The Benefit of Simulation-Driven Design Deploying simulations earlier in the design process rather than later results in more innovative, high-quality products while also reducing production costs. The findings presented suggest that simulation-driven design allows Best-In-Class designers and firms to more effectively deliver the product to the consumer. Key highlights of their research include: In 2016, 87% of Best-in-Class organizations used simulation, up from 75% in 2014. Best-in Read Article Machine to Machine Communication and Internet of Things Can Benefit from Wireless Connectors Have you ever bought a new gizmo or gadget and wondered how you lived a life before it? For me, smartphones obviously come to mind. When I was a kid I was content to play with sticks and rocks. Now my kids play with virtual sticks and rocks on their iPhones. High-speed wireless M2M connectors will be like that for the Internet of Things. Keyssa has developed a new short-range chip that operates in the 60 GHz band that they say will replace all Read Article What Causes Ringing on a PCB and How to Solve It: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: What Causes Ringing on a PCB and How to Solve It. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the Read Article PCB BOM Management Tools and Real Time Part Access: How It Will Help Your Design for Manufacturability Have you ever been so ready to take off on a new project that you can’t wait to jump into it? Of course you have. As engineers that’s part of what makes us tick. We’ve got so many ideas running around in our head that we would rather forego sleep or food in order to create a design. Then it happens, some kind of delay forces us to lock up the brakes on our creative process. There are many scenarios that can do this, but one of the worst is when Read Article PCB Technology: Considerations for Turning Your Embedded System into a Modbus Remote Terminal Unit There is a misconception that engineers are terrible dates and hopeless in relationships. While I’m no relationship guru, past experiences have taught me that communication, or the lack off, is one of the main reasons relationships fail. Great communication isn’t talking endlessly to your partner, but rather being attentive to what they have to say, or decoding the hidden meaning of their cold silence. If you have mastered the elusive skill of Read Article 10 Best Practices of PCB Design Read Article PCB Design, Robotics, and Video Tips: OnTrack Newsletter May 2017 On Track Newsletter May 2017 VOL. 1 No 2 Welcome to the second edition of the Altium On Track newsletter. This month we feature a very special PCB designer, Cherie Litson, who is a CID and CID+ Master Trainer. We also take you inside the FIRST Robotics Competition and Team Mechanical Mayhem 1519. We’ve also launched a new monthly On Track educational video series which offers design tips and tricks. As usual, there’s plenty of Brain Food and a Read Article Circuit Board Design and BOM Management in Low Volume PCB Assembly What’s the difference between Angry Birds and SpongeBob? I’m probably at an age where I shouldn’t be caring about these things, but choosing the wrong character for my son’s 5th birthday cake could spell disaster. As a designer, you probably can’t relate to my need to carefully consider the repercussions of choosing SpongeBob. However, you might understand it better knowing that I apply the same level of caution when designing for low volume Read Article Pervasive Engineering Simulation: The Pulse of the Healthcare Industry Pervasive engineering simulation and consolidated engineering simulation platforms accelerate more innovative healthcare and render more effective, high-quality designs. By focusing specifically on the healthcare industry, it is demonstrated how simulation-driven design reduces costs and increases the ability of engineers to successfully meet product targets such as quality and launch date. Key findings include: 69% of platform-based simulation Read Article PCB Layout Constraints That Help Manage Component Obsolescence Just about everyone in the world of engineering has heard some variation of the “Iron Triangle” theory. It’s a popular way to talk about what is or isn’t possible among those given the task of getting things done. Basically, it is a philosophy that says you can get something done fast, cheap, or good; pick two. For example, when designing a PCB for an aircraft, cheap goes out the window, fast takes a back seat and quality is paramount Read Article BOM Automation: The Benefits of Having an Automated Bill of Materials in Project Management I have some friends who founded a startup company to create and market a brilliant new product. Their product quickly became a success, but all their hard work was constantly undermined by communication issues between departments. It wasn’t long until the engineers found their creative hands tied, purchasing was buried under an avalanche of unreliable documentation, and the product build-in manufacturing was slowed to a crawl from incorrect and Read Article Using Flyback Diodes in Relays Prevents Electrical Noise in Your Circuits What is a flyback diode, and how does a flyback diode protect a circuit? When used properly, flyback diodes can reduce electrical noise and prevent flyback voltages from building up. Read Article The Benefits of a Bill of Materials In Supply Chain Management Some of the most complicated engineering projects I’ve worked on were made up of multiple layers of sub-assemblies. Before we could order parts for a new assembly, we needed to go through every component in each tier of the final product to ensure that they would meet the rigorous current, voltage, and temperature derating requirements for different customer applications. The first few times I had to do this, it was by merging dozens of excel Read Article BOM Part Number Management: Why It Should Be Automated If you’ve ever worked with high voltages or have designed a high voltage circuit, you know that they always require careful planning. In my last job, we had been using a particular high voltage power supply circuit for years. When it was initially designed, the board took longer than usual to complete. While its design required some extra finicking, it was worth the effort. Everything was going well until the larger assembly's design was modified Read Article What Materials to Include in Your Bill of Materials As an electrical engineer, I am constantly impressed with the brilliant designs my colleagues come up with. I’m also constantly shocked to see how mismanaged most of their BOMs are. I’ve been on projects with a huge range of practices for handling a bill of materials. On one end of the spectrum, there was my senior design project, with no BOM at all, just a series of sticky notes my group placed on the front cover flap of our notebooks. Protip Read Article Why Designing a High Voltage PCB for Rapid Prototyping Is More Effective Than Rushing to Form Factor Remember that fable we all were told as kids about the tortoise and the hare? The moral of the story was that slow and steady wins the race. In engineering, this is especially true when it comes to creating a consumer product quickly. However, this practice is rarely the approach we take. I personally experienced this when I rushed the design of a dimmer for the IOT market. In fact, I was making two dimmers. The first dimmer was simpler and used Read Article High Speed Design Techniques: Schematic Considerations With my apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein for borrowing their lyrics, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…” In this case, however, we are going to be looking at high frequency and high speed PCB design techniques instead of a Hollywood musical, and the beginning happens to be the schematic. You may argue that the place to start would be on the ground plane itself. Board materials, layer stackup planning Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page173 Current page174 Page175 Page176 Page177 Page178 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
