Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/929192
18 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2018 When they look at that, they're like, "I'm kind of in this more regimented phase-gate pro- cess." For very good reasons, but nonetheless, the disruption we see could come from more how we design, and a process around design- ing, as opposed to purely the tools and the technology. Shaughnessy: Shifting gears, how much does flex drive what you all are doing? Gaudion: What we've seen with flex is that where people used to use it just for intercon- nects at low speeds, they seem to be going straight to high- speed designs with flex, and that means that people are going in with quite complex designs straight- away. W h e re a s with the more traditional builds, people gradually ramp up the speed, now people want to go fast from the get-go, and that's you know, dealing with the different dimensions and the material properties of flex brings in some extra things into the equation there. Certainly, we see flex being a significant percentage on all our tools and that's interesting for us to keeping devel- oping in that area. Shah: We see a lot of our customers pushing the boundaries on flex and especially rigid-flex. They're really pushing the boundary, not only in terms of the number of layers in flex with multilayers, but they're also looking at, "How do I figure out if the bending of my flex is going to work, not only in the mechanical stage, but electrically?" Imagine a rigid-flex rigid, and the second rigid board is flexed and bent over the first one. You want to make sure the crosstalk doesn't prevent the circuitry from function- ing in the field. So that's another capability. Bringing the multiple domains—manufactur- ing, mechanical, and electrical—all together is an important concern that our customers have that PCB design tools need to address. Gaudion: I think one area we also find on flex is, we often get asked to model and measure flex, but then when we ask our customers for samples, they say, "We can't, it's confiden- tial, our clients won't let us share that infor- mation." Then we get kind of stuck in a loop where people would like us to help them, but they won't give us the samples to test out the tools, and that's something I've heard is com- mon with other EDA vendors. It's become this world of where information is tightly legally controlled and manufacturers aren't always allowed to disclose things to their suppliers, compared to when we first started working on impedance controlled boards, where you had coupons and test pieces freely available and people would share the information. The sup- ply chain seems a bit more cautious about sup- plying test vehicles out to people like us and to our competitors. What they would be sharing is nothing that's particularly confidential, but without the abil- ity for us to get hold of test vehicles, it's very hard for us to design something, because we'd have to guess what the client's doing. So, they'll say, "I've got this particular structure I'd like you to model," and we say, "Can you send us some samples?" And they say, "I'm sorry, but legal won't let us do that." I certainly would appreciate some more openness in the supply chain, where it's not mission-critical; it's everyone trying to help each other. Shaughnessy: It seems like the industry is get- ting a little bit less paranoid about sharing. But traditionally, PCB people have been leery of sharing anything, even if it might be for the greater good. Shah: Well, that big paranoia is with the 2581 spec, and even ODB, sharing that with fabri- cators. "Am I actually giving away intellectual property here, now that 2581 is really an intel- ligent database of the CAD system?" And then, Martyn Gaudion, Polar Instruments