Never Cross a Ground Plane Gap in High Speed PCB Design I often browse electronics and PCB forums, and I see the same question asked over and over: Why shouldn’t I route a trace over a split in my ground plane? This question gets asked by everyone from makers to professional designers who are just dipping their toes into high speed PCB design. For the professional signal integrity engineer, the answer should be obvious. Whether you’re a long-time PCB layout engineer or a casual designer, it helps to Read Article Tools for Transient Signal Analysis in Circuit Design You can perform transient signal analysis with any of these circuits with the right simulator. I still remember my first differential equations class. One of the first topics that was discussed was damped oscillator circuits and transient signal response, which arises in many different physical systems. A transient response in an interconnect and on power rails in your PCB is a source of bit errors, timing jitter, and other signal integrity Read Article Modular Layout and Design vs. Hardware Cloning Modular layout for Lapka’s Project Ara From enterprise software to signal processing, modular design is now the norm for many advanced product design and analysis tasks. Modular hardware design leverages several independent modules to create a unique, customizable system. In the hardware ecosystem, a modular design for an embedded board involves laying out modules with their own well-defined connections and functions. This typically starts with a Read Article Beyond the Drawing Board: A Lesson Learned in Flex Design Several recent blogs have been discussing “war stories” about flex and rigid-flex and the lessons learned when problem-solving and ultimately resolving the issue. We all have them. Flex is part art, part science, and even with the best of intentions and great attention to detail, there are occasionally “surprises” in performance. Most often they seem to defy logic until we stumble on the solution, and then of course everything is crystal clear in Read Article The Modular Single Board Computer Design Process Modular design is a design process that has been gaining momentum over the last decade, especially in the world of embedded computing. A good example is in single board computers, sensor boards for data streaming, and some evaluation boards. This design approach breaks down a generic system into several independent parts (modules) that can be linked together to increase the functionality of a device. They are independent in the sense that a Read Article A First Look at Altium Designer 20 November marks the launch of Altium Designer 20, and we thought you’d be like to hear from a couple of Altium veteran “insiders” about what you can expect to see in this latest release. Lawrence Romine, VP of Corporate Marketing and Ben Jordan, Technical Marketing Director, Corporate (both engineers) share what their favorite new features are and which ones they think will have the most impact on your day-to-day designs. Judy Warner: Lawrence Read Article Max Seeley and Carl Schattke on AltiumLive 2019 Max Seeley of 3M and Carl Schattke from a well-known electrical vehicle manufacturer join us at AltiumLive Europe, and shares how tech conferences can add value to one's career as PCB Designer. Read Article Mike Konrad on Design for Reliability Mike Konrad delivers an expert view on the necessity of cleaning boards at assembly, and revisits subjects such as low-residue flux as it pertains to Design for Reliability. Read Article Reduce Development Time for Electronics with Modular Design Tools If you want to get to market quickly, you’ll need to reduce development time for your new product If you’re an entrepreneur and you have a great idea for a new product, it’s in your best interests to get through the development phase and bring your product to market quickly. The challenge is to quickly create a new system that provides the functionality your target market demands without sacrificing quality. With software development, it’s quite Read Article Sandman Doppler: Design Isn’t Easy The Sandman Doppler Alexa-enabled alarm clock (Image source: Palo Alto Innovation) The fact that design isn’t easy may not strike experienced engineers as being hot news, but younger members of our profession may not have seen the memo. Even something that sounds simple, like an alarm clock, can pose unexpected challenges. I know whereof I speak, because I've been waiting to take delivery of my new alarm clock for more than two years as I pen Read Article Hardware Design for Edge Computing vs. Cloud Computing The next great developments in IoT products are in edge computing. The term “cloud computing” is now a regular piece of technical vocabulary, and for some time it was viewed as the solution to every data-intensive computing problem. While cloud computing certainly gives many developers a simple way to create value and scale quickly, edge computing is quickly becoming a viable alternative to deploying software applications on the cloud. In fact Read Article Tricks of the Trade: Signal Integrity Devices As with any job, Signal Integrity engineers use niche tools. SI tools are often thought of as S-parameter viewers, 3D EM solvers, or measurement equipment. These tools have one thing in common: analysis. What about the devices that SI engineers deploy to make their lives easier? In this article, I’ll discuss three devices to save time and money: multiport test cables, RF switches, and the old RC filter. Multi-port RF Cable Assemblies Today’s high Read Article Say Hello to the First Space Tow Truck Artist's impression of MEV-1 (silver) attached to communications satellite (copper) (Image source: Northrop Grumman) Things are moving quickly in space these days (no pun intended). I like to think that I keep my ear to the ground, but I was surprised to discover that Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1), whose mission is to essentially act as a space tow truck, successfully launched a week ago. Riding on top of a Russian Proton Read Article Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: A Deeper Investigation In Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: An Introduction we discussed the concept of creating a diverse team of people with a diverse set of skills. In today’s market, it is virtually impossible to build a team of homogenous engineers who can deliver from start to finish. Each engineer, possessing unique skill sets, contributes to the sum of parts within the design lifecycle. In this article, we will dive more deeply into the different Read Article Continuous Deployment: An Implementation Using Altium Designer In Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD we discussed the concept of Continuous Deployment within a build system. In this article, we will take a deeper look at how to set up continuous delivery and deployment systems so your team and vendors can enjoy a continuous stream of updated ECAD packages for review. Continuous Deployment/Delivery: Revisited In Continuous Integration: An Implementation Using Altium Designer we went through the Read Article Blind And Buried Vias—What Are They And How Are They Used? As noted in several of my previous articles as well as a large majority of other published documents, component lead pitches have become increasingly fine, and smaller form factor devices have come to dominate a large number of the products (cell phones) being developed today. The question of how to connect components to both sides of these crowded PCBs should be among the first factors taken into account by a product development team. Typically Read Article Augmented Reality is Poised to Change the World Imagine 50,000 fans streaming HD video on 5G phones (Image source: pixabay.com) One of the big topics on everyone's lips at the moment is the forthcoming deployment of 5G smartphones and infrastructure. As I wrote in my 5G Meets 50,000 Fans at Super Bowl 2025 column on EEJournal.com, I was idly watching some adverts on television when I saw one showing people streaming video from an American football match. This set me to wondering what the Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page96 Current page97 Page98 Page99 Page100 Page101 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
