“The one thing that’s been talked about for a long time is the 3D printing world. Okay. 3D printing and PCBs. We’re following this very closely. Some of the RF people and some of the aerospace and defense are starting to use it.
This is really fascinating because right now, when we’re designing our printed circuit boards, we’re basically doing, I call it, two and a half. I mean, you got a plane and a via. Nothing big. We start talking about 3D, you could design it looking like a pen and be circular, and there’s no reference planes, no nothing else. And your form doesn’t matter. You can make it a blob. You can make it a Borg cube, and make that all work.
This is where the industry is going to go. You’ve got to have the simulation tools because when you start getting into three-dimensional printing of a printed circuit board, there are no rule of thumbs. You can’t.
You have to simulate everything that you’re doing. How do you do differential pair? It becomes a triaxle differential pair.
Because you need to have a return current on everything else. How do you match your impedance for a triaxle rotating pair going through a board at twenty two and a half degrees and running around like a snake? You got to simulate that.
So this is all where the simulation of everything else is coming into play. This is the next field that’s coming in. This will be here in my life, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Watch Patrick Davis discuss all things Cadence in Trace Talks EP 3.