The Definitive Engineering Computer Buying Guide Mid 2019 If you’re looking for a new PC for engineering (electronic or otherwise), you don’t need to break the bank. This guide is for those of you more focused on engineering than keeping up with the latest PC hardware. Laptop vs Desktop Unless you plan on moving around a lot, or just don’t have a place to put a desktop computer, buying or building a desktop computer instead of a laptop will save you a lot of money and give you significantly better Read Article Selecting the Best Flex Fabricator What are the key things to consider when selecting a fabricator for flex and rigid flex? When a designer is embarking on their first flex or rigid flex layout the challenge of learning a new material set and new design rules is often compounded by the added challenge of researching and selecting a new fabricator who has the capability to manufacture flexible materials. It really isn’t surprising, there are many fabricators that work with both Read Article The Impact of Stackup Design on Signal Integrity As noted in several of my blogs as well as those of others, signal integrity is one of those elements within a high speed PCB design that has to be factored in from the start of the design concept. From its inception, signal integrity is carried through from design to board fabrication and final assembly. But, there are aspects where signal integrity is not always at the forefront of the design process, including the creation of the PCB stackup Read Article Validation Structures for Signal Integrity Let’s say you’ve just received a populated switch or GPU PCB from your favorite PCB fabrication and assembly site. You sit down at your computer and start up your GUI or console to begin transmitting data. Trouble begins—the protocol to bring up the link isn’t working. What do you do? Checking the voltages and jumper positions is easy enough, but what about the signal integrity of your channel? Assuming that you did all of the required Read Article Building the Right Team for an Electronics Design Group: An Introduction Building and growing the right team for electronics design in today’s job market can be quite challenging. We sometimes feel that as our company grows the talent pool dwindles. We embark on a search for the perfect designers, seeking out individuals who can “do it all.” For some, we idealize this knight in shining armor as a senior engineer, armed with his HP calculator in one hand and electronics textbooks in another. For others it is the whiz Read Article Avoid Holds for Common Data Package Errors Ever had one of your data packages placed on hold by your fabricator? If so, you are not alone. A significant number of new flexible circuit or rigid flex designs are placed on hold for engineering questions and clarifications almost immediately after the order is placed with the fabricator. Tara Dunn reaches out to Director of Engineering at Summit Interconnect Technologies. His current position is focused on cutting-edge high-density Read Article Top Tips for Flex Designers from a Fabrication Perspective Sometimes, it can seem like designers and fabricators are speaking two different languages, and maybe they are! But both are working toward the common goal of producing a high quality, reliable, and repeatable printed circuit board. “Back in the old days,” it was common for designers and fabricators to meet face-to-face on a regular basis. Designers became familiar with and understood the basic fabrication processes, including where different Read Article Mark Forbes on the Evolution of Chip Technology and Origin Stories - Learn and be inspired from the history of Integrated Circuit's development. Watch this OnTrack Podcast episode and discover how history can impact your PCB design career today and everyday. Read Article Why Your Root Cause Analysis Starts with Component Traceability At this point, we’ve reached a significant milestone. Having followed through with the last article, we now have a very stable and, more importantly, reliable PCB library. Since we can safely use the data in designs, many people decide not to go beyond the review process. You should, however, continue to the fifth pillar if you want to ensure success. So, why the fifth pillar? Because although we have a great structure, we must take the Read Article First Prize Winner at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair My name is Piotr Lazarek, and I’m a second year student at the “Filomata” secondary school in Gliwice. Since 2017 I have been engaged in developing new technologies within the sector of precision agriculture, and for my most recent project I worked on the creation of an autonomous vehicle which uses a replaceable ion-selective electrode system in order to measure concentrations of different elements inside soil. This work generates useful data Read Article Automotive Software Engineering: The Race to Hire Embedded Software Engineers Embedded software engineers will take a new place of prominence in the automotive industry The current economic climate in the US is humming along and has been primarily driven by growth in the tech sector. Everything from consumer electronics, SaaS, and advanced manufacturing are helping drive growth. The electronics portion of the automotive industry is not typically seen as sitting at the cutting edge of new technology, until you look to the Read Article Chirped Automotive Radar Sensor Systems Design and Analysis Thanks to the German inventor Christian Huelsmeyer, radar has been around since 1904, the year he patented his telemobiloscope. This simple radar device could detect ships up to 3000 m away and operated at wavelengths from 40-50 cm with a separate receiver antenna. The device could only be used to determine the presence of a distant object, but later versions could be used to calculate range. Today’s semi-autonomous vehicles, and upcoming fully Read Article Damping and Reflection Transfer with a Series Termination Resistor Trace, source, and load impedance matching are important in boards that contain transmission lines. To reach these conditions, you may see some designs that use a series termination resistor on single-ended transmission lines. The reasoning for doing this is sometimes to slow down a signal, or sometimes to set the driver's output impedance, depending who you ask. As surprising as it might be, the placement of series resistors for termination are Read Article Joe Grand on Hacking, Badgelife and AltiumLive Meet the guy who started hacking at the age of seven. Watch or Listen today's Ontrack Episode and learn how he ended up becoming a part of hacker history. Read Article Rules Verification in Agile PCB Design and Development Agile development relies on a unique workflow that can benefit from PCB design rule verification I used to think that agile development is just a software development methodology with specific rules and processes. Agile hardware design processes seem to be rigid when viewed from the surface, but any agile design process is designed to allow a team to adapt to change throughout the product development cycle. In reality, the central ideas in agile Read Article BOM Management and PCB Design Data Synchronization Cloud-based tools for data management can keep your design and production data synchronized If you lead a design team, then your job is already difficult enough. Your design teams need to adhere to a development schedule and manage requirements changes as they create a new product. Collaboration is key in any environment with multiple players, and your design tools play an important role in creating a productive environment. Ensuring that all Read Article Embedded Optical Interconnects in PCBs for Ultra High Speed Design Most PCB designers—except those that work on optical transceivers—are probably not aware of the coming revolution in silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs), electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs), and greater proliferation of embedded optical systems outside of telecom. Applications outside of telecom (for example, military and aerospace systems) that require massive data transfer rates already make use of fiber optics for embedded Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page102 Current page103 Page104 Page105 Page106 Page107 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
