HDI PCB Designs and the CAD Tools Behind Them Although it is said that the only guarantees in life are death and taxes, I would submit that the third guarantee in life is that electronic devices will continue to get smaller and smaller. I’m pretty sure that no one wants their cell phone to grow back to the size of a brick again, so to continue this path of ever decreasing sized electronics means that circuit boards need to shrink in size as well. The best way to do this is to use high Read Article Don’t Let Your Unrouted Nets be Traces to Nowhere Have you ever seen one of those movies where a train is barreling down the track and starts to cross a bridge only to realize further down the line that the tracks run out and the bridge goes nowhere? That is a scary situation and only an alert train driver, formerly known as a train engineer, can prevent a catastrophe. Although, not as catastrophic, having unrouted nets on your board can wreak havoc to your PCB’s operation. Unrouted nets are Read Article 1:1:30 Understanding Rules And Constraints This webinar will discuss how Altium Designer supports your design process with hierarchical rules and constraints. Knowing how to define Watch Video Manufacturing Documentation with Duane Benson Manufacturing documentation is crucial. In this OnTrack episode get pro tips from Duane Benson of Screaming Circuits on how to deliver the ideal manufacturing documentation package. Watch it here. Read Article All About Grounding in Electronics Design and PCB Layout The concepts of grounding techniques, earthing, making PCB ground connections, and PCB chassis ground are all very convoluted in electronics, despite international standards that have tried to separate concepts and terminology. Grounding is important in every aspect of electronics design, electrical work, and of course, in PCB design. All circuits will need a reference connection, which is something that we call ground, but the exact reference is Read Article Eliminate the Crosstalk: LVDS Routing and the Art of Differential Signaling During a typical baseball game, coaches use the silent language of hand signals to instruct batters and baserunners while catchers use similar signs to recommend pitches to pitchers. Players in the outfield and the infield use hand signals to find the right locations when anticipating the skills of a batter. Electronics has its own version of a silent language with the variety of signals exchanged almost instantaneously within a circuit. Single Read Article Design Synchronization Tools: Worry Less About Schematic and Layout De-Sync Drawing out your next great idea on the back of an envelope is much easier than drawing out a PCB by hand. This is where PCB software becomes important and is used to take your design all the way to production. Your schematic and layout need keep your design data synchronized throughout the design entire process. Keeping all your design data synchronized across your design tools is critical to maintaining high productivity. Your design software Read Article Select the Right Microvia Aspect Ratio in Your HDI PCB If you’re not familiar with PCB design or electronics in general, you probably wonder how newer electronics can pack so much functionality into progressively smaller devices. It takes more than just Moore’s Law, it takes creative PCB design methods to pack all that functionality into a single device. This gave birth to HDI design for densely packed circuit boards and small electronics, like smartphones and small form factor embedded systems. Vias Read Article Mitigating High Junction Temperature to Optimize PCB Performance I consider myself a great multitasker, especially when it comes to preparing meals for my son. I’ll have fish frying in one pan, soup boiling in the other, and potatoes in the oven. Things usually go as well as planned except on rare occasions when one of the dishes burns while I’m absorbed in other tasks. Fortunately, these temperature problems won’t cost me much more than a few dollars and some time. In electronics, your hardware can literally Read Article Mechanical System Verification Keeps Production Optimized These days, electronic packaging is more than just a neat rectangular box with some holes drilled for input and output cables. Electronics are sleeker with uniquely-shaped packaging, and your android mobile phone circuit board diagram images need to fit into tight clearances. Whether it is through design optimization with collaboration between design engineers and mechanical engineering, or through a production process with strong inventory Read Article High-Speed Design: Definitive Guide for Utilizing Altium Designer for Your Board Needs There was a time in printed circuit board layout when working with high-speed designs was a living nightmare. Those older CAD tools just didn’t have the horse-power or the functionality to help much when it came to working with the extra design requirements. Differential pairs had to be routed together manually, and measured trace lengths had to be calculated by hand. And if that wasn’t hard enough, trying to determine the total length of a Read Article PCB Routing Tips: Navigating Your Way Through BGA Fanout Options Tom rose through the ranks of his company to become the new vice-president. He had worked hard, forged relationships, and consistently built his knowledge about the company. Unfortunately, Tom also contracted a serious disease called acronymitis that spread like the plague throughout key sectors of the company. Try as he might, Tom could not resist speaking in acronyms. Sometimes, his wife would hear him talking in his sleep—in acronyms Read Article Copper Efficiency and its Impact on Electronics Design and Manufacturers We learned early in our engineering education that copper is the most widely used metal to conduct electricity. The industry trade group, Copper Development Association, indicates that 61% of all mined copper ends up as an electrical conductor in a never-ending list of applications. Further study shows that choosing a metal for use in an electrical circuit goes beyond its ability to conduct electricity, and includes such things as electrical Read Article The Problem With Using Excel Templates For Your Bill of Materials Let’s give credit where credit is due: templates can be very useful tools. I’m not really the artistic type, and artistic templates have really helped enhance my documents and presentations. Templates are useful for certain tasks, but using a bill of materials template for a new electronic device is not one of them. Moving from a finished design to the assembly stage for a new product is no simple task. Your manufacturer needs detailed Read Article Creating Library Parts and Attaching 3D Models Enables Clearer Designs Between custom and standard components, your component helps you keep track of everything from SPICE models to basic 2D footprints for use during layout. As PCB design leaves the two dimensions and enters three dimensions, modern component libraries now come packaged with 3D models. Building a 3D model for your proprietary components is also a good idea if you ever plan to check mechanical clearances. But most PCB design software platforms don’t Read Article Helpful Tips for Interactive Routing in Altium Designer I haven’t met a PCB designer yet who doesn’t like to route tracks on their design manually. It can be therapeutic, cathartic, relaxing, and (if you aren’t under a lot of pressure to complete your design), downright fun. On the flip side, though is the frustration that you can feel when you can’t get the PCB design tools to work the way you know that they should. You’re trying to route some tracks in, and you need to change a trace width, but you Read Article Seamless Global Transfer with Julie Ellis from TTM In this week's OnTrack Podcast episode learn how to avoid excessive technical queries and how to migrate from prototype to production seamlessly while optimizing global processes. Watch or Listen now! Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page124 Current page125 Page126 Page127 Page128 Page129 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More