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.

The annual snapshot of the industry finds the PCB design workforce is – at last – skewing younger.

Is the PCB design workforce finally getting younger? After years of consternation from the PCB industry – and the country as a whole – about the daunting task of replacing retired or soon-to-be retired workers, those worries may be coming to a head as the workforce begins to skew younger.

That’s the suggestion of the annual PCD&F/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Designers Salary Survey.

After last year’s survey found the most respondents in the 61-70 age group, this year’s found the largest number of respondents from the 26-30 age range at 19% (Figure 1), edging out the 61-70-year-old group by two percentage points. Moreover, the overall response of designers and design engineers ages 40 and under was a tick higher than those ages 41-60. Balance is coming.