Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/798021
28 The PCB Design Magazine • March 2017 FEATURE INTERVIEW American Standard Circuits Releases eBook on Designing Flex and Rigid-flex by Patty Goldman I-CONNECT007 American Standard Circuits' VP of Business Development Dave Lackey and President/CEO Anaya Vardya have co-authored The Printed Cir- cuit Designer's Guide to…Flex and Rigid-Flex Fun- damentals, published by I-Connect007. American Standard Circuits is an industry leader when it comes to high-technology print- ed circuit boards, especially flex and rigid-flex printed circuit boards. So, it was natural that they would write about flex and rigid-flex for I-Connect007's new "Guide to…" e-book series. Goldman: Gentlemen, congratulations on the book. Tell me a little bit about what it covers and why you chose this subject. Lackey: We work so closely with designers all the time that we felt it would be a good idea to write this book for designers. We wanted to cover some of the more common fundamentals that we work on together. We focus on things like dos and don'ts of designing flex and rigid- flex boards, design guidelines, construction tips, and anything else we can help them with dur- ing the design process rather than while parts are being built. Vardya: Our philosophy at American Standard is to help our customers in any way that we can. We want to be their experts and make it easy for them to get their boards built. Over the last few years, we have seen more designers venturing into the flex and rigid-flex arena. There are sev- eral differences between these boards and regu- lar rigid PCBs. We wanted to share our knowl- edge with them and alert them to various items in the design process where they would want to consult with their PCB fabricator. We felt that this book was a perfect way to do this. Goldman: I know you wrote it for PCB designers. How do you expect this book to help them? Lackey: It is critical for designers to work close- ly with their PCB fabricator when designing flex and rigid-flex PCBs. We wanted to educate them on several issues where they would want to collaborate with their fabricator while edu- cating them about the various nuances of these circuit boards. If there is anything we can do to make building flex and rigid-flex boards more