IT Checklist Read Article How Increasing Battery Size Guides the PCB Designs of Apple and GoPro Sometimes batteries get bigger...by adding more batteries As time goes on, power requirements for connected devices keep increasing. More power means larger batteries, which force PCB designers to use more efficient layouts. Apple’s iPhone 7 and GoPro’s Hero5 give us specific examples of how industry leaders are dealing with increasing iPhone battery sizes in their iPhone PCB layouts. Have you noticed how much more energy it takes to get around Read Article The Power of PDN Analysis at Design Time Read Article How to Choose a Test Lab for FCC Certification of IoT Products FCC certification testing is an important (and legally required) step for IoT systems and other products that transmit and receive data. Choosing the right lab makes a huge difference in the ease of your certification process. I’ve been an engineer in some very heavily regulated industries where products are tested out the wazoo to make sure they’re safe. Even so, getting FCC certification for an IoT product was still a significant endeavor Read Article PCB Design Tools Utilizing the available PCB design tools to their maximum potential allows designers to strike the perfect balance of passion and productivity in their work. Data from top performing designers demonstrates how these tools can lead to more successful outcomes in both business and engineering when used correctly. Key findings include: Best-in-Class companies are more likely to improve designer productivity through tool and process efficiency. The Read Article How Innovative PCB Design Lets Internet of Things Devices Reduce Waste Innovative PCB design with proper component selection can help ensure your internet of things devices have less waste. Read Article How Tesla Rethought Lithium Ion Battery Cells Through Modular Design Schematics and Vertical Integration Lithium Ion batteries provide high performance and fast recharging, making them ideal for electric vehicles. However, their cost has always been a barrier to adoption in the world of electric vehicles. Tesla has sidestepped this issue by adopting a highly scalable modular approach. Every battery package they construct is made out of hundreds of one single standard cell. Tesla is taking their battery production in-house, constructing the Read Article PCB Designer Mike Brown Offers Advice: Stay Hungry, Keep Growing, Nurture Relationships Mike Brown is a PCB Design Consultant. He caught the design-bug at the tender age of 17 and has never looked back. Recently, he shared the story of his career path from being a young, to design manager, to entrepreneur and finally selling his company, Interconnect Design Solutions (IDS), last year to the Maryland-based contract manufacturer, Zentech Manufacturing. Warner: Mike, looking back, what indicators can you see from your childhood that Read Article PCB Design Basics to Help You Get Ahead PCB Design Basics in a Growing World Between the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable electronics, PCB design requirements are becoming more and more advanced. You need to keep your eye on the design techniques that can make PCBs smaller, faster, and more flexible in order to keep up with the times. In addition to keeping abreast of design trends, you will likely need training in how to implement the techniques they require. Do you Read Article The Worst PCB Design Advice I've Ever Heard: 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: The Worst PCB Design Advice I've Ever Heard. 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 comments Read Article How To Use A Modular Approach: 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: How to Use a Modular Approach. 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 comments below. Read Article Ubiquitous Internet of Things Devices Will Mean More Work in the PCB Design Industry What do iPhones and iRobot have in common? Come on, the ‘i’ is too obvious. They both involve us surrounding ourselves with computers. While I think the future will certainly involve lots of computers, I doubt most of them will be quite as nice and shiny. They also hopefully won’t try to kill us. The ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) is giving birth to a world where everything will have a computer inside of it. In a world full of PCBs, the PCB Read Article LiDAR Bringing Autonomous Vehicles into the Mainstream Market One of my favorite movies from the 2000s was Minority Report. As an engineer, my favorite genre is Science Fiction, and Tom Cruise was my favorite actor. I imagined myself riding in one of those sleek autonomous cars, watching Tom try to outrun his fate. Those cars must have been pretty far in the future because I didn’t see any giant LIDAR arrays on them. New advances in technology could turn Science Fiction into reality. LIDAR developers are Read Article Designing PCBs for IoT: How to Plan for FCC Certification and Testing The FCC standards for electronics is certainly something serious that needs to be considered. FCC Certification is a critical part of bringing IoT products to market. To pass successfully, you need to plan for the testing before you even begin to design your PCB. Read on to learn about the key considerations for your design. When I worked on my first internet of things (IoT) product, I was at a startup that was just past the two guys in the Read Article Electric Vehicles: PCB Designers Mitigate Heat Using Glass-Reinforced PTFE In the demanding world of electric vehicles, PCB’s must provide power conditioning, voltage conversion, and battery management in addition to their usual roles in the automotive context. Unfortunately, these same PCB’s must cope with stringent thermal requirements without heat sinks or fans. PCB designers, however, have found a lasting solution. Board substrate materials with high thermal performance allow PCB’s to avoid or minimize their use of Read Article How 3D Printed Prototypes are Changing the Landscape of PCB Design PCB Printers - 3d Printers for PCBs are now a reality and not just for PCB prototypes It’s no surprise that you hate waiting for PCB prototypes. In the time it takes for the test board to arrive you could probably invent a new method for fabricating prototypes. Lucky for you, someone already came up with a new method. New 3D printers use nanoparticle technology to suspend metals in ink (I don’t know how this works, so don’t ask) in order to print Read Article Drawing Creation with Draftsman Technical drawings for a printed circuit board include a graphical representation of the product design along with information relevant to fabrication and assembly. PCB documentation and fabrication drawings are created in a variety of formats, including Gerber files, ODB ++, IPC 2581, and file formats from other CAD vendors. Any of these documents need to correspond to data directly from your PCB layout. In addition to these fabrication drawings Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page174 Current page175 Page176 Page177 Page178 Page179 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More