Design007 Magazine

12 The PCB Design Magazine • October 2015 in order to address the increasing signal speeds. Year after year, the industry has found ways to increase the capabilities of copper interconnect to meet the escalating challenges. Some of these solutions were materials' improvements such as high-speed laminates, smooth copper foil, and high-speed connectors. But many were based on PCB design strategies, including the use of back-drilling, reference planes, differential pairs, length matching, hole, pad and anti-pad shapes and sizes. Engineers and designers use many other strategies to maximize performance while minimizing cost. One thing is clear: Designing printed cir- cuit boards today is much more complicated and challenging than ever. Designing today's leading-edge circuit boards requires that the designer: • Has a strong knowledge of the capabilities of the CAD software. • Understands PCB fabrication processes. • Has a general knowledge of electronics and component functionality. • Has a general knowledge of signal and power integrity. • Understands PCB assembly processes. • Understands industry specs. by Scott Miller FreeDOM CAD ServiCeS inC. Mylar. Black tape. X-acto knives. Drafting tables. Ring lights. These were the tools of the trade for the pio- neers of printed circuit board design. Manually creating the large artwork that would then be photo-reduced to make the filmwork to im- age double-sided boards was truly an art form. The best designers were both neat and efficient. Somehow they avoided going home at night with their shirts or skirts covered with bits of tape stuck to them. For those of you experienced designers, it's incredible to see how far the art of PCB design has come over these 40+ years of evolution. CAD software has replaced Mylar, and comput- er screens have replaced lighted drafting tables. And now, it's more science than art. PCB design now requires puzzle-solving skills on many lev- els to handle ever-increasing density and speed challenges. The Need for Speed By the mid-'90s, technologists were predict- ing that the use of conductive copper intercon- nections would need to be replaced with optics feature Don't Be Held Hostage by Design Cycle Time

• Cover
• Feature Articles — Accelerating the PCB Design Cycle
• Table of Contents
• Column — Squeezing Seconds Out of the Design Cycle
• Feature — Don't Be Held Hostage by Design Cycle Time
• Short — Whelen Engineering: The First New Captive in Decades?
• Feature — Accelerating the Design Cycle: Moving from Discipline-Centric to Product-Centric Design
• Short — Discovery about New Battery Overturns Decades of False Assumptions
• Feature — The Readers Speak: Tips on Accelerating Your Design Cycle
• Short — Superconductivity Trained to Promote Magnetization
• PCB007 Highlights
• Feature Column — Speeding up the Design Cycle: 10 Things to Remember
• Column — Stackup Planning, Part 4
• Short — Big Range of Behaviors for Tiny Graphene Pores
• Column — Avoiding the Black Spot of Negative Expectations
• Short — Back to the Future: Science Fiction Turns Science Fact
• Column — Impact of Final Plated Finish on PCB Loss
• Short — How Leaky is Your Device?
• MilAero007 Highlights
• Article — The Gerber Guide, Chapter 3
• Article — Analyzing Condensation and Evaporation in Headlights with Thermal Simulation
• Short — Energy Out of Thin Air
• Top Ten Recent Highlights from PCBDesign007
• Events Calendar
• Advertiser Index and Masthead