John Watson on Screws, Washers, Schematics, and Footprints

Created: December 9, 2018
Updated: March 16, 2020

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Troubleshooting EMC Immunity Issues Most PCB Designers wear many hats, and one of them is to solve EMC problems. How can you acquire this skill that is not offered in the university? Watch now or listen on the go! Read Article

Part 1: Why Your PCB Design Review Process Is Obsolete and What You Can Do About It A printed circuit board (PCB) design review is a practice to review the design of a board for possible errors and issues at various stages of product development. It can range from a formal checklist with official sign-offs to a more free-form inspection of schematic drawings and PCB layouts. Some companies do it completely in-house, while others get help from design firms and contractors. In many cases, they involve their contract manufacturers Read Article

How to Route a PCB Learn about Routing a PCB and how to design traces to proper routing in any device. You can access the best PCB routing features in Altium Designer. Read Article

Controlled ESR Capacitors: Should You Use Them for Power Integrity? I can’t think of a single product I’ve built that doesn’t require capacitors. We often talk a lot about effective series inductance (ESL) in capacitors and its effects on power integrity. What about effective series resistance (ESR)? Is there a technique you can use to determine the appropriate level of resistance, and can you use ESR to your advantage? Like many answers to important engineering questions, the answer is “it depends.” One type of Read Article

Efficient Heat Dissipation with SMD Heat Sinks Keeps You From Dropping PCBs In electronics, there is the possibility that your PCB can get pretty hot due to power dissipation in certain components. Whenever a component reaches an extreme temperature that goes beyond a component's safe operating range, its lifetime will be greatly reduced or the component may fail immediately. The heat-producing component being defective means the entire PCBA will need to be scrapped. There are many things to consider when dealing with Read Article

How to Simulate a PCB Design Get started with a PCB simulation and learn how to simulate a PCB design. Make sure you use the best PCB simulation software in Altium Designer's unified environment. Read Article

What Causes Gibbs Ringing in High-speed Channel Simulations? Gibbs ringing is both a measurement artifact and a calculation artifact that arises in band-limited channels. Make sure you understand how this arises due to transform and convolution operations. Read Article

How the Gibbs Phenomenon Produces Measurement Artifacts The Gibbs phenomenon is a measurement artifact that can be mistaken for real signal integrity problems like ground bounce, ringing from reflections, or resonance on short lines. Read Article

What is PCB Component Creation? Learn more about PCB component creation and how you can easily create components with the best CAD features in Altium Designer. Read Article

State of PCB Design Education Zach Peterson shares his insights about the availability and accessibility of education related to PCB design for high school and university students. Watch or listen on the go now. Read Article

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