Layer Management as a Circuit Board Design Tool Priority Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the same could be said for printed circuit boards. PCBs are similar to cities in that they contain pathways connecting components. Components have dimension into the surrounding air space, as well as into the thickness of the board itself. Hidden subsystems similar to underground wiring and cityscape piping reside within the thickness of the boards. Printed circuit boards mimic cities with their layers of Read Article Design Rules for Large BGA Fanout I have known people during my career who insisted on hand-routing every PCB design that they worked on. They would say that their manual routing performed better, looked better, and was just better in general. I’m not going to argue one way or the other on that, but I will say that there is one thing that can not be argued with; all of that manual routing took them a much longer time to complete than if they had used automated routers. With today Read Article Electronic Components Shortages in 2019, Insights from John Watson PCB design expert John Watson shares some ideas that can help electronic component shortages & address this crisis proactively. In this episode he shares tips on how to succeed through the challenge. Read Article Using an IPC-2152 Calculator: Designing to Standards If you look at modern EDA programs, there are many calculators and simulators built into these applications. But one of the areas of simulation that has lagged behind everything else is thermal simulations. Thermal calculations are important particularly in power electronics, and in high-reliability electronics, even if these systems are running lower overall power. There are other instances where we can determine the potential need for an Read Article Asymmetric Striplines in Your Next Multi-layer PCB The beauty of symmetricity in art, science, and nature, in general, is something of a wonder. The visual balance between elements in a painting or drawing can make or break a piece of artwork. PCB design is as much art as it is engineering, and symmetricity plays as much of a technical role as it does an aesthetic role. Ever since its humble beginnings as a replacement for high frequency coaxial cables and waveguides, striplines are a mainstay Read Article Building Your Next Multi-Level Bill of Materials My wife and I always argue about what goes on the grocery list each week. I’m a total carnivore, while she prefers I get everything we need from local farmers. Planning out our shopping trips in multiple lists does more than just allow us to plan our Saturdays coherently, it helps ensure marital bliss. Any PCB that you intend to manufacture will need an associated bill of materials. If you’re building a complex product that includes multiple sub Read Article Managing 3D Electrical MCAD/ECAD Models for Data Transfer Communication is tricky when oppositional semantics fail to play well together. This sentence is a good case in point. When ill stated, information is rarely understood. The same goes with software infrastructures. Many do not play well together when information in one is defined differently in another. 3D models of components for use by mechanical and electrical CAD programs are historically represented quite differently across platforms. This Read Article Working with IPC Compliant Footprint Models Industry standards have been a boon for designers and the electronics industry. Standards are important because they tell designers and manufacturers what to expect from certain component packages, and they assure designers that the components they select can be reused across their designs. It’s all about increasing productivity and ensuring your devices will work as you intended. The IPC 7350 series of standards (specifically, IPC 7351B) Read Article OnTrack Newsletter: A Look Under the Hood at Altium Designer 19, and Is IPC CID Important for Your Career? - December 2018 OnTrack Newsletter December 2018 VOL. 2 No 8 ALTIUM ® 19 HAS ARRIVED! See the New Features of Altium 19 Altium 19 has just been released and features several exciting new and enhanced capabilities. Get a first look here at some of the functionality that defines the latest version of Altium . READ FULL ARTICLE IS IPC CID TRAINING IMPORTANT FOR YOUR DESIGN CAREER? Insights from CID IPC Trainer, Stephen Chavez Stephen Chavez is the lead electrical Read Article From Mechanical Drilling to Laser Drilling of PCB Microvias Miniaturization of PCB designs eventually forces a switch from mechanical drilling to laser drilling. Learn more about sizing vias for your next multilayer PCB. Read Article PCB Via Size Calculators: Sizing Vias in Multilayer Designs If you’ve ever opened up an old cell phone, you’ve likely noticed the intricate dance between traces and vias. These elements tango with the signal traces on inner board layers, and sizing them properly is as much art as it is science. Your vias are critical for accessing the inner layers in a multi-layer PCB. So how do you choreograph the balance between your vias, traces, and components? Your vias should be sized appropriately if they are to be Read Article SMD LEDs in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials Unless you refuse to get out of the house on a Friday night (like me), you’ve probably been at a concert and had the privilege of being bathed in multi-colored lights from the stage. LED arrays provide a great concert experience, but I think that learning what makes them tick is far more interesting. Kingbright (KPKF) surface-mounted LEDs are probably my favorite LED to use on a PCB. They look clean on your board and they are available from a Read Article Split PCB Plane Pours are Partial to Carefully Managed Connections James Madison said that “philosophy is common sense with big words.” Big words can produce a mess if applied with the wrong syntax. Similarly, the ability to produce intricate PCB designs requires extraordinary vision, each minute step exquisitely accomplished through common sense. Common sense and, if you’re lucky, elegant design tools. PCB design tools able to make common sense from complicated layout rules promote efficient development Read Article Managing Net Connection Order from Schematic to Layout When I first started designing printed circuit boards, it was a very unorganized process. We would create the schematics in our department, and then the system administrators would work their voodoo and transfer all that data from us into the layout department. The layout guys were an even bigger mystery, working all hours of the night and day on these complex Unix machines that supported their CAD layout tools. We would communicate our design Read Article Cloud Collab Design: How Collaboration Changes with the Cloud In this series of posts, we’ll take a good, hard look at how Cloud solutions play into the design and development of board systems. That includes detailing use cases for procurement, manufacturing, quality, service, and many more. However, before we go down that path, we need to cover some basics. You see, there are some general-isms that apply in each of these use cases. We’ll detail them here and reference them there. So, what’s our general-ism Read Article Altium Designer 19: Highlights from the Latest Release with David Marrakchi Looking to learn about what Altium Designer has to offer? Click to watch this episode with Expert PCB Designer David Marrakchi gives highlights of the high speed design features in Altium Designer 19. Read Article Optimal Multi-Board Assembly Placement with Object Smart Mates Ensuring the form and fit of multiple boards in an enclosure can challenge the most seasoned professional. Accurate 3D modeling gives you an intuitive way to picture and understand how your design will be manufactured and assembled. The problem gets worse when you start mixing traditional PCB and rigid-flex designs into a single assembly. Without insight into the complete multi-circuit boards assembly build, you have a better chance of finding a Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page125 Current page126 Page127 Page128 Page129 Page130 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
