Hardware Engineers Who Design Tomorrow Everyone has a personal story about the things that brought them into hardware engineering. Mine stems from a desire to work on designing new technology to make people’s lives better. Designing new technologies can have ripple effects that you could never predict. What is your dream project? Learning to drive is one of the greatest experiences of my life. I grew up a couple miles from the Pacific Ocean in Southern California and remember driving Read Article Is IPC-2152 Holding Your Power Integrity Back? For most designers, the Power Distribution Network (PDN) is a foreign and intimidating part of the PCB design process. But achieving optimal PDN performance is not as complicated as it seems. For many designers, the Power Distribution Network (PDN) is a foreign and intimidating part of the PCB design process. But achieving optimal PDN performance is not as complicated as it seems. In fact, the fundamental goal of optimizing your PDN can be as Read Article Getting Your Layer Stack Done Right the First Time Failure to properly design the layer stack is a common mistake in PCB assembly. This blunder often occurs during the final stages of fabrication, but can easily be prevented by including the appropriate features in the beginning stages of PCB design. Read on to learn about what layer stackup features you’ll want to include in your design. One of the most common mistakes during the PCB fabrication process is improper layer order. If left unchecked Read Article Electronification of the World, One Wearable at a Time As the world of electronic manufacturing shifts into the eras of Industry 4.0, IoT, and Big Data, it’s becoming more important than ever for companies to embrace software platforms to remain competitive. This process has never been more challenging when you factor in other competing goals including reducing time to market, increasing quality and efficiency, and optimizing your entire value chain. What’s driving this transformation where today’s Read Article How to Adopt Signal Integrity Analysis in Your High-Speed Design Process As our designs become more complicated, the risk of signal integrity issues increases. Adopting signal integrity simulation in your design process can mitigate risks and preserve resources. Read to learn more. The way signals operate in reality is often very different from the theoretical applications taught in universities, and as a consequence, moving from theory to practical application can often lead to unpredictable results. A signal can be Read Article How to Automate Your High-Speed Design Process Keeping track of individual segment lengths for nets, via depths, or pin lengths in a spreadsheet can be burdensome. Learn how to automate your high-speed design process with new technology in Altium Designer®. High Speed design is one of the most challenging tasks that an electrical engineer can take on. There are any number of factors that can affect the way a high speed signal will respond. A misconception is that High Speed Design is a Read Article Backdrill it Baby - How to Reduce Signal Distortions on Your PCB Over the years, engineers have developed several approaches to deal with noises that can distort high speed digital signal integrity in printed circuit board backdrill designs. And as our designs push new boundaries, so does the complexity of our techniques to cope with new challenges. Today, the speed of digital design systems is in the GHz, a speed that creates more prominent challenges than the past. And with edge rates at the picoseconds, any Read Article Really Bad PCB Design Advice to Not Follow At Altium Designer, we’ve been in the PCB design software business for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve seen a lot of innovations—and a lot of mistakes. It seems every engineer has some PCB design basics advice to offer on laying out a printed circuit board, and unfortunately not all of it is good. Here’s a roundup of some of the worst PCB design advice we’ve heard. Avoid Via in Pad At first glance, this seems like sound PCB design basics Read Article The Transition of Transistors: A Transistor History Timeline Even if you’re not an electrical engineer, chances are you still love technology and all it offers, whether it be for work or pleasure. We all get caught up in the buzz when a new processor comes out and hear things like how Intel is using a 14nm (nanometer) technology and has over a billion graphene transistors. But what exactly is this technology and for what device? Back to the Basics As complicated as the world of engineering can be Read Article Automating PCB Design Environments: How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow Shuffling different programs for your schematic and PCB layout design changes costs both time and money. Altium Designer® tackles this issue with a unified design system that automatically transfers data between schematic and PCB using component links. Read on to learn how component links are increasing productivity by automating ECO procedures. Transferring data from schematic to PCB, or vice versa, is traditionally a task stretched across Read Article Autorouting, or No Autorouting? A History of Failed Design Automation Learn about the complete history of EDA design automation and the evolution of PCB autorouting technology from the 1980s to today. Welcome to the world of electronics. It’s 2016, and we’re now seeing more technological sophistication than in any other period in human history. Just this year alone autonomous vehicles have began their introduction into the public sphere, rockets are being re-landed from space for reuse with finely tuned precision Read Article The Biggest PCB Manufacturing Trends We’ve Seen This Year The field of new technology in PCB manufacturing is constantly evolving. Technology is improving, new innovations are being made, and better manufacturing methods are being developed. Methods that were commonplace yesterday may today be obsolete. How can you keep up? Well, here are some of the PCB manufacturing trends we’ve seen in 2016 so far. The field of PCB Manufacturing is constantly evolving. Technology is improving, new assembly Read Article How to Simplify Your Routing with Pin Swapping Optimal component placement goes a long way towards minimizing crossover connection lines. However, crossovers can never be completely avoided. Learn how you can simplify your routing process and avoid wasting time with crossover connections. Optimal component placement goes a long way towards minimizing crossover connection lines. However, crossovers can never be completely avoided. A large number of crossover connections make routing a PCB Read Article 5 Facts of PCB Design Info That Your Boss Needs to Know Designing a top-notch printed circuit board is your job. You understand what components need to be used, what materials are required, etc. On the other hand, your boss’s job is on the business side of things. They understand profits and losses and maintain productivity levels, etc. But they often don’t really understand the ins and outs of printed circuit board design. And since those technical aspects can have a significant impact on profits and Read Article Draftsman: Make the Software Do the Documentation You’ve routed your last route. Stitched your last via. Poured your last pour. You’re finally done with that board — time to celebrate! (Or at least move on to the next project.) Hang on! You’re not done yet. There’s still the documentation to be done – the fab drawings, the assembly CAD drawings, everything the fab shop needs to turn your carefully crafted work of art into a real electronic product. Unfortunately, the tools you have access to in Read Article The Peak of Engineering Efficiency is Now Available in Altium Designer 17 The Peak of Engineering Efficiency and PCB Design Technology is Now Available in Altium 17 The engineering mentality is one focused on efficiency and creativity. And whether you’re designing electronics in today’s autonomous vehicles or connected devices, the careful balance between art and science walks a very thin line. Sooner or later, you’re bound to hit a roadblock. Not in your ideas, but in executing those ideas efficiently in your tools Read Article Bugging Out - How to Minimize Your Embedded Design Debug Phase Even if not all engineers will admit it, debugging an embedded system prototype is a lot of fun, so long as it’s going the way we planned. And while we cross our fingers hoping our board passes the first article inspection, it’s inevitable that some bugs will find their way into a design of any complexity. The debug phase in an embedded design can be one of the most challenging tasks for an engineer, as we juggle identifying issues with a project Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page200 Current page201 Page202 Page203 Page204 Page205 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
