Internationally renowned expert Lee Ritchey returned to South Africa in October to present a course on high-speed printed circuit board (PCB) design.
This follows a similar visit in March last year, and saw him present to a group of designers in Centurion, Pretoria for a three-day master-class on the subject.
Ritchey has participated in the design of more than 4000 high-speed PCBs ranging from PC motherboards to terabit router backplanes, and his experience shows in the fact that his courses are highly practical in nature, in addition to providing a solid theoretical foundation. He has published numerous articles on high-performance PCB laminates and written two high-speed design books, ‘Right the first time,’ volumes 1 and 2.
The course began with the fundamentals of electromagnetic fields and the behaviour of transmission lines that are the basis for all high-speed signalling. From there, it examined all of the aspects of high-speed design leading to the development of a robust set of PCB design rules that accounts for power subsystem design, routing rules and design of PCB stack-ups as well as the fabrication rules needed to balance performance against cost and manufacturability.
Ritchey was once again brought out to SA by EDA Technologies, and attendees also had the option of signing up for an extra day of instruction on Altium, an electronic design automation software solution that is highly adept at aiding in the design of high-speed circuits.
“Lee Ritchey never ceases to amaze me with his depth of practical understanding of today’s design and performance challenges,” said Nechan Naicker, owner of EDA Technologies. “He has become synonymous with getting it right the first time, and we should take note instead of doing the same-old same-old. I wish all electronics designers in South Africa could attend this must-have course.”
EDA Technologies’ global training manager, Roxanne Pillay, went on to say that the company will be taking Ritchey to Shanghai, China in 2018. “Like we say: training is expensive, good training is even more expensive, but no training is the most expensive,” she said.
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