Book Recommendation -- By Kelly Dack

When I walked the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail through historic downtown Boston, I appreciated having my hands on a guidebook to lead me along a path I’d never been. The guide was written in a logical way which pointed me to important sites and described the critical events which occurred there. While walking the path and reading this helpful guide, I was inspired to engage, reach out, touch things and talk to people. Following the guide’s suggestions, I gained an enriched understanding of the monuments, buildings and unique hardware that I would have surely bypassed, racing to the end of the trail on my own. Similarly, the trail to success in PCB design, especially design for manufacturing (DFM), requires an enriched understanding of all the materials, machinery, processes and people involved. It’s not a path that a designer should race to finish alone...So, I was delighted to get the chance to review, written by David Marrakchi of Altium and published by I-Connect007. This micro eBook is a guidebook for today’s PCB designers. Marrakchi takes the reader through a solid DFM process, from material selection to manufacturing data hand-off, and much more. Marrakchi, senior technical marketing engineer with Altium, has assembled some practical and theoretical “design science” in this handy eight-chapter guide. Like stops on a tour, the design and manufacturing process overviews described in these chapters encourage--and should even inspire--any designer of printed circuits to reach out and engage with the manufacturing community. This book is filled with plenty of design and manufacturing process information, and it utilizes as many robust pictorial examples as any classy tourist guide.

The timing of this book release couldn’t be better. You see, as a liaison in the areas of PCB design and manufacturing, I’ve witnessed a recent explosion of people entering the path of the PCB designer. Many are laying out their first designs as part of a final project in school. Many are young engineers tasked with quick-turning their ideas into a production reality. This requires them to engage not only the schematic portion of a project, but the PCB layout portion, too.

Unfortunately, along with an explosion of new designers has come an explosion of new fabrication challenges for electronic manufacturing suppliers. You see, PCB layout tools are so advanced now that they are capable of allowing the designer to add drilling, routing and dimensioning & tolerancing data that cannot be easily manufactured nor inspected or tested! Yes, there’s even a section on dimensioning and tolerancing in this eBook.

Whether you are new to PCB design or a seasoned professional, you’ll find valuable, thought-provoking DFM information in this book. Download this eBook today, before you start your next design, and you’ll be on your way to getting “a good board back from manufacturing, every time.”

Kelly Dack, CID+, is a PCB designer, educator, as well as a manufacturing liaison with an EMS company in the Pacific Northwest. He is also a technical editor and on-camera talent with I-Connect007.