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Clearing Up Trace Impedance Calculators and Formulas Clearing Up Trace Impedance Calculators and Formulas While it might not be obvious to the casual or to those who think the mathematics underlying PCB design is largely settled, there is plenty of disagreement regarding the right formula to calculate trace impedance. This disagreement extends to online trace impedance calculators, and designers should make themselves aware of the limitations of these tools. The Problem with a Trace Impedance Calculator If you use your favorite search engine to find Read Article
Budgetary Quote Early in the Design Process Budgetary Quote Early in the Design Process New products that will be produced in high volumes always start with a prototype, and multiple boards will end up being built throughout the product design and development process. Costs involved have to be scrutinized along the way and at each stage in prototyping, and one way to do this is to request a budgetary quote for your design. Budgetary quotes provide an estimate for procuring the PCB, assembly services, and the parts in the assembly Read Article
Benchmarking Practices and Process for PCB Designers Benchmarking Practices and Process for PCB Designers Benchmarking is a company-wide process for analyzing company performance against industry leaders. Companies use it to better understand how their top products perform and allows them to develop plans to improve or adapt specific technologies or practices. Benchmarking uses a set of metrics to measure performance, such as cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure Read Article
Why PCB Data Management is Important Why PCB Data Management is Important Recently, I celebrated a birthday. Although I do not want to give away my age, let us say I can easily order from any senior menu in a restaurant. I realize the older I get that either I am slowing down or things are speeding up. I concluded it was a bit of both, but much more of the latter. In the words of Charles Dickens in the literary classic A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times.” Those in the electronics Read Article
PCB Designers Motivated by Data Quality PCB Designers Motivated by Data Quality When you look at the many steps involved with a single PCB design, it is easy to get lost in those details. Figuring out our next steps is often overwhelming. When that happens to me, after taking a deep breath, I repeat a common phrase that has become my professional mantra. “Eat the Elephant.” The old riddle is, how do you eat the elephant? Answer: One bite at a time. It is a skill to take a massive project and break it down to its parts Read Article
How to Build a Clean and Consistent PCB Data Library PCB Library Standardization: How to Build a Clean and Consistent PCB Data Library Judy Warner: Cherie, before we get started, please take a moment to define what a “library” is and what the full scope of that entails. Cherie Litson: Most of us would define a “library” as a consistent file of symbols and a consistent file of footprints (decals, land-patterns, etc.) connected with some form of a database. You don’t even need to have the database, just a good schematic symbol file and a footprint file and a method to link them Read Article
Dk And How Datasheets Impact Your Design Dk Values And How Datasheets Impact Your Design In this OnTrack episode we'll talk about Dielectric constant (Dk) and the difference between Design Dk & Process Dk. How datasheets can be confusing and can impact your design? Listen in for more. Read Article
high-speed PCB design PCB Signals: Key Elements of High-Speed PCB Design Understanding the Challenge How Long is too Long? Matching the Impedances Where does the Return Energy Flow? Differential Pairs What about Vias? Crosstalk Dancing in Time The Board The Materials The Layers Possible Layer Stackups Understanding the Challenge The purpose of this article is to introduce the key elements of high-speed design and then discuss how each of those elements is tackled in Altium Designer. This article does not attempt to Read Article
Intro to High-Speed Design TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION Complicated PCB Design for High-Speed Applications High-Speed Constraints Are Used in Every Phase of the Design Process Analyzing the Design for Consistent Operation that Meets Specification You’re creating products that are made for the present day, which means moving past traditional PCB technology and design techniques. It takes more than innovation to perform these tasks well - how do you create high-speed interfaces Read Article
What is PCB Data Management What is PCB Data Management? Successful design and manufacture of any PCB requires managing data. Every PCB project includes a ton of data on the components, front-end schematics, the physical layout, and manufacturing files. There is other documentation that may be needed that is not captured in your PCB design software. This all has to be tracked and managed by the designer because working with incomplete or out-of-date data will result in a design that doesn't perform as Read Article
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