Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/952929
62 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 Naicker: We've had a good relationship with a very reputable global PCB supplier called NCAB Group, with HQ in Sweden and offices throughout the world. They are open to shar- ing their knowledge and often give us feedback for improvement. Matties: It's for everybody's benefit to do that— theirs, yours, and ultimately, the end customer. N a i c ke r : Of course. Because every com- p a ny n e e d s t o b e competitive on the world scene, getting feedback like that can improve the yield, also any yield loss is not factored into the final product cost. Everyone wins. Matties: I would think that having a fabrica- tor who's proactive in providing feedback, that a purchaser of PCBs would even be willing to pay a little extra because of the confidence in knowing that they're going to have a quality product. Naicker: Exactly. We've made, on some prod- ucts, many hundreds of thousands of boards over the last years with not one single failure, so it is possible. Price is what you pay, value is what you get. The key factor with modern PCBs is reliability and repeatability. If you really want that, you may need to pay a small surcharge, but it's worth it in the end. We say, "good quality is expensive, poor quality is even more expensive." Matties: What advice would you give a young designer just entering in to the design commu- nity? Naicker: One of the biggest pieces of advice I would give them is first build up your knowl- edge base on good design practices. I attended Lee Ritchey's high-speed course about four or five years ago in Bitburg, Germany, and having done boards for over 25 years, I really could kick myself for not doing this course earlier. Ever since then, we applied many of the principles we learnt, which will never change because it's a science, and we've had tremendous success with very complex boards working first time and passing EMC first time. So that invest- ment in your knowl- edge and design prac- tices is invaluable. Matties: It certainly s o u n d s l i ke g re a t advice. Is there any- thing that we haven't talked about that you would like to share with the industry? Naicker: Yeah, there's one trend that's hap- pening that some peo- ple feel very maybe sour about, and that's the globaliza- tion trend. We saw yesterday in Lee Ritchey's presentation that from 1,200 fabricators in the States over 30 years ago, there are only 200 now. And it's a trend that's happening world- wide, but not just in PCB bareboard manufac- ture, but also in EMS services. My advice is for companies to focus on their core compe- tencies, and outsource the non-core functions elsewhere to remain competitive. Instead of being sour about it, let's outsource what we need to outsource so that we can continue to make great products for new markets that were not there yesterday. Matties: Great advice. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. Naicker: It's a pleasure. DESIGN007