Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine

Features

2023 saw only a handful of fabricators gain ground, but SE Asia is primed to boom.

Small it was, but the Thailand Electronics Circuit Asia exhibition held in Bangkok in late July was extremely informative as to what is happening in the Southeast Asian nation. According to the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), the PCB output in Thailand may become the third or even second largest in the world. From 2022 to 2026, about $6 billion to $7 billion will be invested in PCB capacity in Thailand (at this moment, 40-plus fabricators from Taiwan and China are pouring into Thailand). Calling Thailand the second-largest PCB-producing country may be a bit of a stretch, but the third largest is not an exaggeration. From the view of “nationality,” however, Thailand-based KCE and a few other small ones will account for less than 10% of the total output. Taiwan-, China- and Japan-based companies will hold the lion’s share of the PCB output in Thailand.

Nine considerations to prevent signal degradation due to crosstalk and EMI.

With demand growing for AI chips the need for high-speed PCBs is on the rise. As operating frequencies increase over 10GHz, the risk of reflections, crosstalk and EMI increases.

For optimal performance, all frequency components of a signal should maintain consistent amplitude changes. Additionally, signals must reach their destination simultaneously to prevent phase discrepancies. Understanding these aspects will help the design of circuits without signal distortion.

A symmetrical build is one of the keys to minimize board warpage.

A stackup’s construction should be balanced to keep board warpage within IPC specifications. In general, the following parameters must be symmetrical with respect to a fictitious center plane of the board:

Dielectric thickness
Buildup of the dielectric
Pattern density (layer to layer)
Thickness of copper foil
Number of layers.

Can a production fabricator thrive in Middle America? Through its novel automation, Summit’s Chicago plant is proof-positive.

In 1979, Eagle Electronics laid its foundation in printed circuit board manufacturing, and by 1985, it established its current site in Schaumburg, IL, just a few miles from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The journey since then has been one of resilience and transformation, a pivotal moment coming in 2001 when the company faced a crucial decision: close its doors, become a broker or remodel. The decision to overhaul operations marked a new chapter, altering workflows to the point where work-in-progress inventory became a rare occurrence.

Tips and tricks for applications of all speeds, from 1MHz to gigabit level.

How do you know a high-speed design application from an ordinary one? What qualifies as high speed and when does design rigor need ramping?

With CAD tools available to help enforce design rules and the internet at one’s fingertips, PCB designers may implement “best practice” techniques without truly understanding their importance. They may also be missing some less common, powerful and effective techniques as well.

Here we target a broad range of designers and discuss the gamut of lower-speed designs up to gigabit-level speeds. We cover board-level tips and tricks and explain why these tips are important and the nature of the physics behind them. Whether you’re designing with simple I²C or gigabit ethernet, there’s something to be gained by considering even the simplest additions to a design.

An electronics startup is developing AI-driven design software that lessens manual intervention.

The role of artificial intelligence in PCB design is a growing topic of debate throughout the industry, with discussions ranging from the previous inadequacies of autorouting, the best methods for training it, and its potential to replace human designers.

We spoke in June with Sergiy Nesterenko, founder and CEO of a new software company called Quilter, whose goal is to accelerate hardware development by fully automating circuit board design. The former SpaceX engineer discussed why he thinks the margins designers build in are excessive and how Quilter’s AI-driven, physics-based platform can resolve and even violate some “human” rules while still generating superior printed circuit boards.