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Recent Articles
Looking Forward What to Expect After Switching from OrCAD
In my collection of tools out in the garage, I have a pair of tin snips far older than I am. I inherited this defective tool from my father, and it may be 80 years old for all I know. These tin snips are difficult to use because they’ve become dull and loose due to their age, but it was hard for me to make a change because they belonged to my dad. The tin snips frustrated me, so I would find ways to work around them. Finally, after being fed up
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Pipelining Your Design File Process with Manufacturing Output Files
An effective PCB design process requires that every step be mapped out and connected together so that the data flows through the design naturally. This type of data management is also known as “pipelining,” and its intention is to guarantee that the design data moves systematically from step to step without any interruption. With advances in today’s PCB design tools the first part of pipelining PCB design data, the component selection process has
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Technological Development Made Easy as Pie with Historical Altium Designer
Some words constantly pop-up in daily conversation. Think about how often the word “easy” is used, whether in a bumper sticker that says, “Easy Does It” or a childhood favorite, Easy Bake Ovens. We tell people to “take it easy” and refer to New Orleans as the “Big Easy.” I’m reasonably certain that a guide or book somewhere out there proclaims the “12 Easy Steps to Becoming a Nuclear Scientist.” In a 1940s film called “The Long Voyage Home,” a
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DDR Layout Tips to Maximize Signal Integrity of Complex Memory Devices
The science of transporting people by air has changed dramatically in a very brief period of time. During the 1920s, the Ford Trimotor was considered the ultimate luxury flight experience. Affectionately known as the “Tin Goose,” the first all-metal, multi-engine airliner could comfortably carry 10 passengers on a 36-hour transcontinental flight. When we consider modern passenger aircraft, the concept of moving people comfortably over long
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Keep Track of Your Components with Electronic Component Database Software
Believe it or not, everyone eventually finds themselves in a situation where they can’t find something they need. You make a list of things you need to get from the grocery store, only to find that your favorite brand is out of stock. Thankfully, grocery stores give you plenty of options right there on the shelves, but you can run into long production delays if this happens when you go to manufacture your next PCB. Sourcing electronic components
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How Integrated Tools Ease Multi-board PCB Systems Design
If you’ve ever taken apart a computer, then you know that the entire system can’t fit on a single PCB. The most complicated devices used in a variety of applications are multi-board systems, and designing these systems takes imagination, planning, and the right design software. Rigid-flex PCBs are just another type of multi circuit board system, and the same design concepts when designing each portion of the board, as well as the flex ribbon that
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Design Guidelines for Your Next Wireless PCB
As a child, I used to watch Star Trek and always marveled at all the technology. Anything wireless on the show was particularly fascinating, especially to a 5-year old. As I aged, and as so many cool things from science fiction became reality, I realized that all these capabilities start with great PCB design. Whether you’re building a better Wifi router, GPS system, or two-way radio, you’ll need to decide which type of antenna to use and how to
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How Autorouters Help Expedite Traces Design
Routing traces around on your PCB is like knitting a quilt. Not only can it take forever, but it requires very precise steps to ensure that all your stitches fit together seemlessly. If you get your stitches wrong, then everything can fall apart. Just like we have automatic threading sewing machines that increase productivity, autorouters can do the same for your PCB. But be wary: not all autorouters have the same capabilities. The best PCB
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Electronic Component Distributors Harnessing the Power of One-Stop Shopping
Every year, I spend time working on my house and car to keep them maintained. Trips to the hardware store include adding parts to my stash at home and I try to keep the trips to a minimum so I can enjoy my downtime. There’s nothing worse than chilling to tunes in my garage on a warm summer day only to find that I don’t have a part. Dropping everything to make a run to the hardware store means completely disrupting my afternoon. So managing my
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Layer Management as a Circuit Board Design Tool Priority
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the same could be said for printed circuit boards. PCBs are similar to cities in that they contain pathways connecting components. Components have dimension into the surrounding air space, as well as into the thickness of the board itself. Hidden subsystems similar to underground wiring and cityscape piping reside within the thickness of the boards. Printed circuit boards mimic cities with their layers of
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Design Rules for Large BGA Fanout
I have known people during my career who insisted on hand-routing every PCB design that they worked on. They would say that their manual routing performed better, looked better, and was just better in general. I’m not going to argue one way or the other on that, but I will say that there is one thing that can not be argued with; all of that manual routing took them a much longer time to complete than if they had used automated routers. With today
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Asymmetric Striplines in Your Next Multi-layer PCB
The beauty of symmetricity in art, science, and nature, in general, is something of a wonder. The visual balance between elements in a painting or drawing can make or break a piece of artwork. PCB design is as much art as it is engineering, and symmetricity plays as much of a technical role as it does an aesthetic role. Ever since its humble beginnings as a replacement for high frequency coaxial cables and waveguides, striplines are a mainstay
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Building Your Next Multi-Level Bill of Materials
My wife and I always argue about what goes on the grocery list each week. I’m a total carnivore, while she prefers I get everything we need from local farmers. Planning out our shopping trips in multiple lists does more than just allow us to plan our Saturdays coherently, it helps ensure marital bliss. Any PCB that you intend to manufacture will need an associated bill of materials. If you’re building a complex product that includes multiple sub
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Managing 3D Electrical MCAD/ECAD Models for Data Transfer
Communication is tricky when oppositional semantics fail to play well together. This sentence is a good case in point. When ill stated, information is rarely understood. The same goes with software infrastructures. Many do not play well together when information in one is defined differently in another. 3D models of components for use by mechanical and electrical CAD programs are historically represented quite differently across platforms. This
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From Mechanical Drilling to Laser Drilling of Microvias
The first PCBs I made as a young engineer were pretty simple, with wires used to connect components on the top side of the board. Once things got more complicated, board space became a real consideration, and components were packed too close for comfort. I eventually had a tangled mess of wires on the top and bottom sides of the board connecting multiple components. Later on, I learned more about using design software for multilayer design. Using
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Via Size Calculators: Sizing Vias in Your Next Multilayer PCBs
If you’ve ever opened up an old cell phone, you’ve likely noticed the intricate dance between traces and vias. These elements tango with the signal traces on inner board layers, and sizing them properly is as much art as it is science. Your vias are critical for accessing the inner layers in a multi-layer PCB. So how do you choreograph the balance between your vias, traces, and components? Your vias should be sized appropriately if they are to be
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SMD LEDs in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials
Unless you refuse to get out of the house on a Friday night (like me), you’ve probably been at a concert and had the privilege of being bathed in multi-colored lights from the stage. LED arrays provide a great concert experience, but I think that learning what makes them tick is far more interesting. Kingbright (KPKF) surface-mounted LEDs are probably my favorite LED to use on a PCB. They look clean on your board and they are available from a
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