60 The PCB Design Magazine • December 2015
products. A low-flow prepreg is a prepreg that
flows sufficiently to wet out and adhere to bond-
ing surfaces and to fill inner layer copper details,
but does not flow so much as to fill in cut-out
areas in a heat sink or run unevenly out of the
interface between rigid and flexible elements of a
rigid-flex PWB.
Make the Right Decisions at the Right
Time in the PCB Design Process
Martin Cotton of ventec explains
why the right decisions are not
always the easiest decisions, but
making them well and as early as
possible often avoids errors and
addition costs. This is certainly the
case in PCB design and a key decision influenc
-
ing the design process and the eventual outcome
is the selection of material and of the materials
vendor.
Nick Barbin: From Designer to
EMS Company owner
Many PCB designers would rather
do just about anything than pore
over a P&l spreadsheet. But Nick
Barbin isn't a typical designer. He
co-founded the design bureau op-
timum Design Associates over two
decades ago, and the company later expanded
into contract manufacturing and lean processes. I
caught up with Nick recently and asked him how
he wound up leading an eMS company on the Inc.
5000 list.
Broadcom PCB Design:
Miniaturization on the Cutting Edge
Andy Shaughnessy recently attend-
ed the orange County Designer's
Council "lunch and learn" meet-
ing, held at the Broadcom offices
on the campus of the university
of California, Irvine. Afterward, he
sat down with Scott Davis, CID, the senior man-
ager of PC board design at Broadcom, to discuss
the company's savvy PCB design department and
their approach to PCB design.
EchoStar's Les Beller Shares the
PCB Design-to-Fab Process
Recently, Barry Matties had the op-
portunity to meet and interview les
Beller of echoStar Technologies. In
this interview, Beller focuses on the
many challenges circuit board de-
signers face, strategies for bridging
the gap between circuit design and fabrication,
and the future of circuit designers.
Beyond Design: The Plain Truth
About Plane Jumpers
Moats, islands, cut-outs in the
ground plane, isolated power
planes, floating ground regions,
and a host of other intricate lay-
out techniques are often used by
PCB designers to reduce crosstalk,
eMI, and to otherwise improve overall system per-
formance. But a high-speed signal crossing a split
in the plane causes problems along at least three
dimensions, including signal quality, crosstalk, and
eMI. Barry olney explains.
Cadence's Brad Griffin Digs Deep Into DDR
Guest editor Kelly Dack stopped by
the Cadence Design Systems booth
at DesignCon 2015, where he sat
down with Product Marketing Man-
ager Brad Griffin to discuss Cadence's
advanced PCB design and signal in-
tegrity tools, and the company's focus on DDR.
Trending at Freedom CAD:
New Crop of Next-Gen Designers
Scott McCurdy, director of sales and marketing
at Freedom CAD Services, expresses his vision for
what North America is bringing to the table in the
world of circuit design. I-Connect007 Publisher
Barry Matties and McCurdy also discuss China,
trends in product design, tools, and more.
Material Witness: Low-Flow Prepregs—
Defining the Process
let's try to define "low flow" in terms that will
make sense to both suppliers and users of the
60 The PCB Design Magazine • December 2015
