Pad Stack Design And Fine Hole Pitch Components, Part 1 What happens when you try to route two traces between pins on 1mm pitch BGAs? As noted in the previous article on pad stack design and fabrication, there are a number of factors that need to be taken into account when it’s time calculate the complete dimensioning of the finished hole size on a plated through-hole in a PCB. When it comes to fine pitch components, there are always questions regarding what happens when 1mm and smaller pitch Read Article Injectsense Real-Time Eye Pressure Monitoring A prototype of Injectsense's wireless silicon sensor module next to a grain of rice and a quarter (Image source: Injectsense) A little over a year ago, I noticed that things sometimes got a little blurry while I was looking at my computer screen. My cousin Graham in England has macular degeneration, which has left him almost totally without sight. I have to admit that the thought this might happen to me was lurking in the back of my mind, so I Read Article Concord Pro and the Library S.M.A.R.T. Rule Part-2 Altium Concord Pro™ as a standalone product and brand name has been discontinued and the capabilities are now available as part of our Altium enterprise solutions. Learn more here. Introduction In the first part of this blog, we saw how you could use Concord Pro® to set up and support the S.M.A.R.T. Rule of Data Management, specifically the Singularity and the Management of your data. Now, we will continue to look at the additional pillars with a Read Article Shaper Engineer Jeremy Blum on Arduino Engineering and Building Consumer Products Jeremy Blum, Director of Engineering at Shaper, talks about his upcoming keynote speech on a holistic approach to engineering and design at AltiumLive PCB Design Summit in Frankfurt, Germany. Read Article Concord Pro and the Library S.M.A.R.T. Rule Part-1 \ Altium Concord Pro™ as a standalone product and brand name has been discontinued and the capabilities are now available as part of our Altium enterprise solutions. Learn more here. Introduction The saying goes that “The lead dog always has the best view.” When it comes to the race of the ECAD Software companies, for many years, Altium has led the pack. They got to that prized position for several reasons.The main reason, I believe, is that they Read Article OnTrack Newsletter: Music & Electronics, MCU Selection, Brain Food - October 2019 OnTrack Newsletter October 2019 VOL. 3 No 5 PianoArc: A Circular Piano Fit for Princes and Mega Stars Earlier this year I met a fascinating designer at the San Diego Altium® Users Group. Dave Starkey told me about a circular piano he and his partners had designed and built called the Pianoarc. In this interview, learn more about Starkey’s background and how he came to co-create this unique instrument that now graces a Middle Eastern Palace and is Read Article Naming Convention and PCB Data Management Introduction There is a poem by John Godfrey Saxe that was from a Hindu fable about the six blind men of Indostan who went to see the Elephant. The first went up and felt the side of the Elephant and concluded that he was touching a wall. The second went up and felt a tusk, exclaimed: “This is not a wall at all; it is a spear.” The third blind man, feeling the huge trunk, decided that it was a snake. The fourth man felt the elephant’s leg and Read Article Pad Stack Design And Fabrication—Part 2, Thermal Ties As noted in part one of this article, there are a variety of aspects regarding manufacturability and reliability that come into play as part of the pad stack design process. When it comes to soldering through-hole components into the plated through-holes in a PCB when the pin connects to a plane, you have to thermally isolate those holes from the planes to ensure successful soldering of those components. This is accomplished via a feature called Read Article Getting Connected: Altium’s User Community Forums The Altium design environment is a complex and sophisticated set of software tools. Not surprisingly, becoming proficient with these tools will take some time, and you’ll need to practice every step of the design process from beginning to end. So what happens if you get stuck along the way? The online documentation includes a “Getting Started” tutorial and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, and Altium also has a customer support system to Read Article Pad Stack Design And The Fabrication Process—part 1 “Pad Stack” is a term used by PCB layout personnel and PCB fabricators to refer to all of the features associated with a hole in a PCB. The hole can be plated or unplated, through-hole or blind or buried. Components of the pad stack include the drilled hole size, the finished hole size, the size of pads plotted on the inner and outer layers, the clearances in planes through which the holes drilled in the PCB pass, and the clearances in the solder Read Article PCB Design for Manufacturing Report Cards One of my earlier BLOGs talked about PWB Cost Drivers. What is required for the printed wiring board (PWB) Value Delivery Chain is a method of predicting the cost of fabrication for the printed circuit board (PCB) substrate, as well as the cost of PCB assembly and PCB assembly testing. With these tools and the wiring density metrics, tradeoffs can be performed early in the product's life. Many call this Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, I Read Article Advanced Electronics: Understanding Design Challenges For Space Applications Part 2 In the previous article we saw that when a particle that hits a BJT with enough energy, part of this energy may get absorbed by the component and may create unwanted current between the emitter and the collector. If this issue is neglected, we may have some malfunctions. This phenomenon is called SEE (Single Event Effect). It is the responsibility of the designer to design the board in a way that will be SEE tolerant. As I wrote in the previous Read Article Production-Grade Raspberry Pi Cluster Design This is what most people see when they think of a Raspberry Pi Cluster Just this year, two IBM-built supercomputers, named Summit and Sierra, were installed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, respectively. These two supercomputers overtook China’s Sunway TaihuLight system at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi. While your next edge Read Article Build or Buy: Which Route to go as an Engineer? Are you hesitant to buy an off-the-shelf SBC? You can build it quickly with the right modular hardware design tools There is nothing more fun than embarking on a new project, either as an entrepreneurial venture or for your own personal enjoyment. As an engineer working on an embedded systems hardware project, you will get to a point where you have to make that critical decision: which important portions of your system should you build, and which Read Article How Modular Design Helps Hardware Startups Launch and Grow Hardware is hard... those three words best describe how difficult it can be to break into the hardware market and launch a new electronic product. This may be difficult to accept, but between PCB and enclosure design, planning for production, prototyping and testing, redesigns, and challenges sourcing semiconductors, launching a new hardware product can be a major ordeal. Pebble, one of the most anticipated success stories in the hardware Read Article Long Live EDA: Modular System-level Circuit Engineering Online Modular instruments like this are much easier with online electronics design software If you’re familiar with the electronics design automation (EDA) industry, you’ll find plenty of similarities. These important software platforms have been the mainstay of electronics development since the 1980’s. Although there is plenty of differentiation between different products, as well as various levels of integration, these platforms have always seemed Read Article PianoArc: A Circular Piano Fit for Princes and Mega Stars Earlier this year I met a fascinating designer at the San Diego Altium Users Group. Dave Starkey told me about a circular keyboard piano he and his partners had designed and built called the Pianoarc. In this interview, learn more about Starkey’s background and how he came to co-create this unique instrument that now graces a Middle Eastern Palace and is played around the world by PianoArc visionary Brockett Parsons, keyboardist for Lady Gaga Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page98 Current page99 Page100 Page101 Page102 Page103 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More