Do lightning-fast processors presage the fate of the American designer?

About 20 years ago, when I first learned to use a computer to design boards, several of us started dreaming up a generation of design tools that would allow us to sit in front of a monitor wearing a headset to “think” our place-and-route techniques. It wasn’t enough to get off the light table and on to these new Telesis machines; we’d talk about taking things a step further. This Star Trek-style technology would eliminate keyboards and light pens that got in the way and slowed our work. Remember, these were the days of DEC PDP11-based machines with a 20Mb hard drive the size of a show box.

Skip ahead in time to 2010. Most of us are familiar with the technology of networking multiple computers to gain a jump in processing power. In fact, most of today’s PCs use multiple cores. Sometime next year, Intel is expected to release a line of Core-branded chips with six- and eight-core processors. But it’s what Intel is working on next that has the potential to really shake things up.

Last month, researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental 48-core processor. That’s right, 48 cores on a chip about the size of a postage stamp. That’s 10 to 20 times the number of processing engines in the current off-the-shelf computers.

Some of you are thinking it’s going to take a small nuclear reactor to power the thing, but according to Intel, newly developed power management techniques permit the cores to operate very energy efficiently – at as little as 25W, or 125W at maximum performance. According to a company announcement, Intel plans to provide at least 100 of the devices to industry and academia to help spur software and programming models.
With that kind of processing power, all sorts of new applications could become reality. It would probably permit computer manufacturers to eliminate board memory and even some of the hardware we take for granted, such as the keyboard and mouse. Some have speculated that computers with this level of power could even read brain waves. Hey, did someone say design by telepathy? George Jetson would be proud.

This leads me to a conversation I had with some friends just recently. These four friends work for one of the large communications companies and have been involved in PCB design at one time or another. Two have moved into management but are still associated with the design group. After we caught up on what had been going on in each other’s lives, we moved on to our profession. While kicking around several thoughts, one friend raised the core question many designers think about at one time or another: “What is the future of PCB designers?”  

Many OEMs are outsourcing more of the physical place-and-route design work. In many cases, the work goes offshore to developing countries anxious to add design to their manufacturing expertise. One of my friends suggested that today’s OEM designer eventually would become more of a product manager. Many companies currently work on designs around the clock using design teams physically spread around the globe. Someone has to manage the process, and I suppose the idea of having an in-house designer do so makes sense. In North America, we continue to see an aging of the design force. Fewer young people are coming up through the design ranks and fewer engineers are joining this industry. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that at some point there just won’t be people to fill the positions, even if the jobs remain in-house.

I hope this is not the future of PCB design in the US. I’d much prefer to see the generation that grew up with ever-evolving video games as something they take for granted transition to a video game called PCB Designer. Maybe tools that put the whole design and verification processes into a virtual realm would motivate some of the gamer generation to rethink PCB design as a career. When they grow up, they can become product managers.

Me, I’m excited about that laptop with a 48-core processor. It will probably glow in the dark like a nightlight. 

Pete Waddell is the design technical editor of PCD&F (pcdandf.com); pwaddell@upmediagroup.com.

In the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo, the war between various government and rebel armies has raged for 10 years, fueled by monies derived from the country’s vast mines. In the West, the war over the output of those mines is heating up.

In December, a group of OEMs called the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition met with the International Tin Research Institute and a representative from the IPC Solder Products Value Council in Paris to discuss elimination of so-called conflict metals by the electronics industry. Among the topics discussed was an audit program for the supply chain, the cost of which would be shared by OEMs and solder manufacturers, among others.

Solder manufacturers purchase thousands of tons of raw materials from Congo mines. Because the revenues are used to arm renegades, some in the press have taken to calling the ores “conflict metals.” Although press attention to the matter has been nominal at best, more than five million people have died, making this one of history’s worst tragedies.

Mined ores are brought to large refineries, some in the Congo, some outside, where they are melted together. From there, the shipments are sold by distributors of the refineries, primarily via contracts on the London Metals Exchange. The material received by the solder manufacturers bears no thumbprint, no genetic markings.

Any company that purchases directly from exchanges – which is more or less all of them – stands to be affected by this nonsense. The major bar solder companies, including Cookson, Kester and AIM, could really be in for a treat. As they get a significant amount of their material from reclaimed metal, tracing the “ores” would be like trying to deduce the origin of oxygen. As a spokesman for one of the major solder suppliers told me, “It is possible for us to ask for certificates, but we would have no way to validate.” Since the refineries are closest to the mines, they should be the ones asked to audit their supply chain, he added.

