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FEBRUARY 2025 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 9 2025; his AI-enabled PCB design soware can—allegedly—speed up your design cycle by 30x. (Five years ago, I couldn't get anyone to talk about AI.) It will probably take a combination of efforts— apprenticeships, scholarships, and partnerships with high schools and colleges—to "prime the pump" with the young, trained PCB designers of the future. But the time to act is now. is month, we asked our expert contribu- tors to address these questions: Where will we find the next generation of PCB designers and design engineers? Once we locate them, how will we train and educate them? What disci- plines will the designers of the future need to understand and master to deal with tomor- row's technology? We have a great interview with design instructors Kris Moyer and John Watson, and a conversation with Garmin's Laura Beth (LB) Yates, who is managing the company's drive to recruit new designers. We have feature arti- cles by Cory Blaylock, Stephen Chavez, and Bill Hargin, and a column by Kelly Dack, who takes a philosophical view of this situation. We also have columns by Matt Stevenson and Joe Fjelstad, and another article in Anaya Vardya's continuing series on UHDI. Finally, I share a preview of the upcoming technical conference at IPC APEX EXPO. If your company has a PCB design training or apprenticeship program, let me know by clicking here. See you next month. DESIGN007 Andy Shaughnessy is managing editor of Design007 Magazine. He has been covering PCB design for 23 years. To read past columns, click here. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power every- thing from electric vehicles to wearable devices. But new research from Case Western Reserve Uni- versity suggests that a more sustainable and cost- effective alternative may lie in zinc-based batteries. In a study published recently in Angewandte Chemie, researchers announced a significant step toward creating high-performance, low-cost zinc- sulfur batteries. "This research marks a major step forward in the development of safer and more sustainable energy storage solutions," said Chase Cao, a principal investi- gator and assistant professor of mechanical and aero- space engineering at Case School of Engineering. Lithium-ion batteries, though widely used, are expensive, rely on relatively rare materials and are complex to manufacture. In contrast, zinc- sulfur batteries use more abundant and inexpen- sive materials and have fewer environmental and safety concerns. However, challenges such as zinc-anode corrosion, low conductivity and den- drite growth have historically hindered their com- mercial viability. Cao's team overcame these obstacles by intro- ducing two key additives: propylene glycol methyl ether and zinc-iodide. "These additives not only enhance battery effi- ciency, but also address long-standing safety con- cerns by mitigating dendrite formation," said Guiyin Xu, professor at Donghua University in Shanghai and co-senior author. "The result is a compact, higher-density battery that can recharge more times without significant degradation." The implications of this breakthrough extend beyond affordability and safety. Zinc-sulfur batteries have a higher energy density than lithium-ion coun- terparts, enabling smaller, longer-lasting designs. This could be transformative for renewable energy storage and devices that demand reliability and efficiency. Cao's primary interest in developing better batter- ies is for novel soft robotics and advanced sensing systems, both of which rely on high-capacity, long- lived batteries. For example, he's developing bio- logically inspired swimming robots, whose endur- ance relies on durable, lightweight batteries that can power long missions without failure—the robot can't run out mid-mission or will never come back. Source: Case Western Reserve University Breakthrough in Rechargeable Batteries: A Safer, Sustainable Alternative