Agile Product Lifecycle Management Methods in PCB Design Supercharge your productivity with agile product lifecycle management Any industry that relies heavily on new technologies must frequently reinvent itself and address product obsolescence. Every piece of technology has a finite lifecycle that ends due to obsolescence or malfunction. Electronics and the PCBs that support them are no different; components on PCBs eventually wear out and malfunction, or the product can no longer compete with a Read Article Landless Vias One persistent myth is that PCB vias MUST have annular rings. I thought this for many years until our Japanese partners introduced us to landless vias. We said, “You can’t do that, the vias have to have lands!” They replied, “Try it out and test it?” So, we created a test vehicle and tested thousands of vias with various diameters against numerous annular ring vias. Guess what? They were right!! As the annular ring got smaller, the failures Read Article Rick Hartley on EMI, Noise Reduction Interested to learn about reducing noise in your PCB design? Listen to this OnTrack Episode with Rick Hartley. He is sharing some important notes about EMI, noise reduction. Read Article What is an Engineering Bill of Materials in Agile PCB Design? If you’ve ever prepared a new device for manufacturing, then you’re probably familiar with the different types of bills of materials. Each document has its place in the design and production planning process. If you understand the role of each type of bill of materials, you can take advantage of the information it contains to improve your design process. If you’re an agile hardware development team, then you know that your design team will need Read Article Why Your BOM Excel Template is Going the Way of the Dinosaur It’s time to ditch your BOM Excel template The saying goes in software, “great coders use great code”. The same idea applies to Excel templates. I like to use Excel templates for a number of business tasks. I use invoice templates, finance calculators, and an accounting template. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so why not use a great template when someone makes it available for free? The usefulness of an Excel template depends on the data Read Article Optical PHY PCB Layout for 100 Gigabit and Faster Ethernet Need to layout a board to connect to an optical PHY transceiver? Here are some high speed design aspects you’ll need to consider. Read Article OnTrack Newsletter - July 2019 Vol 3. No. 3 OnTrack Newsletter July 2019 VOL. 3 No 3 AltiumLive 2019: The Hat Trick The third annual AltiumLive: Annual PCB Design conference is almost here again and will be located in San Diego and Frankfurt. Learn more about all that’s in store for this year’s event and how we plan to pull off a perfect hat trick! Read Article EIPC: A European Community of PCB Professionals In mid-June, I had the great pleasure of attending my first EIPC Conference in Read Article 5 Helpful Tips To Increase Schematic Productivity In Altium Designer Altium Designer has many shortcuts and features to increase your productivity during the schematic creation process. By understanding and utilizing the features described here, you’ll expedite the schematic creation process and hopefully have fun doing it. Here are 5 key productivity enhancers you should know for schematic capture. Disconnect and Move Symbol: CTR + Click & Move. Move a part without connected wires. By default when you move a Read Article Gerry Partida on Wrap Plating Learn about wrap plating and via filling and what the benefits, requirements and drawbacks of this technology are, and what you need to know about designing these and how this technology drives cost. Read Article AltiumLive 2019: The Hat Trick In October 2019, the third and largest AltiumLive: Annual PCB Design Summit will be held in San Diego (October 9-11) and Frankfurt (October 21-23). When we first began AltiumLive, we had a simple vision: to help PCB design engineers Learn, Connect, and Get Inspired. So, we built an AltiumLive community which included industry experts, PCB design engineers, supply chain professionals, students, and inspiring innovators that are altering the Read Article Robert Feranec on How to Implement The PCB Design Process In this episode, we talk with Robert Feranec, a familiar name to many of our listeners. He is a popular YouTuber, and founder of FEDEVEL Academy. Read Article Silicon Photonics Integration Challenges in PCB Design Silicon photonics will use the same manufacturing processes used in silicon ICs I was honored to meet Richard Soref at a recent IEEE conference and discuss the current state of electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs). The man is often called “the Father of Silicon Photonics”, and for good reason. If you ask him nicely, he’ll tell you how to build all the fundamental logic gates as photonic circuits directly on silicon. Now is a landmark Read Article Flex Circuit Specific Terms and Definitions Recently, I was having a few discussions with someone very new to flex design. I was trying to be helpful and going through several things that are specific to flex and rigid flex design which should be considered as you start your first design. He was listening and taking notes, and suddenly stopped me and said, “you lost me a few items back, I am not completely sure I understand this terminology.” This flashed me back to memories of my early Read Article Stacking The Odds In Your Favor: Mastering The Art of Stackup Design As everyone knows, the PCB stackup is the substrate upon which all design elements are assembled. And, it is incumbent upon the product development engineer to own the PCB stackup process which includes calling out the exact type of laminate, prepreg and copper needed in every layer of the stackup as well as taking into account all of the electrical characteristics of the PCB to ensure a design that is fully functional from both a mechanical and Read Article It’s Your Loss: Determining And Controlling Loss In The PCB Design Process When it comes to designing a high-speed PCB, we always have to factor in the dynamic of signal loss. And, there are lots of areas where loss can occur. Accounting for all of these aspects of loss can be a challenging and time-consuming task as too much loss can prevent a high-speed PCB from functioning properly. This article will address the various aspects of loss, how they factor into the PCB design process, and how loss can be effectively Read Article New Multilayer Architecture: Power Mesh It’s funny how we accept the status quo as the only reality because it’s the only existence we’ve been subject to. In printed circuit design, the multilayer architecture is one such status quo. But it is not the only architecture that will work for high-speed designs. At Hewlett-Packard, we experimented with and implemented a higher performance architecture based on RF Design characteristics. It was not by accident, as our PCB design organization Read Article Understand the AC and DC Return Path on a High-Performance Mixed-Signal PCB High performance mixed-signal PCBs are difficult to design. Proper grounding and routing are essential to ensure accurate ADC conversion. In this article we’ll discuss a complex topic; the importance of designing a controlled current path on high performance mixed (Analog/Digital) PCBs, and how this impacts the performance of your board. What are we going to learn? • Loop currents follow different path (depends from their frequency range.) • How Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page103 Current page104 Page105 Page106 Page107 Page108 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