But while tin has no DNA, BS certainly does, and some media outposts are shoveling it by the truckload.

In the US, legislators are working up a bill (the Conflict Minerals Trade Act of 2009) requiring companies to disclose – and prove – the origins of the minerals they buy. The Huffington Post, an influential blog cum news and opinion site visited by some 8.5 million visitors a month, has taken up the cause, recently asserting that a process is available for tracing solder materials back to the mines. (The link is here.)

Audits, be it driven by legislation or third parties, are a misguided and untenable response. As the solder spokesman noted, “Electronics companies would never buy directly from the mines; thus, good auditing at the refineries would do the trick without pushing it upstream to companies that are a minimum of three tiers away from the conflict zone.”

As WEEE and RoHS has aptly demonstrated, the electronics industry has had it up to here with its trade groups taking expensive but politically expedient ways out. In the end, such movements have emptied manufacturers’ pockets at no benefit to the end-customer. It’s refreshing to see IPC, through its solder supplier members, fighting back this time.

The next meeting is planned for Vancouver in May. (If nothing else, one has to appreciate the places they choose to convene.) Make it your New Year’s resolution to pressure the EICC (which includes, among others, that noted worker-friendly enterprise Foxconn) and ITRI (not to mention any legislator caught advocating for such regulation) to back off on what would certainly be another hefty tax with no demonstrable return.

Selling low. A friend of mine who works in finance at a Wall Street company says an acquisition opportunity for a leading process equipment OEM came across his desk a few months back. While the improvement in the economy may spur the parent company to take this business unit off the block, what’s more likely is that the continued commoditization of electronics manufacturing will lead many investors to look elsewhere, where the potential of larger returns is greater. If a market-leading OEM with long history of profitability isn’t an attractive piece of one’s portfolio, what does that portend for those companies more prone to the industry’s rollercoaster ways? And especially now, why doesn’t Wall Street find well-run and stable conglomerates like Nordson and Dover, for instance, more appealing?

One magazine? As many readers noted, last month we co-published PCD&F and Circuits Assembly. This is not intended to be a permanent arrangement, but rather a nod to the current economic world in which we live. Either way, we’re glad you’re reading.

Speaking of last month, I wrote in this space that the TTM-Meadville deal would make high-ranking Hong Kong government official Henry Tang a 33% owner of TTM. In fact, Tang’s father would be the top shareholder.

Finally, we welcome our newest columnist, Andy Murrietta. Andy, who is a second-generation PCB veteran with experience in design, fabrication and assembly (and management), will contribute to our Better Manufacturing column.

Mike Buetow is Editor-in-Chief of UP Media Group; mbuetow@upmediagroup.com.

Could a show full of new products and a rising sun be a good omen for the industry?

We saw the sun in Munich.

For the first time in 10 years, I saw the distinct yellow rays of that giant orb in the sky break through the ubiquitous gray of the November German sky. Was it a sign? An omen? Global warming?

No, it was just good timing. But for once, scheduling the world’s largest electronics manufacturing trade show in a cold climate and on the cusp of the holiday season turned out to be a wise move.

Amid tepid expectations, Productronica turned out stronger than expected, with attendance lower than past years, but solid nonetheless. And while it clearly has become a regional (read: European) event, and several big-name suppliers opted out, and the fab side is a shell of its former self, Productronica defied gravity and the pundits to remain the mother of all trade shows.

In general, almost all the 80-plus companies we spoke to during the Nov. 10-13 show felt the corner has been turned. The capital equipment companies generally felt the bottom was last January, and reported September and October were to that point the strongest months of the year.

Across the board, the sentiment is that this year will be financially better, though there is disagreement on just how much so. Few companies reported equipment buys for capacity outside China. Perhaps more important, after a year of malaise, there is a noticeable improvement in the general outlook for 2010. The optimists far outnumbered the pessimists.

What follows are comments beyond what could be found in the company press releases leading up to the show. To review the product releases – and there were many – please visit our special web sections at circuitsassembly.com/productronica2009 and pcdandf.com/productronica2009.

