Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/713934
August 2016 • The PCB Design Magazine 15 VOICES OF THE INDUSTRY kindness flow. Cue the Kumbaya. I don't know when I got this love happy. Joel Krawczyk Electrical Engineer LINX TECHNOLOGIES If they would just do this... PCB fab shops should do a better job at clearly defining design rules. I constantly get mixed results from turning in designs for DFM review. I could turn in the exact same design three times and get three totally different sets of suggestions. If they would only listen... Impedance matching should be the re- sponsibility of the design engineers. The fab house should not be responsible for hit- ting a target impedance for signal traces by manipulating the substrate thickness and resin content. With that said, the design en- gineer needs better information about the electrical properties of the material that is available. This is really stupid... but we do it all the time... Sometimes as designers, we are forced to fol- low reference designs even if they are flawed, because our management does not understand the complexity of the problems and does not trust the engineers to get it right. If I were in charge… EE courses would include much more cir- cuit design. Designers need better training. There is an enormous amount of conflicting information out there about circuit design. A student may take one layout class at a trade show or something, then take another layout class and get totally different and conflicting information. What I really like about the my company is... My company understands that the PCB is the heart of system, and we don't just treat it as another line on the BOM. My favorite tip or trick to share is... Importing mechanical components and en- closures, using 3D mode to check mechanical fit of the whole system. Chris McKernan Director of Research and Development CID CORPORATION If they would just do this... The past decade has had a steep decline in product repairability. Companies choose to treat functional details such as service manuals and schematics as highly classified intellectual property. This paired with devices getting smaller and smaller makes repair dif- ficult for most independent repair shops and encourages a throwaway mentality. Where 25 years ago electronics were sold with de- tailed service manuals (or they were attain- able through the manufacturer) and schemat- ics were typically right on the device, now we choose to dispose of the device and purchase a new better one with no attempt to make a repair. This may be great for the industry for sales, but does a disservice to the consumer and the environment. It's time for the industry to begin making service information available again, and start to stand behind the products they have produced, not just the new devices they are releasing to- morrow. X X X