McCauley Design Group Spreads the CAMM2 Gospel

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

At PCB East, I met Charlene McCauley and Terrie Duffy of the McCauley Design Group. The duo was leading a class on designing with the new CAMM2 DDR5, a JEDEC specification and standard created by Dell, which is due to replace the aging SO-DIMM in laptops. The CAMM2 (Compression Attach Memory Module) is solderless and frees up lots of real estate that SO-DIMM famously requires.

Now that CAMM2 is a standard, other companies are ready to take advantage of this technology, and Charlene and Terrie are in demand as speakers. I asked them to take me through their work with CAMM2 and what it means to motherboard designers.

Andy Shaughnessy: You had a full house for your class, and the attendees are still talking about it. Tell me about the groundbreaking stuff you’re covering here at the conference.

Charlene McCauley: The attendees were wonderful. This class was about designing with DDR5 and adopting the CAMM2 compression connector. Now, CAMM2 has become a world standard for DDR5 memory. We are part of the development team that has done CAMM2, and now we're out presenting and sharing the knowledge that we've gained over the past four years.

Shaughnessy: Will you give me some background on the company?

McCauley: I started the McCauley Design Group in 2015 in Austin, Texas. I had been laid off from Dell, so I called Tom Schnell, now a senior engineer at Dell and who we’re working with and asked if he needed any help. Tom is one of those inventors who has all the new future ideas. I ended up starting McCauley Design Group, and we became his team. Tom is the chair of the CAMM2 committee for JEDEC, as well as the inventor of the specification. He has been our engineer, and we've been his designers—his hands for creating this future technology.

I’ve been teaching at Austin Community College for nine years. Terrie was one of my students, and I hired her six years ago. She was a great student, and with her background in numbers and programming, I asked her to work for me. She's the main one doing the constraints, designing, and everything, but her numbers background helps us be successful as a team doing cutting-edge, futuristic stuff.

I have also “adopted” some of my other PCB design students; they work with us for as long as possible, maybe six months to a year. I’ll help them find jobs with bigger corporations where they can learn from those designers. All I provided was more knowledge.

Shaughnessy: Adopting your students is a great idea. So, Terrie came on board, and she has been the “fixer” for your company, so to speak.

McCauley: Yes. I've been trying to show Terrie what I know after being in PCB design for 44 years. I’ve done all different types of boards in all different industries. In one presentation I attended here at PCB East, the instructor talked about going from light table to CAD, and I was there. I did that, and it wasn't easy. But CAD got adopted, in my mind, because it was still colorful and visual, and it also sped up my process. With CAD, it was easy to make changes. That whole experience gives me a positive feeling about AI right now because I know AI will not take over our jobs. But you have to make it easier, more productive, and visual for a designer to use.

To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the July 2024 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.