Flexible Thinking Flexible Circuit Technology—Looking Back and Forward
Happy’s Tech Talk #29: Bend-to-Install Semi-flex FR-4
Connect the Dots: Five Best Practices for Designing Flex and Rigid-flex PCBs
Speaking the Same Language as Your Fabricator
March 12, 2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” —Strother Martin as the captain in “Cool Hand Luke”
Strother Martin might have been talking about PCB designers and fabricators when he uttered the most famous line of his acting career. We do indeed have a failure to communicate; designers and fabricators often seem to be talking past each other, which can lead to jobs being put on hold.
We asked Jen Kolar, VP of engineering for Monsoon Solutions, and columnist Kelly Dack to share their thoughts on ways that we can break down the communication barrier between design and fabrication. As they point out, a design kickoff checklist and a solid review process can be invaluable tools in a designer’s toolbox.
Andy Shaughnessy: Welcome, Jen and Kelly. What are the most common communication mistakes, miscues, and missteps that you see between design and fabrication?
Jen Kolar: Oftentimes, we ask our project manager, “Can you please remind our designers to actually follow our process?” We have a standard process for how all outputs and packages should be created. However, many of our customers add their own tweaks. Speaking of language, when fab shops don't have CAM350 and they're using a lower-end tool, I have seen issues flagged as errors when they were not actually errors. It’s happened many times. I try to avoid having designers send both Gerbers and ODB++ because invariably, the fab vendor will have differences, and you'll spend a lot of time with the fab vendor trying to resolve this.
Kelly Dack: Jen and I have had similar experiences. She hit the nail on the head about sending ODB++ and Gerber in parallel. One North American supplier built it using the ODB++ data, and when the boards came in, the customer asked, “Why is this different from the PCBs we received from our offshore supplier?” Well, it turned out they had Gerber data different from the ODB++ data. Jen, where does it all start with the design tool? It's so easy for designers to start clicking away and have our layout tools guide us through the process using the standard design rule settings. New designers don't know what they don't know, and they may be relying on standard out-of-the-box settings from their layout tools.
To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the March 2025 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.
Share on:
Suggested Items
Elementary Mr. Watson: Ensuring a Smooth Handoff From PCB Design to Fabrication
03/13/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonAt the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay team had high hopes of winning a medal. The team comprised some of the fastest sprinters in the world, but something went wrong. In a relay, four runners must smoothly pass their baton to the next runner inside a zone on the track. If a runner drops the baton or it’s passed outside the zone, the team risks disqualification. The U.S. team’s pass between the second and third runner was messy, slowing them down. By the time the last runner received the baton, the team had lost too much time. They finished sixth in their heat and didn’t qualify for the final.
The Shaughnessy Report: Breaking Down the Language Barrier
03/11/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy -- Column: The Shaughnessy ReportAccording to Ethnologue’s 2024 update, there are currently 7,164 living languages being spoken today. It makes you wonder: Do they count PCB design as a language? PCB fabrication? Assembly?
Design007 Magazine March 2025: Learning to Speak 'Fab'
03/10/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamOur expert contributors clear up many of the miscommunication problems between PCB designers and their fab and assembly stakeholders in the March 2025 issue of Design007 Magazine. But as you will see, a little extra planning early in the design cycle can go a long way toward maintaining open lines of communication with the fab and assembly folks.
I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week
03/07/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, I-Connect007It’s been a busy week. My must-reads include articles and news items on global trends and challenges, groundbreaking technology, the hunt for the elusive young PCB designers, and some personnel changes. We also have a great column on the value of following up and keeping promises. We’re all guilty of “dropping the ball” from time to time, aren’t we?
Recruiting the Next Generation of PCB Designers at Garmin
03/06/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, I-Connect007Laura Beth (LB) Yates, PCB design engineering manager at Garmin, discusses the company's innovative approach to recruiting the next generation of PCB designers. As she points out, the best part of her job is “going to work every day with my friends and making cool stuff.”