What technical knowledge needed for a PCB Designer?

[3Deye]

Hi,

Beside knowing how to use a tool for your PCB design ,, what technical knowledge I need to learn specially in high speed PCB design to help me practically ?

In other way, is it enough to learn a tool and follow design guidelines in application notes to be a good PCB designer ?

 

[Sckoarn]

3Deye,
It is very good to know how to calculate the impledence of a trace so that you can make a connection meet the impledence requirements.
Learn how to physically place terminations.
Know your board manufacturer's limits, what tech level can they produce?
Study some manufacturing practices, mainly pannelling of the design to fit the finished board manufacturers equipment size.

Just a few ideas.
Hope that helps some
Sckoarn

 

[loosemoose]

here are some helpful links you may want to read and follow:

Signal Consulting, Inc. - Dr. Howard Johnson
Speeding Edge consultants specialize in high-speed PCB and system design disciplines
beTheSignal.com
UltraCAD Design, Inc Homepage
home page

 

[3Deye]

Excellent tips and links guys,, much appreciated

 

[marce]

I would investigate the IPC documentation regarding all aspects of PCB design.
To be a good PCB designer you need to know:
How PCB are made - PCB Manuafcture
How PCB assemblies are put together - SMD lines, reflow soldering etc etc
Some basic electronics - I'd say to at least ONC standard
You are creating a physical entitiy that has to be manufactured and then populated, as well as the electronic aspect of the PCB design process, it is my stron belief that if you do not understand any one of the aspects you are lacking in your knowledge to design PCB's.
I'm lucky in that I started designing PCB's when there were such things as apprentices, I started on tape up designs, but more importantly before I started my first design I spent a few months learning how to assemble PCB's. This was straight after coming out of College.
Subscribe to
Printed Circuit Design andf Fabrication
and read through the articles past and present, it covers all aspects of what a PCB designer has to have some understanding off.