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Prise en main d'Altium Concord Pro™ Prise en main d'Altium Concord Pro™ Read Article
Calculating your Fabrication Capability Coefficients Calculating Your Fabrication Capability Coefficients People have long asked me, “How do you know if a fabricator is capable of manufacturing my boards?” First, I tell them to ask for an IPC PCQR2 Report. If that is not available and there is no time or money to go through the process, then calculating the Fabrication Capability Coefficient is a good ‘second-best’. Fabrication Yields The Fabrication Capability Coefficient (FCC) is computed from a fabricator’s electrical test data, their First Pass Read Article
High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project This week, I’m building a high-performance sub-1GHz transceiver that I want to use as a standalone Internet of Things node using the ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller. As with my other projects, this project is open source and published on GitHub for you to use as the basis of your own design, or to use as-is. The RF schematic and layout are production proven, as are the microcontroller schematic and all footprints on the board. However, do keep in Read Article
Pad Stack Design And Fine Pitch Components, Part 2 Pad Stack Design And Fine Pitch Components, Part 2 What happens when you try to route two traces between pins on 1mm and below pitch BGAs? In Part 1 of this article, I reviewed the various aspects of unplated holes in the pad stack and what is needed to calculate the complete dimensioning of the finished hole size of the plated through-hole. Within this article, an analysis was done to determine how much room there was for traces between BGAs with a pin spacing of 1 mm on high layer count PCBs Read Article
Frequency Modulation Simulation in Altium Designer Frequency Modulation Simulation in Altium Designer When working with analog signals, you need to ensure your device is operating linearly in order to prevent problems like harmonic distortion during operation. Nonlinear interactions in analog devices lead to distortion that corrupts a clean analog signal. It may not be obvious when an analog circuit clips just from looking at your schematic or datasheets. Instead of tracing through your signal chain manually, you can use simulation tools to get Read Article
PCB Trace Width vs. Current Table for High Power Designs PCB Trace Width vs. Current Table for High Power Designs Copper is a strong conductor with a high melting point, but you should still do your best to keep temperatures low. This is where you’ll need to properly size power rail widths to keep the temperature within a certain limit. However, this is where you need to consider the current flowing in a given trace. When working with a power rail, high-voltage components, and other portions of your board that are sensitive to heat, you can determine the Read Article
WifiWall Technology Protects Against Cyberattacks WifiWall Technology Protects Against Cyberattacks Do you travel a lot? If so, do you use your smartphone, tablet, or notepad computer in airports or hotels? Even if you aren't a road warrior, do you use any of the aforementioned devices in public places like coffee bars? WiFiWall 5.0 Traveler (Image source: WiFiWall.com) In my case, I would answer with a resounding "Yes" to all the above. Of course, just about everyone these days knows that public Wi-Fi is subject to nefarious folks mounting all Read Article
A Comparison of NVIDIA’s Embedded AI Computing Platform Options A Comparison of NVIDIA’s Embedded AI Computing Platform Options Each new embedded AI computing platform blurs the lines between man and machine... When I first got started with machine learning applications, specifically text classification and sentiment analysis, I was working with an eCommerce client building everything onto a web server. Given the huge amount of data we continue working with on a daily basis, it only made sense to build our platform on a dedicated server. For some AI applications Read Article
Python Dragging Students into STEAM Python and CodeBots Dragging Students into STEAM CodeBot. Image source: Firia Labs I have a friend. It's true. I'm not joking. Settle down. Look -- I'm not going to continue until you cease squirming in your seat and stop giggling. That's better. Now, if you're quite finished, we'll continue. We'll call my friend David (because that's his name). David is one of the cleverest guys I know. He has a size-16 brain -- the type with the go-faster stripes painted down the side. He has expertise with Read Article
High Speed Design Features Growing Forward with Altium and Simberian Partnership High Speed Design Features Growing Forward with Altium and Simberian Partnership Happy New Year from Altium! In our first article of the year we talk to Roger Paje, VP of Sales and Marketing at Simberian about our recently formed formal partnership and how their highly accurate field solver technology is helping usher in new high-speed design capabilities in Altium Designer such as layer stack, impedance and surface roughness modeling. These enhancements began in Altium Designer 19, were amplified in Altium Designer 20, and Read Article
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