Author Archives: Pete

It Is About How You Play the Game

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the polarization in this country. While it may not be true of Jo and Joan On-the-Street, there seems to be a desire to “win” at any cost these days. In business, politics and life in general, the “all is fair in love and war” rule seems to still apply. It’s beat the other guy any way possible instead of doing something because there is merit in what you do.

Last week I read a piece in our local newspaper about sportsmanship that made an impression on me. In 2008 Sara Tucholsky was a senior on the West Oregon ladies softball team. Through all of her days playing softball, Tucholsky had never hit a home run. At 5’2, she described herself as a line drive hitter, as opposed to a power hitter. (She had four hits in 34 at-bats for the season.)

But on this spring day, Sara did it. In the second inning of a game against conference rival Central Washington, she hit one over the fence with two runners on base. As she rounded first base, Sara realized she had missed the bag. NCAA rules require the player to touch all the bases, even though she’d hit the ball over the fence. When Sara turned back to touch first, it happened. She tore the ACL in her right leg. Wracked with pain, she crawled back to first base. As she lay hugging the bag, West Oregon head coach Pam Knox asked the umpire what the rule was for substituting a runner. She was told that if she put in a substitute runner it would count as a two-run single, robbing Sara of her only career homerun. Knox was also informed that if any of Sara’s teammates touched her or tried to help her round the bases, she would be called “out.”

At this point Mallory Holtman, a player with more homeruns than anyone in conference history, spoke up. She approached the home plate umpire and asked for a ruling. What if she helped Sara? You see, Holtman played for the other team. The umpire was dumbfounded, but had to reply there was no rule against a player for the opposing team assisting Tucholsky. So Holtman and teammate Liz Wallace asked Sara if it was okay with her if they picked up Sara and carried her around the diamond. With tears in her eyes, Sara could only say thank you. Holtman and Wallace gingerly carried Sara, pausing at each base to allow her to touch them with her right foot. When they reached home plate, the two Central Washington players ran back to their places on the field while Sara’s teammates took over. Later, after the game, the umpire clarified the rule, saying Coach Knox could have inserted a pinch runner to successfully complete the homerun. But at the time everyone was working on the original, on-the-field ruling.

Oh, by the way, Central Washington lost the game 4-2. Sara’s three-run homer accounted for the winning runs. West Oregon went on to win their conference championship in 2008. But to me, the real champions were Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace. I can only hope – we should all hope – that more young people with Mallory and Liz’s sense of right and wrong enter business and, dare I say, politics. If only our leaders today would take a lesson from a couple of college softball players.

Go to YouTube and type in the girls’ names to see an account of the above story.

A Show of Hands

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I recently heard report on NPR about multitasking that said humans are just not that effective at it. If we try to work on two things at once, the reporter said, one will suffer.

Now, I’m kinda mixed on this one. On the one hand, I like to think that I can keep at least three balls in the air at the same time. On the other, I realize more and more every day that when I try to do this, something is not getting my full attention and will suffer. Of course, getting older doesn’t help.

But in my defense, right now I have two computers open to Virtual PCB, viewing the show as both and exhibitor and an attendee. And to top it off, I’m writing this blog. None of this is brain surgery, so there is the level of attention required for each to be considered. What I really want to find out is why attendees at Virtual PCB get shy and reluctant to contribute in the scheduled chats. One of the chats this morning had 20 or more people in the “room,” but every time the host or moderator asked a question, no one had anything to contribute. No wonder PCB people outside of design say that we are apathetic.

It is true for most things I can think of: You get out of it in equal measure what you contribute. Get off your hands, people, and quit being so passive.

Take A Trip And Never Leave The Farm

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Just in case you haven’t gotten an email from me or one of our fabulous staff, I want to remind you that Virtual PCB opens tomorrow, Tuesday March 2, 2010. For those of you who haven’t seen the pre show ads or emails, Virtual PCB is the only free-to-attend, online interactive “virtual” trade show and conference for PCB design, fabrication and assembly markets. This is the third Virtual PCB that we’ve produced and every year seems to get even better. To optomize the experience, take a minute to fill out a profile. You can even load a picture or choose from the supplied avatars. Then check out the Resource center for the Attendee Guide and other tips to help you take full advantage of all the show has to offer.

This year we’ve added more EDA exhibitors and show content for attendees. Once you enter the show you’ll be able to visit with exhibitors on the show floor. When you enter an exhibitors booth you can chat live with a representative from that company. Also look for the content tab within each booth to see what white papers or other material they have available. You can also visit the auditorium and choose from a host of presentations, or visit the lounge and chat with other attendees. The UPMG staff will be in the show most of Tuesday and Wednesday and we’ll be looking for you.

To me, the greatest thing about Virtual PCB is that you never have to leave the comfort of your favorite viewing spot to enjoy all the benefits of a live trade show and conference built and targeted for you. Well, that and the fact that you can do the whole show your bathrobe and flip flops if you want.
Just in case, I’ve included the url below, or simply go to http://www.pcbshows.com/ and follow the links to Virtual PCB.
https://vts.inxpo.com/scripts/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI:4;F:APIUTILS!10&ShowKey=1783

Sister Blog

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Almost 20 years after I joined the magazines, the topic of design for manufacture is still a significant issue. Fabricators and assemblers are still talking about parts that are wrong, solder mask that is wrong, and just plain ol’ bad data. One example showed up in the last day or so on the blog page for our sister pub Circuits Assembly. It is a post about a problem with a component footprint. If designers don’t contribute to these type of posts the disconnect between design and assembly will continue to grow.

