Successful PCB Design Data Management Previously, we looked at what a successful Data Management system entails and how we would identify a reliable System that is safe to use. In this blog, we’ll look at what your Data Management system will need to ensure its success. While every Data Management System is unique, there are universal principles which we’ll explore that are vital to a PCB’s utility. These principles are like pillars supporting a bridge; if any single pillar is Read Article Advanced PCB Library Management A previous article from Altium’s PCB design blog showed everyone how to get started with integrated PCB library management. In the previous article, you can get a look at creating an integrated library project and how to compile schematics and PCBs into their own libraries. You can then take schematic libraries and your PCB libraries and compile them into an integrated library. This allows you to package sets of important design and component Read Article Effective Integrated PCB Library Management with Altium Designer PCB library management by hand is over with Altium Designer If you’ve been designing for awhile, you’ve probably accumulated a significant amount of designs, including schematics, arranged boards, and proprietary components. Keeping track of all of this important information in your operating system’s file structure or on a network drive can leave you prone to careless mistakes. If someone moves or renames a single file, it can have a far Read Article 5G Antenna Tuning in Mobile and IoT Devices 5G antenna tuning is like tuning a guitar as you play Guitar players know all about tuning their instruments. Whether swinging a whammy bar on stage or just ensuring each string hits the right note, this tuning changes that the resonant frequencies of each to the tone desired by the musician. To continue the recent series of articles on PCB design for 5G systems, one other aspect of designing RF design for 5G-capable wireless systems involves a Read Article Phased Array Antenna Design for 5G Applications As the 5G rollout progresses and researchers continue to discuss 6G, many new 5G-capable products operating in sub-GHz and mmWave bands are reaching the marketplace. Devices that will include a 5G-compatible front-end, whether small stations/repeaters or handheld devices, use phased arrays as high-gain antenna systems to provide high data throughput without losing range at higher frequencies. The earliest type of phased array antenna was Read Article How to Buy PC Boards From a Board Shop Want to know how to buy the best boards? In this OnTrack podcast episode Greg Papandrew shares his better board buying tips. Listen in or watch now to learn more. Read Article Hardware and Software Co-Exist Due to Model-Based Software Development As we discussed in the last post, more software is making its way into traditional mechanical products, and organizations need to find new and innovative ways to deliver quality products within strict time constraints. Software and electronics are taking over everyday items, from household products to cars. Many smart products need to process copious amounts of information in real-time. Generic computer processors aren’t cutting it anymore Read Article Weekly Digest: Electronic Product Design Get inspired by this week’s podcast that takes us to Michigan Tech to see how students are getting hands-on to prepare for high-tech jobs of the future. This week we also have new industry expert articles covering everything from the history vs. the myth of ferrite beads, the level of tolerance acceptable in your products, design data management as the multi-faceted and never-ending exploration that it is. Explore these topics and more shaping Read Article 500 Assembled Boards and All of Them Unusable Recently, I received 500 assembled boards and all of them were unusable. It’s always one of the most exciting yet nerve-wracking times. You’ve been working on a new design, you’ve exhaustively tested prototypes and then you go to volume production. While it’s the same design as the known-good-tested prototype, it’s not necessarily the same “assembly instance,” if you will, so things can happen. Are all of my BOM line items correct? Did I specify Read Article Top Issues in PCB Data Management Systems and Processes PCB Data Management is a journey with no final destination. On this journey, significant issues can and often pop up. If you decide to ignore them, they can worsen and ultimately lead to completely ruining your PCB data management systems and processes. In this blog, we will look at several of these issues. I prefer to call them pitfalls because they can appear suddenly, and you can easily fall into them if you’re not careful. But, if you are Read Article Warning Signs You Need PCB Data Management I get a gut-wrenching feeling when people are doing PCB Design and ignoring all the warning signs around them. It’s like in the movies. I enjoy watching horror movies, but too many times I find them more funny and predictable than scary. Why is it every time the “bad guy” starts to chase the unfortunate helpless victim, their automatic response is to run to the top floor of the building? Everyone is shocked when the person meets their “unseen” Read Article PCB Assembly and Fabrication Classes at Michigan Tech Curious about What Universities offer Printed Circuit Fabrication classes? Learn what one professor at MTU is doing to innovate in electrical engineering student education. Read Article Designing Your Circuit Board for Boundary Scan PCB Testing You can avoid some manual circuit tests with a boundary scan test On simple boards with few components and surface-level traces, you can probably test all aspects of your board by hand without much difficulty. Imagine you needed to do this with a multilayer PCB, and you’ll see that there are many aspects of a manufactured and assembled board that cannot be tested by hand. With more advanced boards, where traces are embedded in the interior layers Read Article PCB EMI/EMC Guidelines: Meeting EMI/EMC Standards in Your Designs What if you set two cell phones next to each other and suddenly neither of them worked properly? Thankfully, this doesn’t happen because designers and manufacturers made serious efforts to ensure these devices comply with EMC standards on conducted and radiated EMI. Any device should comply with EMC standards before it makes it to the marketplace. While this sounds complicated, you have a number of simple design strategies to help your next Read Article Kramer-Kronig’s Relationship to PCBs The Kramer Kronig relationship is basically a way to go back and forth from the real and imaginary parts of a function. That’s it. So when someone says “blah blah blah must conform to the Kramer-Kronig relationship”, it’s a statement that is stating the obvious. Similar statements are, dogs must be part of the canine family and thus canis genus or petrol must have come from petroleum deposit on earth. Both correct and mildly interesting Read Article Long Range WiFi for Remote Sensors and Connectivity If you need to have network access from sensors which need more than a little bandwidth, cellular can get quite expensive. There are quite a few long-range wireless systems that are targeted towards sensors, however, trade bandwidth for range. If you need to stream video, send pictures, or have a constant stream of data from a range of sensors these wireless links might not be suitable. WiFi has rather limited range by comparison but does have Read Article Requirements Management and Quality Functional Deployment “Ending up in the wrong place is the result of bad directions, not bad driving. Product failure in the marketplace results from errors in requirements, not implementation.” - Thomas L. Musto, Chairman, IBM Corporation (Retired) A definition of QFD: Quality-Functional-Deployment (QFD) [literal translation of the Japanese characters] is an analytical method to help you transform customer needs (the voice of the customer [VOC]) into engineering Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page107 Current page108 Page109 Page110 Page111 Page112 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
