Just Ask Heidi: The Biggest Challenge for Design Engineers?

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First, we asked you to send in your questions for Happy Holden, Joe Fjelstad, Eric Camden, John Mitchell, and Tara Dunn in our “Just Ask” series. Now, it’s Heidi Barnes’s turn! Heidi is a senior signal and power integrity engineer at Keysight Technologies. She has written over 20 papers on SI and PI, and she is an active member in developing the new IEEE P370 standard involving interconnect S-parameter quality after fixture removal. Heidi has been awarded five patents and a NASA Silver Snoopy award (each Silver Snoopy pin flies on a space mission first), and she was named DesignCon's 2017 Engineer of the Year. We hope you enjoy “Just Ask Heidi.”

Q: What do you consider to be the biggest challenge for PCB design engineers today?

A: I would have to say impedance, and the fact that electrical signals with fast digital edges and low voltages are much more sensitive to this than ever before. Designers need to start thinking in terms of return paths and impedance to better understand how layout can have an adverse impact on PCB performance. The engineering trade-offs can be quite complex between performance, cost, and risk. Innovative solutions often benefit from the ability of EDA tools to do pre-layout “what-if” simulations using measurement-based models and manufacturing tolerances.

To submit your questions for Heidi, click here.

12/17/2020 | Clive "Max" Maxfield, Maxfield High-Tech Consulting

I was just thinking about the party game Hot Potato. It reminded me of today’s increasingly competitive marketplace: Accurate thermal analysis must be performed, and any potential issues have to be identified and addressed as early as possible in the design cycle. Otherwise the system will run into problems, market windows will be missed, and someone will be left holding the hot potato. Trust me, you do not want to be that someone.

12/09/2020 | Michelle Te, I-Connect007

We hate to admit it, but even the best of us make mistakes. Such is true with PCB designers and design engineers. We wondered: What are the most common mistakes that PCB designers make? Michelle Te has more.

10/29/2020 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007

As Lawrence Romine said in his introduction, “There’s that moment when you sit in the crowd and hear Mr. Rick Hartley speak that you know you’ve arrived in PCB design.” With 50 years in the industry focused on circuit and PCB design—and as a specialist in EMI, noise, and signal integrity issues—Rick Hartley was invited to talk about PCB optimization. Pete Starkey provides an overview of the presentation.