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Rarely does a PCB design conference come along that is focused wholly on training content designed to make YOU a more knowledgeable and effective designer. That’s why Altium decided to create one--fully centered on designers...and presented by expert PCB designers. This Fall,  AltiumLive 2017: Annual PCB Design Summit is coming to North America and Europe. We will host a 2-day PCB design conference like no other. You will hear from industry...

Mike Creeden, Founder of San Diego PCB, with his daughter Nicole Pacino With the median age of today’s PCB being 48 years old, it’s always refreshing and encouraging to see a young sprout up amongst the design community ranks. One such young is Nicole Pacino of San Diego PCB. Nicole is the daughter of Mike Creeden, founder of San Diego PCB, who is also an IPC Master Trainer and IPC ’s Council executive board member. As you can imagine, Nicole...

I used to trail run with a friend who is an urban planner. As part of her devious plan to get me to run further before I was too tired and bored, she’d tell me about the various considerations that go into the zoning and construction in a town. There were also a lot of shenanigans with local politics that provided a juicy distraction. Although my friend would disagree, a high voltage PCB layout have some similarities to complex urban planning...

Have you ever gone out to a well-reviewed, luxurious restaurant for dinner? I’m sure you paid a pretty penny for it. However, if fine dining is a passion of yours and you enjoyed it then it’s worth the expense. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel silly paying $20 more than you’re supposed to for a sandwich at an average local restaurant. In this situation, you’re much better off putting that money towards cooking lessons and becoming your...

Technology is pretty great and it has definitely made certain things in life easier. However, when you’re juggling parenting, coding, electronics design and occasionally writing an article like this. Sometimes even the coolest apps can’t mitigate the stress we experience in a day. For example, this morning I accidentally mistook salt for sugar and mixed it into my child’s favorite porridge. One small mistake on my part and suddenly my 5-year...

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be the first to do something? It must be a grand feeling to go where no man has gone before, whether that place is a mountain or the moon. There are also a lot of risks that come with maiden voyages. You can plan all you want, but the only way to find out what lies on the edge of the horizon is to go there. Google, now Alphabet, has long been a pioneer in the tech world. Their Google Glass product was a bold...

Have you ever been late for school because your alarm clock decided to stop at 3.15 AM? In high school, my alarm clock wasn’t very pleasant sounding, but the sound of my mom shouting at me was worse. I knew that my clock had stopped because its battery was dead. However, had I paid closer attention, I would have noticed that my clock ran slower as the battery drained off. That way I could have changed it in time and avoided rising to my mom’s...

The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. I grew up at the end of the age of dial-up Internet when chat rooms were all the rage. Now, I occasionally enjoy using the Internet to play some online games, which was impossible back then. My telephone router and its copper network could barely support enough bandwidth to load an image. Now our networks have been upgraded with blazing fast fiber optics. While these communication systems are...

I love family reunions, though, with forty people in my extended family they can get a bit hectic. Whether we’re playing cards, swimming, or at the dinner table there’s always someone telling jokes and stories. In fact, most people are trying to talk so sometimes you have to yell to be heard. It can also be difficult to communicate in the electromagnetic spectrum. Your devices often have to “shout” their own signals into the void in order to...