Lee Ritchey and Rick Hartley headline a stellar list of technical experts presenting at PCB West this fall, UP Media Group Inc announced today. Their presentations are among the 40 presentations spanning 124 hours of classroom time and featuring several classes making their debuts at the annual trade show.

Registration is open for the annual PCB West technical conference and exhibition, which will be held October 5 to 8, at the Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center. The technical conference will span all four days, while an exhibition featuring more than 100 leading suppliers to the electronics design and manufacturing industry will be held October 6.

The conference features dozens of hours of classes for every level of experience, from novice to expert. The scope of classes ranges from basics on design engineering and DfM, to designing and building advanced HDI and routing high I/O count chip packages, board stackup, power distribution, controlling noise and signal integrity, and a complete virtual plant tour of a flexible circuit manufacturing facility.

Among the many new courses this year are an introduction to PCB antennas for RF and microwave, PCB design optimization techniques, and land pattern modification techniques for mitigating component inventory problems.

Ritchey, perhaps the best-known signal integrity expert in the world, will debut a comprehensive one-day seminar titled “Getting to 56 Gb/s.” With the ever-increasing speed of PCI Express and all the other internet protocols, this new course covers the technical issues involved in the design of very high-speed differential pair signal paths, drawing on more than 30 test PCBs built to determine the properties of new laminate systems, as well as to measure the effects of vias, plane crossings and other features that might affect high-speed signals.

Registration is open for both the technical conference and the exhibition at pcbwest.com.

“PCB West is not only the most extensive, in-depth technical conference in the world for printed circuit engineering, it is also the biggest ‘bang for the buck,’ ” said Mike Buetow, conference director, PCB West, and editorial director of UPMG. “Nowhere else can printed circuit design engineers and manufacturers gain access to the most-informed technical experts all in one place.”

For more information about PCB West, visit pcbwest.com