Reports from San Diego, RTP and AltiumLive.
As the second half of the year is quickly passing by, we have seen many continued activities in our industry regarding PCB design. From the PCB West conference held in mid-September in Santa Clara, CA, which was another huge success and always exceeds expectations, to AltiumLive 2019 held in early November in San Diego; both events were hugely successful and had great turnouts. We also have had some activity within our local IPC Designers Council (DC) chapters, such as the San Diego Chapter, which held its final chapter meeting for the year in late September. Here is a brief breakdown of these recent fall activities.
San Diego Chapter
Chapter leader: Luke Hausherr, CID+
The San Diego Chapter held another successful meeting on Sept. 24 at San Diego PCB with 25 attendees. OrCAD EMA sponsored the event to help offset the cost of lunch. The highlight of the meeting was a presentation by Jeff Jenkins that covered conformal coatings. The content of the presentation was thorough and received positive feedback from all who attended. Jeff is a PCB chief technologist for L3Harris and has been involved in the workings of the PCB design, fabrication and assembly industries for over 23 years.
His presentation covered:
- The purpose of conformal coatings
- Types of conformal coatings and pros and cons of each
- Methods of application and pros and cons of each
- Items not coated
- Engineering drawings and notes.The San Diego Chapter will reconvene in January to plan for 2020.
Figure 1. Luke Hausherr (right) presents a certificate of appreciation to Jeff Jenkins.
Silicon Valley Chapter
Chapter leader: Bob McCreight
The Silicon Valley Chapter held a chapter meeting on Oct. 24 and will report its continued success in next month’s column.
Research Triangle Park (RTP) Chapter
Chapter leader: Tony Cosentino
Next month the RTP Chapter will report on PCB Carolina, which will take place Nov. 13 in Raleigh.
AltiumLive 2019
This annual event, which takes place in the US, as mentioned earlier, and in Frankfurt, Germany, creates a lot of industry buzz and has gained tons of traction over the past few years. This years’ keynote speakers included Eric Bogatin, Robert Feranec, Joe Grand, and Bob Martin, in addition to industry technical sessions led by Rick Hartley, Gary Ferrari, Mike Creeden, Susy Webb, Tara Dunn, Pete Wilson, Linda Mazzitelli, Max Seeley, Carl Schattke, Ari Mahpour, Shashank Samala, and many others. The Altium technical team also covered the University Day Courses. Feedback from this year’s attendees has been overwhelmingly positive, as reported by my dear friend and colleague, Judy Warner, director of community engagement at Altium. As always, it’s great to see and hear about continued activities, from professional development to knowledge sharing and networking taking place at various industry events.
IPC CID/CID+ Certification Success
We also continue to have successful IPC CID and CID+ certification classes. The feedback from attendees of these classes is extremely positive. They are an excellent source of professional development. If you are not yet CID/CID+ certified, I highly recommend these certification courses as a path for continued education in PCB design.
The remaining IPC Advanced Certified Interconnect Designer CID+ training session for 2019 is scheduled for Dec. 3 - 6 in Manchester, NH. Note: Dates and locations are subject to change, and a minimum enrollment of seven students is required for a class to be held. Contact EPTAC Corp. to check current dates and availability.
Stephen Chavez, MIT, CID+, is a member of the IPC Designers Council Executive Board and chairman of the communications subcommittee. To read past columns or contact Chavez, click here.
