The Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, today announced the inaugural ES Design West to be colocated with SemiCon West 2019.
Read the announcement here: http://esd-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/2018/ESD-Alliance_ES-Design-West-News-Release_Final.pdf
The name stands for extra small outline no-lead. It’s a newish package from Texas Instruments. In my experience, TI is one of the better companies insofar as testing and documenting manufacturability is concerned. The datasheet for this device is no exception.
The TI part is the five-lead thing above the grain of Jasmine rice, surrounded by a few 01005 ceramic capacitors. I’m selling the capacitors for $500 each. (Just kidding.)
The part is 0.8 x 0.8mm, with the five leads. TI suggests either a 4 mil (0.102mm) trace coming out of the center pad, or a 4 mil via in the pad (the via must be filled and plated at the fabricator ) to escape the center pad. They also do a nice job of detailing out the solder paste stencil layer, as in the following image:
You’ll most likely need a custom CAD footprint for one of these. Either very carefully do it yourself, or go to a solid source like SnapEDA. If they don’t already have it in their library, they’ll make it for you.
These small packages aren’t going away. We’re only going to see more of them. They may seem intimidating, but with a good footprint and a competent manufacturer, they aren’t so bad.
Duane Benson
“A ruler of follows”? That makes no sense.
How about ” a rule of followers”?
http://blog.screamingcircuits.com
Jure Sola spent 26 years atop Sanmina as chairman, president and eventually CEO. His replacement lasted less than 12 months.
In a stunning announcement, Sanmina today announced the resignation of Bob Eulau as chief executive. The move is effective immediately.
Eulau was handpicked to replace Sola as chief executive of Sanmina, a move that took effect last October. At the time, Sola gushed over his successor’s abilities, stating “Bob has a deep understanding of Sanmina’s strategy, customer focus, technology offerings and day-to-day execution. I am confident we’ve selected a strong leader. Bob’s wealth of experience and strong leadership are invaluable to the strategic direction of Sanmina and are precisely what Sanmina needs for a successful future.”
What changed in a year? Often, quick changes like this are tied to financial issues or disagreements with the board over direction. Sanmina was quick to reaffirm financial guidance for its current quarter, and is on pace to surpass last fiscal year’s revenue total. At the low end of guidance, the EMS firm will top $7.1 billion, about 3% more than the prior fiscal year. In its most recent earnings call, Eulau forecast increasing margins and yield improvements.
Michael Clarke, another Sanmina alum and a current board member, will take over come Oct. 1.
We have a new podcast available, this one with Mark Finstad and Nick Koop. Alert readers will recognize them as the authors of our popular “Flexperts” column on flexible circuit design and manufacturing. They discuss real-life flex circuit struggles and how to overcome them in this week’s chat.
Also, listeners who want to learn more about flex circuit design and manufacturing are encouraged to come listen to Mark and Nick on Thursday, Sept. 13, from 9-11 at the Santa Clara Convention Center during PCB West.
We are pleased to share that PCB Chat, our popular podcast, is now available via Spotify.
So now you have four channels for accessing the weekly podcasts: iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and, of course, pcbchat.com. Happy listening!
Our latest episode of PCB Chat is with Z-Zero founder and “director of everything” Bill Hargin. Z-Zero is the newest entrant in the EDA field. The company this year rolled out its first products: software tools for PCB stackup planning and material selection. He speaks with Mike Buetow about the company and new tools.
Have you purchased any electronics components lately? Have you tried and failed to do so lately? Allocation is the word of the day and substitutions are your friend.
Many, many parts are in short supply, or unavailable with extraordinarily long lead times. Sure, that happens every now and then in this industry. It’s a periodic nuisance, but what should you do for the long term? We’re are getting some interesting stories from component suppliers that might help. 
What we’re hearing is that many passive manufacturers will be trying to move their customers to smaller sizes. They want to consolidate on as few packages as is possible. That means we may be seeing the end of 1206, 0805, and maybe even 0603 form factors for many passive values.
It kind of makes sense. Right now, there might be several dozen different varieties of 0.1uF, 16V capacitor. Does the industry need that? And if there isn’t enough fab capacity to make all of the variations, why not consolidate and run more of fewer variations? It won’t surprise me if we start seeing fewer voltage ranges as well. In most cases, a 16V part will be just fine if you’re calling for a 6V or 10V part.
The chip industry has been doing this for a while. Many of the newer components just come in BGA or QFN packages. Fewer and few leading edge parts come in large through-hole or SOIC packages.
Consider using smaller components, like standardizing on 0402 parts. I know it can be a pain to use smaller parts, but any potential for future proofing your design now can prevent delays or otherwise unnecessary redesign cycles. You might just be able shrink your board size and save some money on the board fab too.
Keep approved substitutions close by, and look for newer chips that are more likely to stay in production. For microcontrollers, pick parts that have multiple memory capacity or speed range variants all in the same package.
This looks to be a pretty extreme allocation cycle, and I have a feeling that the industry will be different when we come out of it.
Duane Benson
Which is worse
Being the missing link or the weakest link?
“Content is the most important aspect of the design world right now,” says Manny Marcano, president of EMA Design Automation. Over the past nearly three decades, he has grown EMA into the leading Cadence Channel Partner as the exclusive distributor of OrCAD in North America. EMA has also developed a series of its own software products for library management, component supply chain data, and conducts training.
Manny talks about the role of automation and whether designers are keeping up with their profession this week as my guest on PCB Chat.
In my latest podcast, I speak with John Mitchell, president and CEO of IPC, and Chris Mitchell, IPC vice president of global government relations. They discuss the trade organization’s key government programs and initiatives, its annual member lobbying event coming up in May, and the importance of lobbying by member companies. Listen in at upmg.podbean.com.
On PCB Chat this week we talk with Mark Hepburn, the new director of product management at Cadence. Some industry veterans may remember Mark from a few years back — he was with Viewlogic, Innoveda and Mentor in the late 1990s and mid 2000s. He spent the past eight years with Perception Software, a developer of collaboration software.
Fittingly, he joined Cadence just in time for its launch of Allegro Pulse, a new web-based platform for collaboration and productivity measurement and analysis.