Time was, Productronica was equal parts assembly and fabrication. No more. While assembly commands four-plus halls, the fab side has been reduced to a single hall. Laminate makers Isola, Arlon, Kingboard, Ventec and others were on hand, many in booths more in tune with the current market conditions and expectations for the show. Precious few machines were shown. Gone are the days when visitors could see 40 to 60 ft. plating lines in action.

David Rund, president of Taiyo America, called the show “excellent,” adding that with 80% market share in the US, Europe was the next big market for the soldermask supplier to target. He added that many attendees appeared concerned about the supply chain, and were attempting to assess their supplier’s financial viability before ordering product.

We did see a few sales made. Teknek sold a CM8 clean machine to Graphic. David Westwood will become GM of Teknek US and, with marketing manager (and wife) Jenni Westwood, will be moving to Charlotte, NC, to launch the company’s operations.

LPKF was drawing a crowd to gawk at the sharp BMW motorcycle on display, a vehicle (get it?) to highlight LPKF’s micromachining and LDS laser process that the automaker uses in a number of its products, mostly for steering control boards.

Holmüller is quickly coalescing with parent company Rena. It was a little odd not seeing Joe Kresky there, however.

Kodak rolled out its latest version of Accumax red-sensitive film to Europe. The company agreed that not many visitors were from outside Europe.

Staff I spoke with at Ventec, Isola and others remarked the show was smaller than in the past. Rogers added that the show was “smaller than usual, but not too bad,” estimating perhaps 20% of the attendees were from outside Europe. Interestingly, the attendees were almost all PCB manufacturers, not the OEM designers the company typically targets. John Hendricks says it could be because the visitors want to see the company’s tech support staff, and because they are now offering more high temperature products that would appeal to fabricators. The company is ending its polyimide lines because, as Hendricks said, that is “a dogfight we don’t want to be in.”

Meanwhile, Arlon was showing EP-2, its enhanced polyimide for high-speed digital applications, which features a Tg of 250°C, lower moisture absorption and lower electrical loss.

Productronica today is primarily an assembly show. The large placement companies continue to one-up each other with booths that, although toned down from previous years, still dazzled.

ASYS’s Markus Wilkens was among the many who observed the lack of attendees from Asia, although he saw several buyers from Brazil and a few from US and Mexico. The company showed the upgraded ADS automated depaneling system. It also increased the speed on its X3 printer.

Henkel Electronics global marketing manager Doug Dixon noted plenty of industry blowback to proposed legislation over so-called conflict metals (tin and other ores mined in the Congo). The industry, under the auspices of the IPC Solder Products Value Council, is readying a response. Henkel was showing a series of new die attach and Pb-free pastes.

Balver-Zinn launched the Aquasol water-soluble flux paste. Aimed at US market, it is in beta and is said to handle all alloys. Also new: a VOC flux (3960RX). The company also is working on a new no-clean paste, which will come in SnPb and Pb-free versions for pin-in-paste applications. Conductive adhesives remain on the company’s roadmap, but next up are low-VOC fluxes for Asia.

Asymtek typically has several new offerings and this year did not disappoint. The firm has upgraded the Spectrum S-920, an inline dual-jetting dispenser aimed at cellphone boards; the SC400, for jetting conformal coating; and the DispenseMate, a batch-style tabletop dispenser for UV-curable materials. Vice president of sales Greg Wood noted business is improving and the company “can see the ice starting to melt.” Meanwhile, Asymtek parent Nordson has hit $1 billion in overall sales and now is pushing its corporate identity on top of all the brands, a move that is being met with mixed reviews among the show attendees we spoke with.

Juki’s Heinz Schlup showed the KE-3020RL flexible mounter now in beta and due out this year. The dual head machine uses 25% less power than previous models and is rated at 17,100 cph per IPC-9850. “While the placement equipment market fell by 80% in 2009, it looks like the worst is behind us,” said Jurg Schuepbach, president of Juki Europe. However, he cautioned, large companies are not yet investing, and most won’t do so for another 12 months.

Fuji’s Scott Wischhoffer proudly displayed the NXTII placement machine, which comes with dual placement heads, one of which can be replaced with an inspection head. That head holds a single camera with three light systems, and is for higher reliability product, like pacemakers, where traceability is desired. The company will have two new machines at Apex.

