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  As the most commonly used material grade in the PCB industry, FR4 materials are plentiful, inexpensive, and well understood in terms of processing. Materials make their way to a huge range of products, and advanced FR4 versions are available for products with wireless capabilities or requiring higher reliability. Going even further, FR4-grade materials are also available for high-density designs with laser drill processing, further moving the...

Having a robot clean the house and perform laundry chores continues to elude modern technology given intricate steps to complete each chore. Given the repetitive nature of the chores, you’d think robotic automation would be the perfect application to turn over to a robot. It turns out that cleaning the house and doing the laundry is much more complicated and too advanced for robot understanding. Only simplistic chores, like vacuuming the floor...

Once you take that nose dive into PCB design, you start to realize how many of your home electronic devices actually work. From DVD drives to laptop monitors, and just about anything that folds, it is all made possible with rigid-flex PCBs. Rigid-flex PCB design can be a tricky beast depending on the software you’re using to create it, but at the end of the design, your printed circuit board will bend and flex like a gymnast. A rigid-flex PCB...

We've all been there, we buy bargain products to save money only oftentimes for disappointment. This might happen when that knock-off shirt doesn't fit you properly or the cost CAD software ends up being far from what you were looking for. Although it takes money to make money holds true at times - the question still stands: How much should I invest in this software in order to achieve my desired result and how much does CAD software cost? The...

Amusement parks often feature small raceways with gasoline-powered, two-passenger mini-cars going around a multi-lane track. Drivers can experience the thrill of steering and accelerating while trying to beat friends or family to the finish line. There’s a catch though. A rail-like barrier positioned in the middle of each lane prevents cars from moving from one lane to another. Consider the amusement park like a circuit: designing the...

No matter what stage of business you’re at, if one of your designs has turned from circuit board ideation to fully manufactured product then you’ve already accomplished a great deal. But, the hardware arena that you reside in will always have opportunities for product development, expansion, and growth.  There are a handful of considerations that should be taken into account before you get too giddy. Product designs, to be specialized, have to...

  What finish should I use for my PCB Design? There’s no one single answer, it depends. Meet chemist and surface finish expert Mike Carano, the Vice President of Technology and Business Development at RBP Chemical, industry leaders in high-performance chemical technology. Mike emphasizes a key question when it comes to surface finishes, “What are the reliability requirements of the environment?” Learn about the chemistry behind different...

When I was a kid, the one place I always felt safe and secure was at home. Regardless of what happened outside, my childhood home was my refuge and I wanted to live there with my parents forever. Of course, as I grew older, I longed to do new things, meet new people, and have new experiences, but to do so meant changing where I lived. Just as I had to embrace change to grow as a person, it is sometimes necessary to make changes in order to...