Without PCB layout, not much would get done. It is a ubiquitous need across industries; Industrial, consumer, military…Everywhere you look, there are chips soldered to PCBs to create a final product for the end customer.

But where did we all learn how to do it? If you're like most electrical engineers, it wasn't in school. Why?

Maybe you were in a program more focused on the theoretical side of things and didn't want to focus on practical skills.

Maybe you were asked to pick it up on your own when diving into a senior design seminar.

Maybe you didn't go to school for electronics, but ended up working on them over time.

Maybe you were in school before CAD programs were widely available, as they are today.

It's even possible you still don't know how to layout a PCB. So where do most people learn how to build the boards that surround us on a daily basis?



Most engineers learn PCB layout on the job (or at least in a non-official setting). They learn from mentors, on their own, or from the technical literature from the CAD companies. Maybe they go to a seminar for the basics of how a specific CAD program works, but the underlying reasons you hook two things together aren't necessarily a focus. The really critical stuff–the key to good layouts–is hardly ever covered in any official training setting, especially when diving into the high frequency or precision analog domains. These are skills and nuances that must be learned over many years and countless late nights in the lab (banging your head on the lab bench).

Many of the stories from the “Tales From The Cube” section of EDN (and many more that don't get published) can be traced back to layout issues. The basis for many articles on mixed-signal design from the experts like Howard Johnson and Henry Ott cover many of these same topics.

Things may be changing though. A new program called Contextual Electronics aims to teach many of these skills. The program is two 8 week courses that cover the design of a PCB (in the first session) and then the assembly and testing of the PCB (in the second session). Members are remote and instruction is done by both static video (via the course website) and live video (via Google hangouts). There is a social component, so participants will be able to work together in groups of 8-10, discussing the pitfalls of PCB design and finding a best practice for creating a new design. Prices range from $75 to $625 per session, depending on level of engagement.

The course includes a section related to learning KiCad, the open source PCB CAD program (recently discussed in a post on EETimes). This program has seen an uptick in popularity in recent years; a hardware group at CERN has committed to improving the structure of the software with the ultimate goal of making this an official tool in their development cycle.

The program might not be a great fit for experienced hardware engineers that have already learned a company-mandated CAD program (Altium, Cadence, PADS, etc), but the lack of licensing fees could benefit many small businesses or people who are personally interested in learning how to build their own hardware. With the rise in open-source hardware, many may find that using open tools will benefit them as they are able to take existing projects and “fork” them into new hardware revisions. The course also uses GitHub for revision tracking and sharing the design once the course is over.

How did you get started learning PCB layout? How has your education for new software and platforms transformed your designs over the years? Do you see a benefit for PCB layout/test online courses? What do you wish you had learned in school regarding PCB layout?

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