Old School Wisdom: Best Schematic Software Simplifies Schematic to PCB Synchronizing You’ve heard it said: “there’s no school like the old school.” Is that always true though? When I was a kid my “old school” taught me to type on a typewriter, not a word processor. If I was using that old school typewriter today, it would take me significantly longer to write this article. I wouldn’t have access to spell checking or any of the other helpful utilities that I’ve become accustomed to. I wouldn’t be able to easily backspace and re Read Article No, I Don’t Want to Make a U-turn: Guidelines for PCB Trace Routing Watching your old town grow up can be a lot like watching your favorite television shows ending, or watching a sequel years after a good movie was released. The town I grew up in was laid out on a grid with streets so wide you didn’t even have to parallel park downtown. It was a town so small that traffic jams were caused by two people in different cars stopping to talk more often than accidents. When I go back to visit, the town has grown; the Read Article Using Net Ties to Meet PCB Design Requirements The Net Tie is a Component Type that allows PCB Engineers and Designers flexibility when Handling a Variety of Design Challenges. This Paper Explores the Advantages to using Net Ties in Altium Designer to Join Multiple Nets (shorts) Into One Single Net at Very specific Locations in the PCB. Using Net Ties to Meet PCB Design Requirements: Defining a Net Tie component can just be a matter of specifying it in the Type field of the Component Read Article Facilities Management: Smart Buildings Combine IoT and Analytics for Operational Excellence Read Article Electronic Parts Obsolescence Management, It's Your Move I started playing chess a bit more seriously a few years ago and have since become quite capable of planning out moves several turns in advance with an accurate prediction of how my opponent will react to them. I wouldn’t even consider competitive with my chess skills, but there are professionals who can predict moves and match outcomes between 60 and 100 moves in the future. While it’s a strong practice to get into, being able to predict moves Read Article Forget Parking Frustrations with Capacitive Touch Sensing Keypad Design Sometimes it feels like the parking ticket machines are neglected intentionally to incur more parking tickets from people incapable or unwilling to wait for the machine to function enough to give them their ticket stub. I’ve had my fair share of frustration when coming across one with malfunctioning buttons on its keypad, forcing me to hunt the surrounding area for a machine which actually is working. Finding parking is hard enough in many cities Read Article What Is A Gerber File and How Are They Used in the PCB Fabrication Process? Do you know what is a Gerber file? We've compiled the essential information you need to understand everything about Gerber files and their role in PCB fabrication. Read Article The Wheel Keeps Turning: Advanced Bill of Materials for PCB Design At a young age, my grandfather was trained in the repair and construction of wooden wheels, which was a necessary skill on the rural farm where he was raised. When modern times finally found Eastern Missouri, that highly skilled confluence of woodworking and blacksmithing was totally replaced by modern technology, save for the occasional historical re-creation. The change had been inevitable, so my grandfather proactively added machining Read Article Preventing Critical PCB Contamination: There Goes the Boom Ensuring chemical compatibility isn’t always as straightforward as avoiding throwing oil on a fire. When I was an undergrad, I worked in a lab with a heavy emphasis on etching. Processing steps use a range of chemicals, and sometimes these chemicals would not be compatible. One day, a student coworker of mine was hearing weird sounds while etching. After a few minutes, he pulled the fume hood shut and encountered a small explosion from Read Article Design for Electromagnetic Compatibility in PCB: Let Your Revels Never End What if William Shakespeare worked as an electrical engineer instead of a poet and playwright? If electronics existed during the mid-to-late sixteenth century, the Bard may have studied the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) on circuits and the need for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). After all, he wrote about his fascination with noise in The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give Read Article Drones, Robots and Thermal Management: OnTrack Newsletter December 2017 On Track Newsletter December 2017 VOL. 1 No 9 Welcome to the December issue of Altium Designer’s On Track Newsletter. In celebration of our far reaching global community, we are shining the spotlight on an impressive PCB designer from Norway this month. Tor-Anders Lunder designs boards for a startup company called Staaker which makes a tracking drone with a camera mount for sports enthusiasts. In Maker Space, we highlight a group of Brazilian Read Article Internet of Things Security Vulnerabilities: It's All About That Buffer Overflow I follow a bunch of animal and nature publications, and recently the phrase ‘zombie ants,’ kept popping up in my feed. I decided to do a little digging and discovered that there’s a type of fungi - Ophiocordyceps - whose life cycle involves infecting ants that walk across its spores with fungal cells that infiltrate the ant’s central nervous system and essentially take over the ant. Once they have the ant "under its control", the fungus-infected Read Article Interactive Routing Datasheet The PCB editor’s advanced routing engine includes push and shove, hug, walk around, and interactive length tuning modes for single-ended and differential pair routes. ™ enable complex signal-path groupings across the PCB to be tuned for any high-speed technology, with the Wizard to automate the setup of modern topologies including DDR2/3/4, USB 3.0, and more. ® provides user-guided routing automation to route and tune across defined layers Read Article Rigid-Flex and Multi-Board Designs Datasheet To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - Rigid-Flex and Mulit-Board - at Altium.com. Read Article MCAD Collaboration Datasheet To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - MCAD Collaboration - at Altium.com. Read Article Manufacturing Outputs Documentation and Datasheet Who wants to send their masterfully designed PCB to their fabricator, only to be told that the board is un-manufacturable? This can happen for a number of reasons, including outdated supplier data, incomplete documentation, improper panelization schemes, or a lack of fabrication documentation. Instead of relying on different programs to design your PCB and generate deliverables, you need an integrated software platform that includes all the Read Article PCB Design Verification Datasheet FEATURES AND BENEFITS Validate your design with XSpice before you even start laying out the board to expedite layout and prevent errors Identify power distribution network issues during the design phase Running the right simulation ensures your board will meet the design requirements DESIGN VERIFICATION Sometimes you are not sure how a design verification will behave or maybe you just want to explore a few design process ideas before committing Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page154 Current page155 Page156 Page157 Page158 Page159 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More