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Brain games are a good way to stay sharp. One of my favorite ways to implement this is by doing daily puzzles. Although I love the crossword puzzles where you complete the words from a given clue, I think puzzles that require you to put the pieces together can be the most challenging, especially when it is a group activity. It reminds me of one of the more daunting problems for engineers and PCB designers, which is multi-board design. Not only...

At our house, creating a grocery shopping list can become a multi-day event. Stage 1 of the extravaganza involves a careful but not well-planned review of all available grocery store ads. Stage 2 moves on to the analysis of those advertisements. One never knows where bargains may lurk. Then, Stage 3 takes us to the pantry for a study of our available resources while Stage 4 measures our budget against our needs. When we eventually stroll...

Ceramic materials electronics are specialty materials used as PCB insulators and as substrates for IC packages. Today, ceramic production capacity for PCBs is easy to access from overseas vendors, and these materials see significant use in aerospace and automotive industries. Ceramic PCBs offer particular advantages over FR4 boards, although there is no single “ceramic” material. The current set of commercialized ceramic materials for PCBs are...

My neighbor and I were sitting on the patio one summer dreaming up a Christmas display that would span both our yards. Engineers, right? Ambitious project, for sure, but we had fun visualizing Santa and his reindeer flying across our two roofs. We’d use LED light strings to span the rooflines and we’d incorporate controllers to synchronize Christmas music. Several months later after summer had turned to Fall, in comes the neighbor with a CAD...

What is the Altium Project Releaser? The Project Releaser is a single-click automation of manufacturing output generation built on top of Altium Designer’s Output Job functionality to render complete release packages to a file folder structure, zip file or Altium Vault®/NEXUS® managed server. Once the Project Releaser is initiated, if Output Job files are not included in the project, the user can elect to have default OutJob files created. Next...

Hybrid construction is a huge growth area with a lot of opportunity for PCB designers. Learn from Chris Hunrath, VP of Technology at Insulectro, as he provides several valuable insights about the latest in hybrid construction trends. Get facts from an expert in material properties and how to use and combine them in the PCB assembly process. Learn more about polyamide film and its properties, how to use the FR4 as glue, and many more ways to...

I have a friend who forgets that the rest of us can’t read his mind. He often starts a conversation without any sort of introduction or context. There have been many times where after several minutes of dialog I have had to hold up my hands and simply ask; “what are you talking about?” Once he backs up and gives me an overview, then I am ready for the details. Although this had made for some amusing moments, it isn’t nearly so funny when it...