Assembléon announced the integration of its pick-and-place machine interfaces into Valor’s software products. The enhanced machine interfaces now are available for Valor’s process engineering tool vPlan on Assembléon’s A-, M- and X-Series machines. The firms expect to expand the relationship to Valor’s MES tools. The company also said its rep deal with Yamaha remains intact.

Separately, Valor also exhibited DynaMix, its fully integrated MES software. The company reiterated that it will maintain its distribution and rep channel after the company’s acquisition by Mentor goes through.

Siemens’ CEO Guenter Lauber noted that business picked up in the June and July timeframe, primarily in China. Most sales are for replacement machines, although some orders have been for increased capacity, he said.

Europlacer displayed its xpii placement machine. The single- or dual-head machine features linear motors, front and rear feeders, and trolley-style or fixed bases. It can handle up to 92 feeders and places part sizes of 01005 to 50 x 50 mm.

Rehm said vapor phase machines have been outselling the general reflow market. With automotive still lead-heavy, the company feels there is plenty of room to grow. COO Marc Dalderup cited a slow improvement in business, adding 2010 could be up 10-30% from 2009.

Seho showed the PowerSelective selective soldering machine, with dual pots to facilitate changeover time. Christian Ott said the company is “completely loaded” through year-end and called the business outlook good.

KIC is pushing solutions to reduce energy use in ovens. The company has a new shield for real-time profiling of inline vapor phase machines.

Mirtec is adding laser systems to its AOI line to enhance coplanarity and improve paste measurement capability. The company reported 100% growth in 2009.

Koh Young is growing. It has added two engineers in Ireland and now claims a 35% market share in SPI worldwide. It sold its first Aspire 3-D AOI to a consumer electronics OEM in Europe, and reported a second sale was about to close with a US customer.

A somewhat new face in the field was Opro Vision, which took over Orbotech’s assembly inspection business in 2009. With the machines, it brought on several ex Orbotech staffers, including Arnon Tuval as president. It now has 19 staff, half in development, half in support. Production takes place in Italy, some by third parties. Since the buyout, Opro Vision has developed a new tabletop AOI.

Viscom was among those noting a “big” increase in sales in October. Visitors were most interested in the company’s X7056 combination AOI/AXI.

TechCon Systems’ global sales and marketing manager Brian Glass held modest expectations for the show, but said the traffic and quality of leads matched those of two years ago.

Electrolube introduced some 13 products, most of which were non-VOC flavors of conformal coatings. Customer demand is driving its push into that technology, marketing manager Karen Harrison said.

Humiseal now offers gel versions of all its coatings. It has opened a manufacturing 100,000 sq. ft., fully automated facility in Pittsburgh, PA, and noted business has been picking up since May.

Overheard
We encountered several familiar faces on the show floor. One was Keith Favre, the former Electrovert, Speedline and PhotoStencil executive, who has launched his own rep business, FHP LLC (fhpreps.com).

Ovation Products founder (and Grid-Lok inventor) Charlie Moncavage supposedly is working on a new, cheaper board support system.

R&D Technical Services sold a third vapor phase rework machine to IBM.

Mike Buetow is editor-in-chief of CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY (circuitsassembly.com); mbuetow@upmediagroup.com.

Comparing design data requirements to design resources can result in better electronic performance at a reduced cost.

Proper design of high-speed, analog PCBs can make and break system electrical performance. Complex physical and electrical designs, densely packed boards and faster signal requirements are examples of factors that add complexity to today’s PCB designs. Consequently, designers should be able to easily define, manage, evaluate and validate physical and spacing constraints that apply to critical, high-speed signals. This should be done during the early stages of the design process. At the same time, the designer must ensure that the final layout design meets performance, manufacturing and test specification goals.

A density-predicting calculator is a tool that performs a tradeoff analysis at the feasibility stage, given the constraints of the assigned area. It takes into account the available CAD data analyses, including the electrical schematics, during the early stages of PCB design and layout. These initial data include the number of components, and the type and characteristics of the components once selected. The number of connections is also available, based on the interconnections and busses.

To make effective use of a density-predicting tool, several parameters should be made known prior to the feasibility analysis run:

• The measurement units, imperial or metric, and their impact on the trace/space width at the routing phase. Also important at this stage is understanding the metric structure of the current BGA and µBGA components relative to the via holes going through those components.
• The trace width, which is dictated by current flow level and maximum tolerable temperature rise.
• Component placement strategy, which impacts electrical performance. The designer should keep in mind the board’s electrical flow throughout the entire design phase.

