Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1535183
Target Condition Feature Column by Kelly Dack, CIT, CID+ From Dream House to Drill Files If you caught the movie "Barbie," you may have laughed at its over-the-top utopia where every day begins with perfect weather, per- fect smiles, and a perfectly pink commute. But beyond the plastic glam, the film subtly critiques the illusion of perfection—a message that feels surprisingly relevant to the world of PCB design and manufacturing. 44 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2025 As a PCB designer, it struck me: We are liv- ing in our own version of Barbie Land. Many designers work in a CAD environment where tools promise a push-button experience and claim to know what's best for the entire PCB lifecycle. Everything is fine in PCB Design Barbie Land. But these tools are oen pre-set with internal defaults that rarely speak to the realities faced by CAM, manufactur- ing, and test engineers. Much like Barbie's world, the workflows seem flawless—until someone outside the bubble tries to make sense of them. Imagine this scene in PCB Design Barbie Land: A perfect designer tells the per- fect manager, "is layout is perfect. What kind of perfect data should I send to the PCB fabricator?" e answer? "at's easy, silly— just send them the Gerbers. CAM engineer Ken will know what to do." Unfortunately, CAM engineers do not live in Barbie Land. ey live in the real world, where they receive files with 3-mil traces on 2-ounce cop- per, ambiguous layer naming, stack- ups that defy physics, and laminates made from unobtainium. ey're le scratching their heads, wonder- ing why they're expected to produce a working board from vague, contra- dictory, or even missing data. is disconnect highlights a bigger issue: We've been conditioned to see PCB design perfection through the lens of CAD tools rather than with cross-functional understanding. CAD tools are powerful, but they