Design for Manufacturing (DFM)

Which IoT Protocol Is Best Suited to Your Design Requirements

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

How Low Power Wide Area Networks Are Enabling IoT Systems

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

Using Cans for EMI Shielding on Your PCB

Using Cans for EMI Shielding on Your PCB Make sure your can has enough clearance from the components it’s shielding. Preventing electromagnetic interference is critical for proper functioning of your PCB design. In addition to good design practices, can shields can also be used to isolate sensitive components. Did you ever play Operation? The game where you had to fish little pieces out of an awkward looking body without touching the edges of the slot. When you hit an edge, your failure Read Article

Flexible Future: The Industries That Are Forcing You To Learn Rigid Flex PCB Design

Flexible Future: The Industries That Are Forcing You To Learn Rigid Flex PCB Design Do you ever feel like time is a passing a little more quickly than it should? It seems like just yesterday I was growling in frustration as I learned how to use dial-up internet. Now I growl in frustration as I attempt to figure out how to set up my state-of-the-art broadband router. It seems like as soon as I master the current technology, it’s time for the next big thing and I have to start all over again. Well my PCB friends, it’s time for you Read Article

PCB Design for Manufacturing: Prevent Via Defects by Talking to Your Manufacturer

PCB Design for Manufacturing: Prevent PCB Vias Defects by Talking to Your Manufacturer One of my ex-girlfriends always used to say, “communication is key for our relationship.” While I may be good at communicating how to reduce EMI on boards, I’m not so good at expressing my emotions. I guess that’s why she’s an ex-girlfriend. Sometimes your feelings toward your manufacturer may resemble your feelings towards any ex-girlfriends. Especially when they tell you that your boards have a 50% yield. At that point, you may feel like Read Article

How to Choose a Test Lab for FCC Certification of IoT Products

How to Choose a Test Lab for FCC Certification of IoT Products FCC certification testing is an important (and legally required) step for IoT systems and other products that transmit and receive data. Choosing the right lab makes a huge difference in the ease of your certification process. I’ve been an engineer in some very heavily regulated industries where products are tested out the wazoo to make sure they’re safe. Even so, getting FCC certification for an IoT product was still a significant endeavor Read Article

How Tesla Rethought Lithium Ion Cells Through Modular Design and Vertical Integration

How Tesla Rethought Lithium Ion Battery Cells Through Modular Design Schematics and Vertical Integration Lithium Ion batteries provide high performance and fast recharging, making them ideal for electric vehicles. However, their cost has always been a barrier to adoption in the world of electric vehicles. Tesla has sidestepped this issue by adopting a highly scalable modular approach. Every battery package they construct is made out of hundreds of one single standard cell. Tesla is taking their battery production in-house, constructing the Read Article

PCB Designer Mike Brown Offers Advice: Stay Hungry, Keep Growing, Nurture Relationships

PCB Designer Mike Brown Offers Advice: Stay Hungry, Keep Growing, Nurture Relationships Mike Brown is a PCB Design Consultant. He caught the design-bug at the tender age of 17 and has never looked back. Recently, he shared the story of his career path from being a young, to design manager, to entrepreneur and finally selling his company, Interconnect Design Solutions (IDS), last year to the Maryland-based contract manufacturer, Zentech Manufacturing. Warner: Mike, looking back, what indicators can you see from your childhood that Read Article

LiDAR Bringing Autonomous Vehicles into the Mainstream Market

LiDAR Bringing Autonomous Vehicles into the Mainstream Market One of my favorite movies from the 2000s was Minority Report. As an engineer, my favorite genre is Science Fiction, and Tom Cruise was my favorite actor. I imagined myself riding in one of those sleek autonomous cars, watching Tom try to outrun his fate. Those cars must have been pretty far in the future because I didn’t see any giant LIDAR arrays on them. New advances in technology could turn Science Fiction into reality. LIDAR developers are Read Article

Protect Your PCBs and Electronic Components from Counterfeit

Protect Your PCB Design: How to Avoid Counterfeit Electronic Components Just like Gucci or Coach handbags, counterfeiting electronic parts is big business overseas and it causes major problems in the printed circuit board component supply chain. Counterfeit electronic components that are sold as genuine can affect everything from your new electronic alarm clock to mission-critical military systems, such as thermal weapons sights, missile guidance systems, and aircraft. Whenever electronic parts are relabeled or Read Article

DFM Guidebook

Design for Manufacturing Guidebook This guidebook offers a comprehensive look at design for manufacturing, and how to ensure your PCB design will be manufacturable at high yield. We've included over 100 pages with detailed examples, a huge glossary, and much more. Read Article

The Best PCB Design and Manufacturing Practices for Moisture Management

PCB Protective Coatings: The Best PCB Design and Manufacturing Practices for Moisture Management A source of PCB malfunctions during PCB manufacturing, especially in outdoor environments, comes from moisture on the boards. Fortunately, there are several options for protecting your boards when they are deployed. Read on to learn which is best for your application. I once had an outdoor sensor system with a custom PCB protective coating that would stop recording data for two hours at dawn every day. This was not because the board needed its Read Article

When to Use PCB Thermal Pads or Paste for Thermal Management Design

When to Use PCB Thermal Pads or Paste for Thermal Management Design It’s rare that one will offhandedly know which thermal interface material will work the best for their PCB thermal pad. This article weighs the advantages and disadvantages of thermal pads vs. pastes with these helpful guidelines. Read on to find out more about thermal management and thermal design! I used to live in Alabama, which I casually referred to as Hell in the summertime. Lots of heat, lots of humidity, lots of sweat. I am thankful Read Article

SpaceX to Launch Modular Falcon Rocket with Reused Engines

SpaceX to Launch Modular Falcon Rocket with Reused Engines Modular, reusable design is a design methodology that demands serious consideration. SpaceX have put the associated advantages to work with their Falcon family of spacecraft. The Falcon Heavy long-range heavy payload rocket, their latest effort, is built from existing Falcon models. Moreover, the Falcon rockets are engineered to land in a controlled manner, so that they can be reused for future missions. In their next mission, SpaceX will launch Read Article

PCB teardrop

Use PCB Teardrops to Increase Yield & Design Quality During the PCB fabrication & manufacturing process, there is always a concern of design quality, high yield, and preventing rework or scrapped boards. If you have even one printed board design under your belt, you have probably already been exposed to a host of unexpected problems at various stages of development. However, there are some simple design decisions that designers can make to prevent low yield and ensure high reliability during Read Article

Rigid-Flex PCB Design - A Fabricator’s Perspective

Rigid-Flex PCB Design - A Fabricator’s Perspective Do you have all the knowledge you need to design not just a proper rigid-flex PCB, but one that’s efficiently optimized for your manufacturing process? Learn how to avoid the 7 most common rigid-flex design mistakes from the manufacturing experts at Sierra Circuits! As PCB designers, we commonly approach rigid-flex design from our limited perspectives, concerning ourselves with streamlining workflows, saving space on board layouts, and choosing Read Article

Creating a custom Altium pick and place file

Creating a custom Altium pick and place file I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file because his assembly house was using antiquated equipment and could not accept a standard Altium pick and place file. I thought it might be helpful to show how to use the Bill of Material generator within Altium Designer^® to create a custom report to meet such needs. I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file Read Article