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Altium Bill of Materials: Keep It Simple With ActiveBOM Altium's Bill of Materials Software: Get Rid of ORCAD's BOM and Keep It Simple With ActiveBOM I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to be a software engineer. I want software that does routine tasks in the background, leaving me to focus on creative activities. Leaving behind rote demands moves my day into dealing with higher-level details like how electricity flows through components. That’s why I’ve ditched ORCAD Bill of Materials software and moved on to Altium’s ActiveBOM–the best Bill of Materials software. Making Bills of Read Article
Test Out and Validate High-Speed Designs with Signal Integrity Simulation Test Out and Validate High-Speed Designs with Signal Integrity Simulation Sometimes the biggest onion can’t be peeled. It seems simple enough. You pick up an onion, a knife, and get going. It would be nice if all of life were so simple, and I suppose it is if you can just break each task into a simple series of steps. Along with intuitive tools, each step leads to the next and pretty soon you’re sending commands from your smart phone to your food processor before you get home. Signal integrity simulators feel like a Read Article
Using Altium's PDN Analyzer and Incorporating Simulation-Driven Workflow Using Altium's PDN Analyzer and Incorporating Simulation-Driven Workflow If you’ve ever placed your hand near the vent on your computer, you can get a sense for the heat being created by the motherboard. Fans are designed to remove heat generated by the components on your motherboard, particularly by your CPU and GPU. The same effects occur in PCBs, even if they do not include components that consume a large amount of power. Power is consumed as it is delivered from the power source to the components, and power drops Read Article
Optimizing Design Output Files for Large Batch Production Optimizing Design Output Files for Large Batch Production For as long as PCB designers have used CAD tools to design their circuit boards, they have also had to create output files from those CAD tools to get the design manufactured. This used to be a time-consuming task involving a lot of manual intervention. You would have to create several related documents in addition to the data files, and perhaps even use a different design tool to create manufacturing drawings. Anymore though, the process of Read Article
Utilizing Creative Routing Solutions with Tight Component Placement PCB Creativity and Training: Utilizing Creative Routing Solutions with Tight Component Placement When I was working in a research lab and designing PCBs for our homemade optical systems, my layouts were down and dirty. We didn’t worry about little things like packaging, limited board space, or compact routing. We were happy as long as we could get all of the required components to appear on the board and eventually the board became a printed circuit. Once our microscope systems became more intricate, connecting our high speed, custom images Read Article
Easily Placed Surface Mount Technology with 3D Viewing Software Easily Placed Surface Mount Technology with 3D Viewing Software Years ago while designing a printed circuit board for one of my company’s products, I was called over to the mechanical design department for an impromptu meeting. They had pulled in my design files into their 3D mechanical CAD system and wanted to show me something. There it was as big as life; one of my tall electrolytic capacitors was sticking up right through the plastic enclosure. While trying to restrain their laughter, they sarcastically Read Article
How a Components Search Engine Helps You Choose Parts For Your PCB How a Components Search Engine Helps You Choose Parts For Your PCB If you owned a computer during the 1990’s, then you remember when internet search engines became massively popular. Most homepages were likely set to one of the three or four major search engines. This made surfing the digital highway so much easier, and now search functionality is integrated in many different websites and applications. Anytime you need to quickly locate specific entries in a large database, using a search engine is the fastest Read Article
Browsing Electronic Component Distributor Inventory with Integrated Libraries Browsing Electronic Component Distributor Inventory with Integrated Libraries Even though I make a lot of lists just to keep track of all the different activities going on with my business, it gets tiring. When I need to buy office supplies, it helps to have all my options in one place so that I can figure out where I need to go to buy everything. Thankfully, when you’re sourcing for your PCB, there are solutions that show you all your distributor options. Browsing through distributor websites to source components for your Read Article
