Category Archives: Laying It Out
Off-grid thoughts from a burned-out designer turned editor.
All Quiet on the Wilsonville Front
A timely piece from the hometown paper of Mentor Graphics looks at how Carl Icahn has calmed down now that Mentor’s stock price has doubled since he started accumulating shares of the company a couple years ago. The legendary investor … Continue reading →
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Tagged Carl Icahn, design, EDA, Mentor Graphics, PCB software
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Collins Closing
Count me among those sorry to hear the news that Rockwell is closing its printed circuit board fabrication plant. I’ve been through that plant and this is sad to see. I wrote a profile of the plant for PC FAB … Continue reading →
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Tagged fabrication, printed circuit board, Rockwell Collins
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Round and Round
I had a great time keynoting last week’s SMTA Atlanta trade show, but the best part was sitting in the Designer’s Roundtable, where local board designers and engineers talked freely about the good and bad of their profession. Read the … Continue reading →
H-1B Free?
Those in favor of lifting limits on the US government H-1B visas, which allow workers from other countries to take jobs in the US, might want to read this alternate view. Tech companies in particular say the program is essential to … Continue reading →
Posted in Hot Wires, Laying It Out
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Tagged Farah Stockman, H-1B visa, outsourcing
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The Top 50 EMS Companies Chat
The electronics manufacturing services industry in 2012 saw something of a changing of the guard as major European players like Elcoteq, ElectronicNetwork and SRI Radio Systems dropped off the map, and dependable stalwart industries like military and PCs experienced slow … Continue reading →
Robotics Competition an Eye-Opening Experience
Ever wondered, as you survey the ever-greying and balding crowd at a trade show, where our next crop of engineers, technicians and scientists will come from? Gary Ferrari and I* had just this conversation at a recent Designers Council event … Continue reading →
Posted in Hot Wires, Laying It Out
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Tagged DragonCon, Georgia FIRST, robotics, student engineering, WWE
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The March Issue of PCD&F/CA
… is now out. The cover story, “Bridging Technology between Conventional 3D and TSV 3D Stacking,” looks at two new multi-die DRAM packages with thin profiles that minimize wirebond length. Among the other features: My recap of the Apex Expo … Continue reading →
What About PCB?
As the major CAD vendors hold their quarterly conference calls, one thing to watch is whether analysts are asking about PCB design tools. For the most part, they aren’t. So while Cadence’s PCB and IC packaging software lines saw good … Continue reading →
Updating the Design Standard
IPC-2221A, as most designers know, was released in 2003. Since that time, lead-free has gone from a niche technology to a mainstream one, and its added a generous dose of complexity to the design decision tree. In November, IPC-2221B was, … Continue reading →
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Tagged design standards, IPC-2221B, J-STD-001, printed circuit board
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Remembering Finch
Zuken has compiled a number of touching sentiments from friends of the late Alan Finch, credited with developing the first shape-based autorouter. Finch, of course, wrote the landmark paper that followed up his Racal-Redac colleague Ulrich Lauther, who conceived a … Continue reading →
Posted in Laying It Out
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Tagged Alan Finch, Autorouting, Pete Waddell, Racal-Redac, UP Media, Zuken
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