Overcoming the Challenges with Rigid Flex Design There is no question that wearable electronic devices qualify as “break-out products”. The market for wearables is forecasted to be $30 billion in 2016 and will grow to $150 billion by 2026[1]. Most of these devices are simply impossible without rigid-flex PCB design technology . This means that engineers and PCB designers need to become experts in designing, testing, and manufacturing in a wearable and “foldable” world. The most familiar Read Article The Pros and Cons of Different LPWAN Networks for Your IoT Application Right now, IoT is like a gladiator battle in the coliseum of market forces and public opinion. There are constant rankings of what protocol or stack to use, which IoT products are useful ( or not ), and who’s going to win each element of the burgeoning IoT ecosystem. The best part is that each of these little battles is also a decision that you must face or plan for in your next IoT design. Awesome, right? Lucky for you, I’ve already considered Read Article Design Release Management and Communicating Intent We know that designing and releasing a product involves a multidisciplinary chain of command. Prior to its release, the ECAD side often goes through a series of adaptations to capture the incremental changes to the design. During this stage, the ECAD data is a moving target, which can impede the flow of communication to invested parties. Failure to effectively communicate these changes can have significant consequences on the design release Read Article How to Design MicroSD Card Power Circuits Without Destabilizing the On-Board Voltage Supply PCB designers often have the tough job of balancing perfection in design and keeping the cost down. For designs dealing with storage medias, like microSD, neglecting simple terms like “hot insertion” or “inrush current” can result in a prototype that imperfect and costly. My philosophy is to keep my hardware designs simple. I am quick to discard any components that seem superficial in my design. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that keeping Read Article Migration Guide Making the Switch from PADS to Altium Designer THE ALTIUM DESIGNER PHILOSOPHY At the core of Altium Designer® is one central theme - a unified approach to PCB design software. You’ll find that our tool differs from many conventional alternatives in its approach to design. Our workflow unifies all of the separate yet connected elements required to successfully complete a PCB design. As an existing PADS user, you are likely used to having multiple tools and interfaces for each stage of your Read Article PCB Design Guidelines for High-Frequency Circuits in Car Radar & 5G Applications One of the latest evolutions in next generation of 5G PCB design guidelines is being driven by two emerging technologies, 5G networks and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) enabled cars. Both of these technologies use something long feared by PCB designers, the extremely high-frequency (EHF) band. Read on and prepare your boards for a high-frequency future. This morning I saw a very strange sight while walking down my street. A long Read Article 3:36 Chris Carlson: How to Get Your Layer-Stack Right Watch Video Why Would Anyone Migrate from Mentor Xpedition Enterprise to Altium Designer? Many users of Xpedition Enterprise didn’t choose it: it was inherited in an acquisition or packaged in a bundle with other products. Now they find they have expensive support costs and many features that they never use. Plus, the tool UI are old and tired, making design more time consuming than it should be. Moving to Altium Designer® gives you a modern, efficient and unified UI, fast and efficient routing, and superior data management. A few Read Article Which IoT Communication Protocols Are Best Suited to Your Design Requirements For IoT products, the interoperability question depends on the communications protocol you use, since most products can’t communicate with systems using a different protocol. The protocol you choose will also affect your hardware. For example, transmission distance will determine your available IoT modules, power requirements, and shape the network configuration for your system. There are a huge number of protocols to choose from. New versions Read Article FIRST Robotics Competition Makes STEM Students into Superstars Over 25 years ago, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) founder and prolific inventor, Dean Kamen, envisioned a high school robotics competition that rivaled the energy and excitement of the Super Bowl. An event that would turn science students into superstars and infect them with an unshakeable passion for STEM activities and careers. Chris Jennings has an infectious enthusiasm for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) , as well as a rich history Read Article PCB Designer Cherie Litson: Accomplished BSEE and Master CID Instructor Cherie Litson is an accomplished BSEE and Master Instructor for CID and CID+ training at Eptac. She has enjoyed a long career as a PCB design professional and now spends her days training and certifying other designers. Here she shares how she became a designer, her thoughts on differences between men and women in business approach, and what advice she would offer to others thinking about a PCB design profession. Warner: Cherie, can you tell us Read Article How Low Power Wide Area Networks Are Enabling IoT Systems LPWANs can enable something like a “smart” city. What do civil engineers love, but electrical engineers hate? Concrete. This thing that makes up the base of our physical world often confounds the electrical signals that are the foundation of our digital world. Parking decks, malls, and underground structures all suffer from bad signal coverage. Without some kind of window or repeater, you’ll rarely get good coverage in these areas. That’s Read Article Altium Designer 17.1: The Latest Version of Intuitive Design Technology is Here Altium Designer® 17.1 was tailored specifically for today’s engineer. We understand that industry pressures to build more advanced, more efficient products can oftentimes mean a lag in the technology required to accommodate these demands. Our focus was to address these present-day challenges and fully equip designers with the necessary tools for optimum design. The pressure is on for you! You have to get to market in less time with more features Read Article Over-The-Air Connectivity Means Quick Updates, but New Security Challenges Thanks to the accelerating pace vehicle systems are being computerized, updating and securing control firmware is a new responsibility for automotive manufacturers. Over-the-air connectivity means crucial patches, especially those closing security holes, can be silently pushed to thousands of cars without user intervention. That said, it’s important to realize that an over-the-air solution presents a double-edged sword: if not implemented Read Article Biodegradable PCBs: Will They Really Help With PCB Waste Disposal? Isn’t the expansion of the PCB industry incredible? In the last 100 years, we’ve gone from using brass wire and pieces of wood to etched copper traces and fiberglass substrates. New industries like the Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in cars are accelerating that growth. There are millions of PCBs in existence today, and that number will only continue to grow. The funny thing is that we design a printed Read Article Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles: Pros and Cons of Multiple Sensor Fusion Think back to when you were a child, how did you think the future would look? Spaceships, flying cars, internet connected eating utensils ? We have many of the things I hoped we would, but somehow cars have lagged behind. I was expecting to see flying cars zooming through the sky and driverless cars whizzing through the streets. I don’t have a solution for flying cars, but there is something that’s making unmanned autonomous vehicles a reality Read Article How to Choose Communications Modules in Your IoT Products A lot of my friends are engineers and we are constantly talking shop. If you’re in the mood for hearing about weird IoT , then it’s always a good idea to ask what project they are working on. I’ve stopped asking what programs they’re using since everyone is learning Python. Seriously, everyone. We talk about what’s fun at work, it’s usually design, but sometimes it’s soldering. We talk about what’s terrible at work, and it’s usually component Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page173 Current page174 Page175 Page176 Page177 Page178 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More