Build Your Next Engineering BOM With Integrated Design Software Build Your Next Engineering BOM With Integrated Design Software It’s easy to collaborate on a project with a small number of people. I’ve always found that two or three people can thoroughly hash out the details on a project in person and produce great results. But as a team grows in size, you’ll spend more time reading and writing documentation. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps formalize processes and products across an organization and ensures that everyone can stay on the same page. Any new Read Article
Integration of Schematic Capture, Layout, and Databases Improves Efficiency Integration of Schematic Capture, Layout, and Databases Improves Efficiency Do you like seeing old classic cars in movies and on TV? So do I. Would slipping behind the wheel of a vintage Model T Ford for a test drive be the highlight of your bucket list? Mine too. Would it be as simple and easy as they show on TV? Absolutely not. Of the three pedals on the floor of the Model T, the left controls first gear, neutral, and second gear depending on if you push it in all the way, half way or not at all. The middle pedal is Read Article
When to Prefer a Longer Trace Over an Additional Via When to Prefer Longer PCB Traces Over Additional Vias Whenever I go to buy a new big-ticket appliance, I always weigh my options. Sometimes I let this paralyze me, and I end up making a spending decision that I later regret. But it doesn’t have to be this way when deciding how to route signals in your next PCB. When you have many components and interconnects to place on your PCB, you need to weigh your options. Dense routing is as much an art as it is science, and having as much information as Read Article
Electronic Parts Sourcing with Integrated Component Libraries Electronic Parts Sourcing with Integrated Component Libraries The weekend is grocery time at our house, and we always make a thorough list of everything we need for the next two weeks and where we will be buying it. You may not be as meticulous as my wife and I when it comes to buying groceries, but it pays to be thorough when you need to build a bill of materials for your PCB. Once you’ve got your design complete, you need to ask yourself: where am I going to get all of these components I just placed in my Read Article
Identify Vendor Parts Early: Manage BoMs Proactively With Consolidated Part Sourcing Identify Vendor Parts Early: Manage BoMs Proactively With Consolidated Part Sourcing Walking a tightrope requires intricate balance. Simply visualized as a walker and a rope in space. Simple moves into complexity when the walker’s senses are skewed to balance. Careful placement of each foot pulls from neurological pathways communicating intricate information simultaneously. Should information fail to arrive when the foot is moving may push the walker off the rope. Managing Bills of Material from early circuit concept through Read Article
What to do With Unused Pins on a Microcontroller STM32 and Other Microcontrollers: What to Do with Unused Pins? I must admit that I’m not exactly the right person to turn to for cleaning tips. I dread the annual spring cleaning as there are always surprises in the storerooms to deal with. Occasionally, I stumble upon items that I barely even recognize but eventually decide to hold on to. While my indecisiveness with unused items results in some nagging from my wife and loss of additional space, failing to deal with unused pins on a microcontroller can have Read Article
A Complete Bill of Materials and Other Suggestions for Error Free PCB Manufacturing A Complete Bill of Materials and Other Suggestions for Error Free PCB Manufacturing Long before my youngest son became a teenager, we already knew that in everything that he did he worked at turning the situation around to best benefit himself. At one point he was doing something that he shouldn’t be doing, and I told him that if he continued down that path that I would ground him. Instead of backing off as I expected, he instead had a contemplative look on his face as he asked me; “for how long would I be grounded?” I couldn’t Read Article
Don't Undervalue Ease of User Interface Don't Undervalue Ease of User Interface You know how cooking can get complicated when you aren’t in your own kitchen? Since they aren’t “right where you left them”, you have to hunt for a pan or utensil that will work for what you are doing. It takes more time and possibly burning some eggs while you are looking for a spatula. And that’s just cooking something simple for breakfast; imagine trying to prepare a complicated meal. Situations like this are what help the restaurant business Read Article
Count the Cost With Rigid Flex PCB Cost Comparison Count the Cost With Rigid Flexible PCB Cost Comparison When my oldest boy bought his first car I was worried that he might have made a mistake. Sadly my worries turned out to be true and he was stuck with a lemon. I believe that his exact words were; “It seemed like such a good deal at the time”. He thought that paying less money for an older car would be a benefit, and of course, his actual experience was the exact opposite. The old expression of “count the cost” before you buy applies to everything Read Article