The PCB Routing that Benefits the Most from Interactive PCB Auto Routing Years ago I helped to re-roof a house, and the first task was to remove the old shingles. Pulling up shingles one at a time, I was very proud of my efforts until a professional roofer came over to me shaking his head. Using a scoop shovel like a snowplow, he removed a couple a hundred shingles in less time than it took me to pull up five by hand. I learned up on the roof that day to always look for better ways to get the job done. When routing a Read Article Environmental Considerations for High Voltage PCB Board Design Several years ago, I had a date take me hiking. Beforehand, he gave me a long list of what to wear and bring for the hike. I had been camping and hiking in the mountains since childhood, and this guy was a southern boy, so I found it a little vexing to have him telling me what to do on my home turf. Fortunately, I had been raised to take environmental hazards seriously and tried hard to appreciate someone else who also had neurotic and Read Article Intro to Altium Designer Evaluation [Videos] We often see that the tendency with evaluators is to jump right in with both feet using their experience as a guide to evaluation. However, we highly recommend that you use this guide as Altium Designer has a fundamentally different approach to PCB design than anything else in the market. From concept to manufacture, your design process is a series of distinct stages and Altium Designer allows these stages to remain consistent and connected Read Article How to Implement Supervised Inputs in Your PCB Circuit Design Have you ever worked late on a design project and forgot to eat? I was literally starving when I finished off one of my regular design projects. I decided to go for a quick meal at a local eatery. I placed my order and hoped the service would be fast. However, after 45 minutes and no food, I was told that the kitchen has missed my order. I learned my lesson that you can’t expect that your order is being followed just because you placed it. The Read Article 10 Symptoms of a Bad PDN At face value, DC power integrity seems to be a simple enough topic -- you just need to make sure that every component on your PCB has the power (current and voltage) it needs when it needs it. But that’s just on the surface. WHAT IS POWER INTEGRITY? The new reality is a bit more complicated. When you start to work with fine-pitch device packages, the manufacturing constraints and power requirements of said devices are almost completely at odds Read Article PCB BOM Creation as a Living Document The other day my son bought himself a new phone because the navigator in his old phone was defective. Every time that he used the old phone for directions, he would end up getting lost. Although taking the time to get a new phone wasn’t in his plans, he could no longer afford wasting time trying to figure out where he was and where he needed to go next. His difficulties reminded me of the problems that I’ve seen in some PCB design groups where Read Article Why an Auto-Interactive Router Routes Cleaner Traces than an Auto Router When I was a boy, my room was always a mess. Since I thought I knew where everything was, there was no reason to clean it. Finally, after a lot of pressure from my parents and my peers, I capitulated and cleaned up the room. The difference was amazing. It was so much easier to get around now that I had a clear path. The same can be said about PCB trace routing from an auto router. Auto routers are known for producing disorganized routes that are Read Article Bill of Materials Inventory Management and the Benefits of an Online Parts Request Documentation Systems I once asked a family member to borrow some money to use as a down payment. His response included a counter-proposal that I didn’t understand, so I let it pass. Unfortunately by not understanding his answer to my request, I missed out on an even better opportunity than what I had initially asked for. That exchange has stayed in my mind as an example of how important clear communication is. In our world of PCB design, the need for clear Read Article RF Interference Prevention and RF PCB Design in the Internet of Things Have you ever been to a party where there was so much noise you could barely hear yourself think? I’m a dedicated introvert, but sometimes my friends lure me out to such gatherings with promises that it will be “very relaxed.” They never are, and I don’t seem to learn. It’s times like those that I wish it was socially acceptable to wear noise-canceling headphones to such events. In the world of electronics, the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) Read Article Important Considerations in Your Embedded System's Master-Slave Communication Model It can take a few weeks or months to finish a working prototype of an embedded system. Sometimes I would spend days working on a single part of the project. However, when your boss is looking for updates every day, it can be particularly distracting and hinder your productivity. When I started my design company, I learned not to repeat these mistakes on my team. Like a human, embedded systems come in various shapes and sizes, and more importantly Read Article High Speed PCB Design Considerations: Bypass Capacitor Place and Route Tips Many years ago, the majority of the board designs that I was involved with were simple digital designs. Placing and routing bypass capacitors in those designs was very easy, and often the circuitry was slow enough that ceramic capacitors were not needed. Most of the time we considered bypass capacitor placement and routing as more of an afterthought than as a primary design consideration. I remember how some of the engineers even instructed me to Read Article The Importance of Compliance Awareness in Circuit and PCB Design I had an English professor once who was a lot of fun, but man, his requirements for essay writing were brutal. Making a decent grade required a ton of work. I had to check and recheck my paper’s content to make sure that every detail he asked for was painstakingly covered. These tedious rituals, though annoying and painful, helped teach me how to be thorough with my research. This was something that came in handy when I began my career and had to Read Article Bluetooth Low Energy and the Internet of Things Did you ever “reinvent yourself” at some time in your life? I did, I went from the nerd in high school who wore cargo shorts and high socks to a less nerdy college student who had regular socks and shorts with the fashionable number of pockets. By the end of college, I had learned “social skills” and was finally ready to enter society as the best, or at least acceptable, version of me. People aren’t the only things that need reinvention, so do Read Article Engineering a Layer Stack Up for High Speed Design Most of your board's simpler EMI/EMC problems, signal integrity problems, and power integrity problems can be solved or reduced with the right layer stackup. In high-speed PCB design and in RF PCB design, the layer stackup is the first place to start engineering the board to ensure it will operate within the intended operational parameters. But like any engineered component, a high-speed layer stackup must balance many functional goals, as well Read Article Why PCB Design Auto-Interactive Routing is Not a PCB Autorouter Editorial credit: Santiparp Wattanaporn / Shutterstock.com A while back I was given the gift of a flight in an AT-6, a WWII era airplane used for training fighter pilots. There couldn’t have been a better gift for an aviation enthusiast, and I spent the next 5 months eagerly anticipating it. Finally, the day arrived and I couldn’t have been happier as we took off into the wild blue yonder. Then the pilot demonstrated an aileron roll, and my Top Read Article AltiumLive Summit Starts Tomorrow in San Diego's Beautiful Mission Bay - PCB Design Conference Scroll down for a map or click on directions in Google Maps. AltiumLive 2017 Rarely does a PCB design conference come along that is focused wholly on training content designed to make YOU a more knowledgeable and effective . That’s why Altium decided to create one--fully centered on designers...and presented by expert PCB designers. AltiumLive 2017: Annual PCB Design Summit is coming to San Diego. Over the next two days, EDA industry Read Article High Speed PCB Layout Guidelines: Placement Tips and Strategies In real estate, the buzzword is; “location, location, location”. Interestingly enough, the same can be said of high-speed PCB layout. Although all aspects of the high-speed PCB design process are important, component placement is especially important for ensuring easy routing, minimizing EMI, and possibly eliminating the need for some extra layers. Location placement methods that work without a problem in a standard PCB design may not satisfy the Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page170 Current page171 Page172 Page173 Page174 Page175 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
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