Rockstar PCB Designer and SI Guru Rick Hartley Warner: Welcome back, Rick. The first time we met, we were ranting about how we both wished more designers would spend some time visiting their board suppliers and learn more about how boards are manufactured. What other pieces of advice would you give to an engineer or PCB designer today? Hartley: It's interesting you say that. Back in the '77-’78 time frame, when I first became a printed, one of the fabricators that our company used sat me and Read Article How Smart Tech Electronics Is Used for Combat Against Parkinson's Disease This past week I went home to Toronto to visit my parents. My grandfather, who is 87-years-old was recently diagnosed with old age dementia and had his driver’s license taken away. While my family was relieved to have him off the road, he was devastated by the loss of independence. That, however, changed one day when I went to pick him up from his house. I arrived to find the house empty, but his car was still in his driveway. It turns out that Read Article IoT Storage Technologies: Ultra Low Power CBRAM Do you remember using those old floppy disks back in the day? I remember my computer had two floppy disk drives. You’d put the disk with your program in one and a disk for the data in the other. Eventually, the incredible invention that is the hard drive came about and storage space exploded. Our memory capacity is still increasing, but now size is becoming less of a factor. When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) energy usage is the next Read Article Automated HSE: An Essential Requirement for Proactive Safety Management Automated safety management solutions not only reduce risk in the workplace, but also make it easier for firms of all sizes to meet their Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) reporting requirements. Using the practices of Best-in-Class firms as an example, these findings illustrate how use of automated incident and inspection management tools can similarly help small and medium businesses (SMBs). Key findings include: Ensuring full compliance Read Article How NASA Plans to Use 3D PCB Technology and Designs for Space Missions Editorial credit: Tony Craddock / Shutterstock.com Have you noticed how a 3D model has become a phenomenon? People seem to want to 3D print anything they can now. Maybe the 3D printing craze will collide with the Internet of Things and we’ll get a printed smart fork . While other people are writing about the 50 best things you can make with them and then throw away, I’m going to tell you how NASA hopes to use 3D printing. Between a rocket Read Article Will RS485 Survive Wireless Communication Technology I am a huge fan of the Nokia 3310 that has recently made a comeback in the mobile phone industry. If you’ve never used one in your life then you’re missing out one of the most reliable and durable mobile phone in recent history. Unlike the early 2000’s, it’s not common to find mobile phones that can double as a nut-cracker and survive the worst of falls. The same form of robustness and reliability in the world of electrical design is RS485 Read Article For PCB Designers, Makers and Innovators: OnTrack Newsletter April 2017 On Track Newsletter April 2017 VOL. 1 No 1 Welcome to the first edition of the Altium® newsletter, On Track. First and foremost this has been created with you in mind–the PCB designer, the Maker and the Innovator. This monthly publication has been designed to elevate, inspire and equip designers everywhere to do their magic and to help unleash the next generation of technology. When a company like Altium begins to “grow up” it’s easy to forget Read Article Advantages of Flexible Circuits for Space Applications Flexible circuits reduce weight in spacecraft and can be used in enclosures where there is minimal available space. Read Article PCB Design Guidelines for High-Frequency Circuits in Car Radar & 5G Applications: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: PCB Design Guidelines for High-Frequency Circuits in Car Radar & 5G Applications. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us Read Article What Are Molded Interconnect Devices or MIDs?: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: What Are Molded Interconnect Devices or MIDs? All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments Read Article How Component Placement and Routing Helps Protect Your PCB from ESD I organize certain things with a reportedly alarming neuroticism. In grad school, there was a line of demarcation between the edge of my side of the desk and the pile of sample containers and papers that began on my neighbor’s side. This same tendency, though annoying to deskmates and boyfriends, especially since it doesn’t extend to bathrooms, makes me an ace at optimizing component placement on PCBs. Not only does this keep things neat, it also Read Article What is ESD and How Does it Affect My PCB Design?: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series: What is ESD and How Does It Affect My PCB Design? All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments Read Article How to Use a Ferrite Bead in Your Design to Reduce EMI EMI and EMC can be a tricky subjects, and it's often tempting to mis-apply design guidelines to try and reduce EMI. One of these areas relating to EMC in PCB design is the use of ferrite beads. These components are basically filters, and they do perform a useful function on power cords in many electronics. You're probably reading this article on a laptop that uses a ferrite to filter out conducted EMI from the supply line. A problem begins to Read Article Using ESD Grounding Techniques to Protect Your PCB from Electrical Damage ESD grounding needs to be implemented in the PCB layout and in the enclosure to ensure devices can be protected from damage. Read Article Risk Management for Embedded Software Development Find out how embedded software development companies can take advantage of the exploding ADAS and autonomous driving market while reducing business risk by following these best practices. What do successful downhill skiers, Formula One racers, and mountain climbers have in common? They learn as much as they can about their sport and they use the very best equipment available. By taking this approach, they transform pure risk into calculated risk Read Article PCB 2020: Altium Brings International Roadshow to a Close We have officially wrapped our two-month international roadshow, PCB 2020: Altium’s Roadmap to the Future, which gave attendees a glimpse into the future of electronics design. With nine cities on the roster, the event featured live presentations and hands-on demonstrations from the industry’s leading experts discussing the latest trends and technologies that are shaping the course of the electronics design industry. With the support of technical Read Article How FRAM Memory Simplifies Embedded System Data Logging I’ve always found it easier to make decisions when the options were clear cut. Choosing between black or white, right or wrong, you could make your decision and never regret it. However, decisions that involve picking black, white or one of many shades of gray really stress me out. I was happy abiding by my binary logic until Ferromagnetic Random Access Memory ( FRAM ) came on the commercial market and I was forced to embrace one of the shades of Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page169 Current page170 Page171 Page172 Page173 Page174 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More