corrosion doesn't happen. Dack: Do you mean post-lamination and fab- rication, or are we talking about raw material boards? Yes, it's the finished board. But in terms of raw materials and what you can do to make things better, you're talking about different features. If you have a really exotic design, meaning you've got RF traces and they're running at a high frequency—like 10 gigahertz or above— then you need those exotic materials. ere's a roundabout way to do that. Twenty-five years ago, designing at 3 gigahertz, you had to route boards a certain way. Nowadays, routing at 3 gigahertz, you can route them DC, and they will still function correctly. Shaughnessy: But on the other hand, you don't want to overconstrain because then you can end up adding cost, time, and manufacturing hassle. You definitely don't want to overconstrain. Remember, the object of constraining your design is setting up rules so that you don't have to respin the design. Nowadays, there are so many different third-party tools—and tools you get with your soware—that you can use to constrain your design such that when you route, you're done. You never have to come back to it unless there was a really catastrophic design error. So, using your constraint tools is a very positive thing. On the other hand, some guys I know constrain everything. ey start constraining the mounting holes and asking how many they can have in a certain location. ey come up with all these different things. e young folks really have to work hard to learn the tool. One of the unfortunate things in life is that PCB design is not taught at univer- sity level. I'm currently planning to work with my alma mater. I'm a UC Davis grad, and I'm planning to develop a curriculum for a 10-week course, have a soware company put up the soware, and I'll teach it. It would be so nice to have that taught at a university level. IPC provides teaching, and they're doing wonders with their certifications. Aer that, it's just learned by trial and error. e younger folks coming in are mechanical engineers who want to design 3D antenna structures. You've Filbert Arzola with Kelly Dack in 2023.