For high-speed, high-frequency design, analyze the trace’s controlled impedance because the trace is now considered a transmission line.
The board technology and the stackup structure; for example, the PCB thickness and the number of signal and non-signal layers. Also, HDI technology, if used, needed to complete the PCB layout routing.

Calculator algorithm. A board’s density can be measured by several methods. One method is based on the number of connections per square inch, with any amount between 65 and 120 connections considered dense. Other methods include the number of components per square inch or the pad count per square inch.

For example, consider two board layouts (Figure 1) for the same product, designed in 1990 and 2000, respectively. The board designed in 2000 has more functions compared with the one from 1990, and it is denser in terms of the number of layers, line/space density and assembly density (Table 1).

For the same product, the newer board is denser, while using a smaller area and fewer layers. The user can define a maximal density factor for a number of PCBs in a given product, and boards would have the same or lower density factor. Obviously, this definition can change as the technology progresses and new design rules are implemented.

To gain confidence in the feasibility of the board design, we define the following terms used as inputs:

• Demand is all available design data requirements.
• Capacity is all available design resources.

Given these two values, we can run the program to get the density result defined as the ratio of demand to capacity.

For the demand part of the equation, we enter all known CAD design data (Figure 2). Usually these data are available once the design is completed. Mechanical design established the board size and its outline structure. After importing the mechanical data into the CAD design workdesk, the available area will be expressed either in terms of square inches or square millimeters.

Design technology is a key parameter in the prediction calculator. Many high-speed designs have electrical signal constraints such as controlled impedance signals, differential signals, fast clocks and tuning requirements. The electrical designer knows most of these data. The program calculates the wiring demand, as shown in the bottom of the dialogue box. The higher the number, the more complex the board. As a rule of thumb, if the wiring demand number exceeds the value of 80, one should consider using HDI.

In the capacity dialogue box (Figure 3), we enter initial concepts such as BGA pitch, typical trace width, typical via hole, number of signal layers expected and type of design. There is always a limit on the amount of routing each board can accommodate. The main contributors include:

• Pitch/distance between vias or holes in the substrate.
• Number of wires that can be routed between vias.
• Number of signal layers required.
• Design type.
• Design versatility.

As a result of the calculation, the wiring capacity appears at the bottom of the dialogue box. Again, the higher the number, the more complex the board.

‘What-if’ analysis. If the capacity value is higher than the demand value, the chosen design rules and technology are sufficient, and cost reduction may be an option. If the capacity value is equal to the demand value, the chosen design rules and technology are sufficient; however, either some effort may be required to finish the layout, a compromise on the constraints will be required during the design, or future changes will be difficult to implement. Finally, if the demand value is higher than the capacity value, the chosen design rules and technology are insufficient, and a set of checkups should take place. These can include the available layout area, the technology used for PCB manufacturing and the layer count. Figures 4 and 5 show comparisons between demand and capacity data.

Since electronic designs are now done with CAD tools, smooth integration is available between the schematic and the layout. All the schematic symbols, pins, connections and constraints are imported to the PCB layout tool in the netlist.

The netlist file brings the schematic and the PCB database together. The embedded data include all available design resources that fit into the definition of capacity of the specific PCB layout. Second, all requirements for that specific design are known as the demand. The demand data include:

• Number of components.
• Number of connections.
• Available area.
• Design type.

The capacity data include:

• Parts pin definitions (pads sizes and pitch, in mm).
• Specific connection names (differential, controlled impedance, power, RF, analog).
• PCB route directives (stripline, microstrip, trace/space width, vias).
• PCB stackup and technology (HDI, number of signal layers, number of plane layers).
• The result of the capacity/demand ratio provides a relative number for the density.

Conclusion
Organizations that have a PCB database information center can standardize their boards to a relative board density factor and keep track of board manufacturability and performance by comparing the density factor data to achieve better electrical performance and PCB cost reduction.  PCD&F

Acknowledgement
This work was funded by Elbit System; Israel.

Ed.: This article is adapted from a presentation at IPC Apex 2009 and is reprinted with the authors’ permission.

Ruth Kastner is owner and engineering manager at Adcom Ltd. (adcom.co.il); ruthk@adcom.co.il. Eliahu Moshe is electronic design R&D Manager at Adcom.