ROBUST ELECTRONIC DESIGN

These boards ran the gamut of technologies from pin-through-hole (PTH), to surface mount technology (SMT), to direct chip attach (DCA). The circuits ranged from analog circuits, to power supplies, motor and printhead drivers, digital, many types of microprocessors and memory, up to video circuits running at 10's of megaHertz. Most of these boards had multiple application- specific integrated circuits (ASIC's) on them, for which we had to develop custom tests. That was just one of my specialities.

Test Engineering was-- and still is-- a truly incredible place to learn what does and what doesn't work in designing products for mass production. I knocked out a tester (or set of testers) about every six months, spending from 2 weeks to 18 months on each project before production started. Versus our product developers, who at that time might spend 2 to 4 years getting one product out the door. Once production started, building hundreds to thousands of boards per day, I would see almost the full range of component problems, manufacturing screwups, design problems, and combinations of all of the above. If my tester flunked a board, and the operator couldn't find an obvious fault, they *knew* that my tester was bad and had to be repaired pronto!

I personally developed over 35 testers, most of them in-circuit testers, but also some functional, box, and diagnostic testers. I helped debug another 35 testers, and get them working, after the Test Engineers who designed them had almost given up hope. (This ultimately led to my writing a book, Electronic System Design: Interference and Noise Control Techniques. ) I also looked at another 44+ products while they were still in early development, as part of our Early Manufacturing Involvement process, to suggest improvements for manufacturing, test, and repair. So for about a decade I was involved, one way or another, with almost every electronic product that went into production at IBM Lexington.

1. Work.
2. Are safe and reliable.
3. Can be manufactured, tested, repaired, and serviced economically.
4. May be sold and used worldwide.
5. Can be easily adapted/enhanced to meet new and changing requirements.

Our President, John R. Barnes, is a Professional Engineer licensed in the state of Kentucky, a NARTE-Certified Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineer, a NARTE-Certified Electrostatic Discharge Control Engineer, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and an Advanced-class amateur radio operator. He has written three books, Electronic System Design: Interference and Noise Control Techniques, that was published in English and Russian, and Robust Electronic Design Reference Book, Volumes 1 and 2, which came out in March 2004. He has also written articles on designing electronics for electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity for Printed Circuit Design and Conformity magazines.

Robust Electronic Design, Inc. and dBi Corporation may be contacted by:

• E-mail at jrbarnes@iglou.com
• Fax at (859)252-6128.
• Phone at (859)253-1178.
• Snail-mail at 216 Hillsboro Ave, Lexington, KY 40511-2105.