What Are the Advantages of Using Templates for PCB Design? The domestication of horses, inventing the wheel and developing the combustion engine are tremendous milestones that we laud for enabling us to get around more efficiently and explore new places. Although, this is true another creation that deserves at least as much credit for giving most of us the confidence to branch out from our familiar surroundings is the map. The knowledge that someone before us has traversed a path gives us confidence in Read Article PCB Design Testing The most successful PCB designs a result from practice, but for your PCB to function as intended, you also need to test your design. By testing the electronic components of your board before manufacturing you can be sure that it will perform as you intended with your design. Schematic simulation does not guarantee the functionality, reliability or even manufacturability of your design. Applying good design for manufacturing (DFM) practices will Read Article Competitive Exoskeleton by Project March from the Delft Technical University Dream Team Judy Warner: Robbert, please tell us about your major at Delft Technical University and your role at Project March. Robbert de Lange: I’m studying civil engineering and my role on the Project March team is Acquisition and PR. Presently, I have taken off a full year of studies to focus full-time on Project March. Warner: What motivated you to take a full year off of your studies to invest in Project March? De Lange: Beyond all the academic Read Article Mary Elizabeth McCulloch Developed Voz Box and Project Vive Judy Warner: It’s so nice to talk with you, Mary Elizabeth! Please share your background, education and what inspired you to choose engineering as a vocation. Mary Elizabeth McCulloch: I was always good at science and math and I graduated from Penn State University with a biomedical degree in 2016. Both of my parents were very inspirational in my choice to pursue engineering. My Dad studied physics in college and is now an engineer who Read Article Flex and Material Sets with Chris Hunrath The rise in flex applications across all industries means opportunity for material suppliers to innovate and meet demand. Learn about flex material sets from material science expert Chris Hunrath. Read Article PCB Component Data Management Resolved with Connected Component Applications My mouth was watering as I picked up the box sitting on my front porch. Dinner would be ready in 20 minutes. I was so hungry, having just gotten home. The box contained recipe cards and ingredients for making dinners throughout the week. I put on my slippers, and I pulled a recipe card from the box. All the ingredients were there. This new meal delivery service was growing on me. I’d be eating dinner soon, with time to spare for needed downtime Read Article Avoid Integrated and Netlist Data Flows Slowing Design Starts The chaos theory was used by Edward Lorenz early in the 1960s to model weather. Given multiple data points and nonlinear behavior, integrated circuit and synthesized netlist data starts because of nonlinear behavior. Just like the weather which is difficult to model and predict. It turns out nonlinear complexity produces beautiful, elegant pictures of real things. A tree is fractal; if you were to magnify its branch 1 million times, you’d see the Read Article Journey Through Embedded Active Components in PCB Substrates with Pacemakers With 200,000 pacemakers implanted in the United States per year, the surgical process to correct heart abnormalities has become routine. When preparing for the process, cardiologists choose from three different incision types to determine the best implant method. Each type of incision impacts patient comfort and the amount of risk involved with the surgery. The incision provides access to a vein and allocates space for the pacemaker. A Read Article Now that They’re Assigned, Find and Report Testpoints in Your PCB Design Whether it is a test in school, a driver’s test, or some sort of casual mention of a test at work, the word “test” can cause normally calm people to have a sense of anxiety. On the other hand, once beyond the test you can see those same people visibly relax. Perhaps that is why when PCB designers finish assigning testpoints to their design it is easy for them to breathe a huge sigh of relief. But, once you’ve assigned those testpoints there’s Read Article Scaling, Not Sinking Your Electronics: BOM Management Advice The most stressful part of owning a boat was when it came time to launch or recover it from the river. The boat was large and together with the trailer and truck, there was a lot of equipment to maneuver up and down the ramp without making any mistakes. If some kind of problem came up I would end up with the boat, the truck, or me sinking into the water. That sense of anxiety was very similar to the feelings I’ve experienced working with Read Article 7 Benefits of In-House Fabrication and Additive Manufacturing If you are like 98% of the PCB designers out there, you know what it can be like to run through the gauntlet of outsourcing a design to a third-party manufacturer to receive a prototype or two. The process is usually a little painful, often pricier than you’d have hoped, and leaves you waiting for longer than you’d expect. I often think that the manufacturing process is similar to going out to dinner at an overrated restaurant; you’ll wait on an Read Article Connect and Conquer: Multiboard Design Adaptation in PCB Design Software Years ago I designed boards at a service bureau where there were several different customers and the boards that I worked on were unique in size and function. And in all of those designs, none of them were ever from the same system. Not only was it more to spread the design work around back then, but the only way to do system design was to create the boards individually and then test the prototypes together. With faster times to market and Read Article John Watson on Altium Enterprise Solutions Going Beyond PCB Design Curious what a professional PCB Designer thinks about Altium enterprise solutions and AltiumLive? Listen to the OnTrack Podcast to find out what John Watson thinks and how the new solutions can help your team. Read Article Minimize Propagation Delay in Logic Gates: Synchronize Pulse Trains When you have an analog watch, daylight savings time can wreak havoc in your personal and professional life. You might wake up and not even realize that you are an hour off schedule. No one wants to admit that they have fallen victim to daylight savings time, and your entire schedule has to resynchronize when this happens. Synchronizing your clock and your electronics components is critical in high-speed PCB design. Applications like bus trace Read Article Choose Unified Symbols for Your PCB Prototype Design Documents I love spending hours at the bench soldering parts together and looking at the resultant signals they produce. It is satisfying to see the signals take shape on the oscilloscope as I refine each block. I’m surrounded by tools and equipment, little bits of wire and solder strewed from the invention process. Joining the beautiful mess are scattered components pulled from sample parts binders stored in the lab. Soon my prototype design will be ready Read Article Customize designs with Consistent and Flexible Custom Rules and Queries In the early stages of a circuit design, I frequently consider mechanical dimensions along with circuit requirements. Knowing dimensions of large components helps me visualize where they will fit with respect to overall three-dimensional device enclosure and the board’s location within the space. During the thought experiment for fit, I begin making notes about tolerances I’ll push as a tradeoff between electrical functionality and mechanical Read Article Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Use Altium Multi-Channel Design for Easy Repeat Circuit Use If you are like me, you would agree that one of the most wasteful exercises is repeating the same task over and over again. Of course, I am not referring to activities that require repetition in order to achieve a good level of competence. After all, practice does make perfect. Instead, I am speaking of the wasteful recreation of a completed PCB design to use in a different product, which is akin to reinventing the wheel when it is already in use Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page143 Current page144 Page145 Page146 Page147 Page148 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
