. Welcome to the world of design, Jason! First, note that it is not called, "do". It is called design for a reason. I say this because you will find many sources asking you to "do this", sometimes in direct conflict with the last visitor. You really need to find the common ground between these many sources to achieve a robust design. Second, let me throw this out - a Printed Board Design is a puzzle with 10,000 possible solutions, 100 of which will work and 4 of which are really good. Next, to help determine what works and what's good, you need to gather understanding of the various stakeholders in the product: Electrical issues Regulatory compliance issues Mechanical issues Thermal constraints Bare board fabrication issues Components assembly issues Board and Product test strategies Rework and Repair Documentation and revision control And, for your reward, if you can satisfy ALL the factions, you become invisible! That is, the downstream players will all accomplish their goals without cursing you, and therefore not even notice you were there! Along the way you will undoubtedly get a blizzard of the "Design for This" and "Design for That" monikers. My take (from 23 years in physical design) is that, well, to get to "true invisibility" you must unify all this stuff and try to "Design for Purpose". Among the many good suggestions you've gotten, let me add that the pertinent specifications from IPC are extremely useful in grasping not just "what to do" but will also give you a picture of "why" as well. Check out the IPC's web site and prepare your management for a couple hundred dollars worth of specs. They will be well worth it. Also look up the IPC Designer's Council, there may be a chapter in your area. This group is dedicated to the development of designers and each chapter puts on some informal (and some a little formal) programs on a monthly or periodic basis. Best of luck, -- Jeff Seeger Applied CAD Knowledge Inc Chief Design Philosopher Tyngsboro, MA 01879 jseeger "at" appliedcad "dot" com 978 649 9800 ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################