For years now we’ve been advocating closer links between design and manufacturing. We’ve held summits, we’ve published articles, sponsored shop visits and we’ve conducted too many classes on the subject to count. I know that a good number of designers have picked up a lot about DFM because I see posts here and there with Q&A on specific issues. So it’s not all bad.

And to tell the truth, there is a disconnect on both ends. Most people on the manufacturing side (assembly included) don’t really know what goes on in design and are often unaware of the constraints designers face. And as more and more of the volume runs are built in China/Southeast Asia, the opportunity for feedback is made even worse or nonexistent. Of course the bean counters didn’t think about that when they placed the order. It’s amazing what you can overlook when you’re operating in a vaccuum.

DesignCon Wrapup

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Overall I was impressed with DesignCon. I still see it primarily as a show for chip and IP designers, but I could agree with anyone who says it is a show for electrical engineers involved in the entire design process. To me, the conference was lacking in practical design topics in the PCB space. Granted, there were only about eight sessions in the “PCB Summit” portion of the program, but aside from the Lee Ritchey, Eric Bogatin and Bruce Archambeault sessions it was pretty thin.

I do have to mention a panel I attended called Science Fiction…Is it Really Fiction? The panel was chaired by Gabe Moretti and included Eric Bogatin, Gentry Lee and Charles Pfeil. It may please you to know that, according to Gentry Lee, by the year 2200 we will have unlocked the keys to immortality and be able to choose how long we live. Something tells me I won’t live long enough to see it.

Exhibitors in the PCB space included laminate suppliers, a couple of board shops as well as EDA companies. The thing that impressed me most was the traffic. The show was busy every time I was on the floor. In fact I did not get to see some people I wanted to see because they were always busy with potential customers. Some may think that exhibitors are always glad to see the press, but customers – even potential customers – always come first.

Even though the PCB portion of the show was very small compared to the total conference and exhibition, overall I give DesignCon a thumbs up, with one exception. Somebody needs to talk to whomever put the show directory together. I thought at first it might just be me, but talking to other people the consensus was that this was the most difficult to use directory we’d ever seen. If there was a rhyme or reason to the way the directory was organized I couldn’t find it.

The best thing about DesignCon for me this year was reconnecting with people I haven’t seen in years. Some were people from the publishing world and others were from the EDA industry. It was good to see and talk to them all.

All in all, DesignCon was worth the trip.

DesignCon Day 2

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Yesterday was the typical busy day for media types like yours truly. A quick breakfast with a couple of the exhibitors and then some editorial meetings. It has been several years since I wore the editorial hat at a trade show and I’d forgotten how distracting it can be to have a business conversation in an open space. Especially when people I hadn’t seen in 8 years or so would walk by and wave. The only thing that saved me was the fact that this is such a small and incestuous industry that the same thing was happening to the person I was interviewing.

I was reminded in one of the sessions Tuesday that the whole EDA market — boards, chips everything EDA, is smaller than Wal-Mart. Just an fyi to put things into perspective.

A couple of notes on the tech conference. DesignCon is trying to address the PCB side of the design world. They’ve put most of the emphasis on signal integrity, bringing in heavy-hitters like Bruce Archambeault, Lee Ritchey and Eric Bogatin. I also saw Rick Hartley on the show floor but don’t think he is speaking this week.

Some things I learned Tuesday. Rogers, the laminate supplier known for RF and microwave applications, is committing considerable resources to the digital market with its Theda products. I want to specifically thank Sean Mirshafiel, a market development manager at Rogers, for a conversation that educated me to some of the finer points of of copper laminate. Sean provided me with the seeds of several articles topics that we’ll talk about in PCDF soon.

Bhavesh Mistry and Vince Accardi of National Instruments brought me up-to-date on release 11 of the Multisim simulator for both academia and the commercial marketplace. Multisim is integrated with National’s NI Ultiboard layout software and its NI LabVIEW measurement software.

Today I have a couple of test drives with some EDA people and I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty.

DesignCon Day 1: Light on ‘PCB’

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Today is Day One of the exhibits at DesignCon. I sat in a couple of classes yesterday by Bruce Archambeault and Lee Ritchey. Today’s itinerary is mostly meetings with exhibitors and a couple more classes. Unfortunately the program is not as deep in PCB subjects as I first thought. Out of just over 100 sessions in the program, I identified less than 10 that bore the “PCB Summit” logo. Kinda makes me wonder about the definition of PCB summit as DesignCon defines it.

Most of the classes are 40 minute sessions, so I should have plenty of time to visit with as many of the exhibitors as possible.

The only pre-breakfast news was from Intercept Technologies announcing a new “enhanced Interface” for their Pantheon layout software and SiSoft’s Quantum Channel Designer software for signal integrity. Intercept has been putting a lot of effort into updating and enhancing their signal integrity capabilities lately, and I’ve put them on the itinerary for later today.

More as the day progresses, so stay tuned.

Pete

DesignCon Desertion

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In the Monday blog I suggested that anyone who wanted me to pass along specifc comments or ask specific questions at DesignCon next week should shoot me an email or respond to the blog. Now I know that designers have seen the blog, and two people actually sent me emails. So I guess that means that the rest of you are very happy with your software or just have nothing to say.

Are ya just to busy to write? Or do ya just not care? Come on folks, give me some ammunition.

p.