After nearly a decade of wishing I was able to attend this influential conference, I finally made it out to the Santa Clara Convention Center! It was truly inspiring to be able to meet all of the great signal and power integrity engineers who have been so gracious as to share their knowledge over the years. After this, I'm pretty sure that the number of SI/PI engineering icons who I haven't met is now a longer list than the ones I have.

The conference was gracious enough to honor me as one of the 40 under 40 awardees. That was amazing, because I was able to spend about a half-hour chatting with Peter Pupalaikis, one of the program mentors at the networking lunch. He's a fellow Rutgers alum, and part of an exciting startup with a New Jersey presence. It was truly incredible to be able to share that time together talking, and I'm grateful to the DesignCon organizers for facilitating it. The full list of people I was able to meet is far too long to write out here, and I'd surely forget somebody important. The only other wonderful surprise I'll note here was from the first night at the Networking Welcome event. I shared time with a few others who I've talked with but never met in person (Ryan Lott, Dan Chirpich), as well as sharing a table with this year's Engineer of the Year winner, Bert Simonovich. For anyone considering attending the conference in the future, I can't speak highly enough of the experience.

If the excitement ended there, it would already have been worth it; and yet I haven't even mentioned the educational aspect. There were some great papers and talks, and I came home with a long list of things I want to read more about or experiment with. More than that, I had the chance to present our own paper from Chipletz alongside my colleague, Ching-Ping Wong (unfortunately, our other co-author, Victor Kronberg, couldn't make the conference but he contributed significantly to the whole effort). One of my favorite mantras is that the best way to learn is by teaching. Having the chance to share some of the work we've been doing at Chipletz was great, and I truly hope to make a habit of it.

As a result of the published work from Chipletz, we were invited to join Zachariah Peterson on the OnTrack podcast. This was truly an honor—I've been listening to this podcast since Judy Warner was hosting it, and having the chance to chat about semiconductor packaging with Zach was great. I was glad to have both of our paper's co-authors alongside, because it was truly a team effort. If you're interested in listening, check it out here:

• https://podcast.altium.com/e/advanced-packaging-chiplet-design-with-chipletz/
• https://youtu.be/s9_MS6A0wAw?si=l1tFlZgGXOJ0qD8p

On that note, has anyone else noticed a decline in electronics podcasts lately? Years ago, we had the Spark Gap–I loved their "part of the week" segment. Now even MacroFab's podcast is gone; although I'm thankful to Dave and Chris for keeping the Amp Hour going strong.

This section will be necessarily short, simply because there is very little that can be discussed. Suffice it to say, Chipletz is working on an amazing goal with an even more amazing group of people! When I was getting started in SI/PI, it became apparent that the greatest signal integrity engineers tend to congregate in one of three major industries: semiconductors, test & measurement equipment, or connectors. Any one of those industries has some incredibly exciting areas of research (and I'm glad that I live near the headquarters for my favorite oscilloscope manufacturer in Chestnut Ridge, NY). I knew I needed to get into one of those industries if I was going to take my career to the next level. Fortunately, the opportunity to work at Chipletz came up and I jumped at it; I can't explain how incredible the journey has been. It'll be four years next month (already!) and I am so glad I did. We've got a great team, a group that pushes us to explore the absolute forefront in packaging technology. It's an environment that supports career development as well as providing the latitude to research and solve some of the biggest challenges in SI/PI. We've got some great work upcoming for both signal and power integrity, so be sure to keep an eye out for future announcements and publications.

Overall, it seems like it's been four years worth of excitement in just three months. While I can't make any promises, I'm absolutely hoping to publish and present more work next year at DesignCon or other conferences. Not only that, but I'm expecting some more exciting projects at Chipletz, and while I can't talk about those details, I'll be sure to share the things that we learn and can help others in the industry with, as much as we are allowed. Finally, I've got a few personal projects that I'm kicking around in my mind; if I can track down enough free time, I'll be thrilled to share those as well.

I can't wait to see how the rest of the year turns out!