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This installment of the open source laptop project development log will walk you through the early concept and brainstorming phase. The first step is to collect the ideas and requirements for the end device and condense them as best as possible into a simplified draft. It is not important in this stage to pay too much attention to the technical details—it is about laying a foundation i.e. creating a framework that can be subdivided and refined in...

Are you a solo electronics designer or engineer looking to optimize your design process and boost productivity? We invite you to join our upcoming webinar featuring Altium’s expert Ari Mahpour, engineer with a broad experience in designing, manufacturing, testing, and integrating electrical, mechanical, and software systems. Currently a Staff Software Engineer at Rivian, Ari has also worked at Virgin Hyperloop, Glenair, and NASA. Key highlights...

Ribbot is a heavyweight combat robot that is both fearsome and fun. With its vibrant green and yellow color scheme, it looks like it could have hopped right out of a cartoon. But don't be fooled by its playful appearance – Ribbot is a serious contender in the world of BattleBots. Don't miss this opportunity to discover the captivating journey behind Ribbot's creation and the innovative design process it entails. Register now for our webinar and...

Inventory management is not a set of arcane and inconvenient rules but a way for companies to meet operational, financial, and customer service goals. “Check Victor’s top desk drawer,” said the planner who was chasing a stock-out on the latest hot chip that was holding up an emergency customer order. “At some point we need to clean out his desk and put everything in stock”. But Victor would have none of it, nor would any of the engineers in his...

Every PCB needs components, even if those components are marked DNI and never make it into the final assembly. Each component has a PCB footprint, and each PCB footprint has information on various layers. The layers in a PCB footprint represent important information about the real component, but not all of them are defined by the user. Because we have recently received a few viewer questions on the Altium Academy channel about PCB footprints and...

We have a very interesting topic today! The impact of the defense sector on the electronic industry. Our guest Nathan Edwards, an Executive Director, U.S. Partnership for Assured Electronics (USPAE) will share with us what goes in a Defense Electronic Consortium (DEC) and how all of these impact the electronics eco-system. We will also touch a little about supply chain diversification and onshoring efforts here in the US. Watch through the end...

I recently saw a LinkedIn post about using capacitors for ESD protection for lines coming from a connector onto a PCB. I was not aware of it, but apparently there is a somewhat popular view that capacitors can be placed on power lines and signal lines as a form of ESD protection. Is this an appropriate guideline? My view, and the view of other very experienced designers, is that capacitors are not universally appropriate as the only form of ESD...

Over the past two years, I’ve worked on nearly a dozen radar modules, mostly targeting the automotive market. Closely related fields are drone radar, radar sensors for robots and industrial systems, radar vital sign sensing, motion and gesture tracking, and advanced security systems. The big fish from a business standpoint is in automotive, where more and more ADAS systems are looking for better ways to capture important data from the surrounding...

Your favorite machine learning, optimization, and generative AI algorithms may soon be used in your favorite PCB design program. Now that ChatGPT has become a household name and competitor companies are developing their own GPT equivalents (Claude, LLaMa, etc.), EDA startups are looking at how to leverage these tools to help PCB designers and engineers be more productive. With so many industries touched by automation and AI, it was only a matter...