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AUGUST 2025 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 33 paths will travel. That leads to noise infiltrating the entire design, finding every possible path to inter- fere with its neighboring circuit. When compo- nent placement is driven by the mechanical team instead of the electronic team, the result may be a compact, visually clean board, but one that fails to perform as expected. The apartment design didn't happen because someone hated logical design. It probably hap- pened because they were trying to make things fit. They crammed it all into one room and called it a day. It's a failure of planning driven by mechanical convenience, not functional flow. Sound familiar? I've also observed that once the schematic is pushed into the PCB and the mechanical team takes over component placement, designers often overlook revisiting and understanding the func- tional relationships established in the schematic. In that schematic, components like an op-amp and its filter, or a processor and its decoupling capacitors, are logically grouped and connected. But during layout, especially when driven by those pesky mechanical concerns, those groupings often begin to fall apart faster than a '90s boy band after their first album. The op-amp is placed on one side, with its filter components elsewhere, and the decoupling caps end up far from the IC they're supposed to support. But don't worry, they're all still connected by the warm, fuzzy interference radiating from that ever-helpful buck converter humming away in the middle of your PCB. The floor plan isn't just about layout; it starts with truly understanding your schematic. Placing parts without understanding their role is like building a house without knowing which walls are load-bear- ing, or worse, like putting the bathroom in the mid- dle of the kitchen. Good PCB design doesn't just ask what goes where, it demands that you under- stand why. DESIGN007 John Watson is a professor at Palomar College, San Marcos, California. To read past columns, click here. E L E M E N TA RY, M R . WATS O N SEMI announced that globally acclaimed humanoid robotics expert Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, known as the "father of android robots," will return to Taiwan to speak at SEMICON Taiwan 2025. In his keynote, "Avatar and the Future Society," Professor Ishiguro will explore how robotics is reshaping the global tech landscape. As curator of the "Future of Life" Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka- Kansai, his visit aligns with Taiwan's AI policy vision and highlights new opportunities for the semiconductor and electronics sectors to tap into the rapidly emerging robotics market. "The global MEMS sensor market is on an impressive trajectory, set to grow to $29 billion by 2030, reflecting strong growth momentum," stated Terry Tsao, Global Chief Marketing Officer and President of Taiwan, SEMI. "Taiwan's deep strengths covering the entire MEMS value chain—from chip design and sensor manufacturing to advanced packaging and signal processing—position it as a key player in this growth, supported by a complete semiconductor ecosystem." Taiwan is making a massive push into smart robotics, investing NT$200 billion as part of its AI New Top 10 Infrastructure Projects, to generate NT$15 trillion in output by 2040. In line with this vision, SEMICON Taiwan 2025 will feature the MEMS & Sensors Forum – Expanding the Sensing Horizon, Ushering in the Robotics Era, spotlighting the groundbreaking research by Professor Ishiguro, reported by CNN as "Top 8 Geniuses Who Will Change Your Life." (Source: SEMI) Taiwan Leverages MEMS Strengths to Tap Into AI Robotics Boom