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The Shaughnessy Report: Slow And Steady Wins the Race

You’re probably wondering: Why is there a tortoise on the cover of Design007 Magazine this month?

In one of the most popular Aesop’s Fables, The Tortoise and the Hare, the slow and steady reptile beat his much faster opponent by taking his time and persevering. Judging from what our expert contributors have to say in this issue, many PCB design problems could be precluded if designers simply took their time. (Yes, designers even called themselves out for this!)

We asked PCB designers, fabricators, and assembly providers to share their thoughts on the biggest PCB design challenges. The three challenges most often cited by contributors revolve around DFM, communication, and data—all of which are interrelated.

DFM continues to be one of the prickliest predicaments perplexing today’s designers. It’s the little things—not signal integrity or EMI—that often cause the CAM department to put a hold on most designs. Several contributors from the manufacturing side address the need for designers to visit board shops and assembly providers—and visit them often. When was the last time you toured a board shop?

On a related topic, communication got plenty of shout-outs this month, with fabricators pointing the fickle finger of fate at designers for not working with board shops until it’s too late. But the reverse also holds true: Designers noted that many (not all) fabricators are reluctant to share their most up-to-date manufacturing capabilities, and that fabricators’ websites often don’t have the info a designer needs for a complex design.

Data was also mentioned by designers, fabricators, and assembly providers alike this month. Many pointed to the need to move on from Gerber and embrace Smart data transfer formats such as ODB++ or IPC-2581. Not surprisingly, some EMS folks stressed the need for more designers to become familiar with the CFX manufacturing format, which is now interfaced with IPC-2581 in the IPC-2591 format.

In this issue, we share the top PCB design challenges from a variety of viewpoints—PCB designers, fabricators, and assembly providers. Weighing in, alphabetically, are Dan Beeker, Charlie Capers, Kelly Dack, Michael Ford, David Hoover, Jen Kolar, Dana Korf, Scott Miller, Barry Olney, Gerry Partida, Qandeel Sheikh, Matt Stevenson, Mark Thompson, and Mark Wolfe. We also bring you articles by Frank Xu, Mark Gallant, and Mike Morando, as well as columns from John Coonrod and Joe Fjelstad.

We think you’ll find this compilation of design challenges useful. Remember: Slow and steady wins the race.

This column originally appeared in the June 2023 issue of Design007 Magazine.