IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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IPC COMMUNITY 45 SUMMER 2024 rari about seven years ago, they discussed exist- ing design chapters in North America and the social networking and support those chapters offered. "Noting that there were no such councils in Europe, or in France where I live, I asked Pierre- Jean Albrieux, CEO of IFTEC, if he was ready to support me in creating a French chapter," Thomas says. With IFTEC's support, Thomas organized a design conference that dealt with the difficulties of the design profession and the solutions that IPC could provide. During the conference, he outlined his inten- tion to create a French-speaking IPC designers council. "This initiative was extremely well received by the assembly and some people even offered to create a board to steer the creation of this new association," Thomas says. IPC Design Day Their mission was to pro- mote exchange among the different components of the industry and find solutions that ease the designer's job on a day- to-day basis. This has chiefly been accomplished through a yearly IPC Design Day, supported by Philippe Leonard, senior director of IPC Europe, Francisco Fourcade, IPC electronics technology standards manager, and Peter Tranitz, senior director of solutions for IPC Electronics Europe GmbH, whom Thomas met as part of the IPC Designers Leadership Coun- cil. "They provide wonderful support for our association of volunteers who all carry out very demanding functions," Thomas says. "IPC allows us to offer our annual conference free of charge to the entire French-speaking industry by cov- ering all costs of the organization. IPC also con- tributes to the success of these conferences and our working groups." To prepare for IPC Design Day, board members gather ideas from members about their most sig- nificant issues that are within the scope of their mission. "Then, they create working groups that meet every two weeks," Thomas says. "Their works, once completed, are published during IPC Design Days, and are often made available to the industry." Looking at Their Accomplishments "We have already produced several tools for designers," he says. "The first of these was a guide for the use and implementation of IPC design rules. This work has also led to the publication of an IPC desk reference on design, IPC-DR-DES, available for free in French and English." They also published a master draw- ing template with instructions that guide designers in the cre- ation of their master drawings and prevents them from for- getting information needed for the definition and fab- rication of the PCB. It also allows the manufacturer to interpret the designer's will without error. Thomas says the IPC Design- ers Council has two active working groups. The first is working on a template for bare PCB quotation. "This tool not only gath- ers all the information necessary for the manu- facturer to propose a relevant price, but it offers the designer an 'IPC rating' based on IPC pro- ducibility levels, allowing them to evaluate very early on in the design process the risks from a PCB manufacturing point of view. It allows them to revise these design parameters to make their board easier to manufacture and, most likely, less expensive as well." The second working group is concerned with a template of layout instructions. "We found that instructions were rarely formalized between the EE and the CAD engineer and that many deci- sions were left to the designer's discretion with- out him having the necessary information to