Fall '00 Participants and Software Used

Patrick Jabbaz, George Patrick, Ron Vezina

Patrick Jabbaz
ATI Technologies Inc.
Thornhill, Ontario, Canada
software: PADS Power PCB

George Patrick
Tektronix Inc.
Beaverton, OR
software: Cadence Allegro

Ronald Vezina
MSL
Westford, MA
software: PADS Power PCB

Contest Information and Results

The Fall 2000 PCB Top Gun Hall of Fame Contest was held at PCB Design Conference East, September 10-15, in Worcester, MA. Three contestants competed in three areas--a board design, which accounted for 50% of the score; a written test, which counted for 35% of the score; and a personal interview, which counted for 15% of the score.

The technical coordinator for the contest was Jean Cortjens, a board designer from Colographic Communications Corp., Atlanta, GA. She was responsible for the development of the board design, putting together the bill of materials, creating the netlist, helping to evaluate the board criteria and developing the written test.

Contest Objectives: According to Pete Waddell, publisher of Printed Circuit Design, "One of Printed Circuit Design's core precepts is to take every opportunity to promote PCB engineers and designers as the salt of the earth. Since we cannot directly influence their salary or other compensation, we have elected to direct a spotlight on these people whenever possible. The PCB Top Gun hall of Fame is one event that helps us do this."

Board Design: Each participant was given a code name to use for all data turned in and anywhere in the design, so that the designers evaluating the board did not know what board belonged to what person or what software was used for the design. No board design information was given out prior to being on-site for the contest.

To view the design guidelines, click here.

To view the list of deliverables, click here.

To view the board evaluation criteria, click here.

Written Test: The written test consisted of 100 multiple choice questions and covered areas such as the engineering side of PCB design, schematics, high-speed design and industry acronyms.

Personal Interviews: Each participant was interviewed by a panel of three judges from the design industry. The judges were:

Kelly Dack, who is a designer with ICS Advent, San Diego, CA.

Tom Stout, Optimum Design Associates, Dublin, CA, who is also a member of the PCB Top Gun Hall of Fame

Glenn Wells, Intelect Network Technologies Inc., Richardson, TX, who is also a member of the PCB Top Gun Hall of Fame.

The panel asked questions about design industry experience, philosophy of design, etc. Each judge gave the contestant a score on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest. Each participant was scored immediately after the interview with no discussion between the judges about what and how to score.

Final Results: All scores for each part of the contest were given to one person. After everything was turned in, final scores were compiled based on the percentages for each part. Individual scores are only released to the contest participants.

For additional information on future PCB Top Gun Hall of Fame contests, contact Teresa Gentry at tgentry@up-mediagroup.com, or click here to fill out a PCB Top Gun entry form.