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10 The PCB Design Magazine • May 2017 Andy Shaughnessy is managing editor of The PCB Design Magazine. He has been covering PCB design for 18 years. He can be reached by clicking here. and fabricators from companies like Siemens, NCR and Cisco. Some interesting points from the very lively conversation: • Some designers are forced to move up to 16-layer boards in order to fan out BGAs with pin counts of 1,600 and up. As one said, "Designers can drive the cost of the board, unless it's a 1,600 pin-count BGA." • Every designer present was using FR-4 or a flavor of FR-4. None were designing boards with advanced materials. • Only one person knew very much about printed electronic circuits. Most wanted to know what the fuss was about, and if anyone was successfully using PEC. • At one company, the procurement depart- ment didn't know that their designers could design .003" lines. • An "Only in this Industry" story: One Tier 1 CEM convinced its customers that all boards require three re-spins. Why? It's still a prototype if it's still undergoing re- spins, and they charge more for protos. You have to admire thinking like that. • One great quote: "DFM software isn't per- fect. It's still a tool." • Only one company had plans to hire new designers: When two senior designers re- tire soon, the company plans to replace them with one PCB designer. Yes, you read that right. At least they won't be farming out their PCB design work. These SMTA tabletop expos are great region- al shows. For all the people who don't go to IPC APEX EXPO and DesignCon, these shows are re- ally a must-attend. Must Play Well with Others Which brings us to this month's issue, "Help Wanted." We've heard a lot of rosy talk about how the industry is looking up. Think about it: Do you know any designers who have been out of a job for very long? So, we asked our expert contributors to dis- cuss what hiring managers are looking for, what skills are hot, and what designers should do if they are forced to freshen up their resumes. Columnist Abby Monaco gives her thoughts on job-seeking in the EDA world, from her point of view as both a hiring manager and a job can- didate. Technical Editor Kelly Dack discusses his own job-hunting experience, and how his IPC CID credentials came in quite handy. In an interview, SnapEDA founder Natasha Baker explains how she manages to hire top-notch electrical engineers, and the need to make EDA attractive to such technologists once again. As- sociate Professor Bojan Jovanovic of the Univer- sity of Niš, Serbia, discusses his efforts to put together a PCB design curriculum, and what the students should learn in his class. And finally, columnist Tim Haag began this article months ago, not knowing that he would soon be seek- ing another job in PCB design. He explains the importance of being prepared, as well as stick- ing to what you're good at and not trying to re-invent yourself to land another job. We also have articles by Altium Chief Mar- keting Officer Tim Pawela and Schindler & Schill GmbH CEO Guenther Schindler. And we have columns by our regular contributors Barry Olney of iCD and Alistair Little of Electrolube. Whether you're hiring or not, we hope you'll enjoy this month's issue. Next month, we delve deep into embedded technology. See you then! PCBDESIGN THE "HELP WANTED" ISSUE