Senior PCB Designer at Legrand North America, John Watson [OnTrack Podcast]

Created: July 31, 2018
Updated: March 16, 2020

Altium Designer - PCB Design Software Altium 365 - PCB Design Platform Enterprise PCB Design Solutions FREE Trials

Related Resources

risk vs reward

Risk Vs. Reward During the recent IPC APEX expo, there was a lot of discussion about SAP, or semi-additive PCB processes. As with any new technology in PCB manufacturing, there were people that are excited to jump right in and start designing with much finer feature sizes and work through the inevitable changes to the traditional thought process. Others are in a let’s wait and see mode and of course, there are a few skeptics there as well. There were a few stand Read Article

DDR4 routing guidelines

PCB Routing Guidelines for DDR4 Memory Devices and Impedance Follow these DDR4 routing and PCB layout guidelines to ensure signal integrity and correct timing for high speed DDR buses. Read Article

How Parasitic Inductance Can Impact Your ESD Protection

How Parasitic Inductance Can Impact Your ESD Protection When I was a kid, I was certain I was going to be a biologist. I collected all kinds of lizards, tadpoles, and insects, and spent most of my allowance on aquariums for my various creatures to live in. However, one thing really held me back. I am super grossed out by parasites. I will let a mantis or snake crawl all over me, but even looking at a tapeworm gives me dry heaves. Eventually, I went into engineering, where nothing needs weekend Read Article

Solder Bridge Jumper Best Practices in PCB Design

What Is a Solder Bridge? Best Practices in PCB Design A PCB variant is often simply thought of as a new layout created from an old design. However, if you’re creative with your routing and layout, you can use a solder bridge jumper to configure portions of a single PCB layout for multiple variants. This lets you quickly create variants of a PCB layout without rerouting traces or changing your schematics. If you plan to use jumpers in your PCB layout, there are some important guidelines to follow to Read Article

Circuit Replication with Multi-Channel Design

How to Simplify Your Circuit Replication with Multi-Channel Design Circuit replication, especially in flat designs, presents several unique challenges that occur when you copy PCB layout designs. You can't simply copy and paste footprints around your PCB layout and expect all of your design data to remain synchronized without errors. What about reverse engineering? Similarly, when you need to reuse schematic circuit blocks, taking the copy and paste approach simply takes too long and can make your schematics Read Article

Pros and Cons of Different High-Frequency Transmission Line Types

Pros and Cons of Different High-Frequency Transmission Line Types You already know that dating is something I struggle with. After my failed attempts at blind dates and speed dating, I decided it was time to try online dating. I found a nice woman who said she was my age and set up a date. Upon arrival, I found out that I’d been catfished--that wasn’t actually her in the picture! Needless to say, it didn’t go well. It made me realize that I should have done a bit more research about my date and online Read Article

Considerations for Designing a High Voltage PCB

Considerations for Designing a High Voltage PCB I used to think that high voltage applications were only used in power engineering. Since I had no desire to work at a power plant or transformer station, I was safe from having to learn high voltage PCB design considerations. Alas, my interest in space applications proved me wrong and forced me to confront my laziness. It turns out high voltage applications show up in almost every industry, from manufacturing and power plants to medical and Read Article

How to Connect Two PCB Boards With a Bus With a Bus: Do Not Pass When Flashing Yellow

How to Connect Two PCB Boards With a Bus: Do Not Pass When Flashing Yellow During my school days, my favorite time of the day was when the bell rang and we were free to go home. While waiting for my school bus, I spent time messing around with my friends and would be so engrossed in playing that I’d occasionally miss my bus. Naturally, my mom wasn’t too thrilled about having to pick me up after a busy day of work. Missing the school bus, fun as it may have initially seemed, resulted in some serious grounding. Without Read Article

Auto-Interactive Routing to Overcome Obstacles and Other Polygons

Auto-Interactive Routing to Overcome Obstacles and Other Polygons There’s no doubt about it, routing traces on a printed circuit board by hand can be a lot of fun. It’s an engaging challenge to make the routing as neat, tight, and correct as possible to give you the shortest routes with the best signal integrity. Once you are done you can take a lot of pride in knowing that your measured lines are perfect, you differential pairs are spot on, and everything looks great. The only problem is that level of manual Read Article

Determining Impedance with a Microstrip Line Calculator

Determining Impedance with a Microstrip Line Calculator Whether you’re new to PCB design or you’ve made your career out of it, there are many times in RF and high speed design where you need to design microstrip and stripline traces to have a specific impedance. This is done by adjusting the width of the line until the desired impedance value is reached. It's important to understand where impedance calculators are applicable as different calculators include specific assumptions on dielectric Read Article

Back to Home

Take advantage of the world's
most trusted PCB design system.

One interface. One data
model. Endless possibilities.

Effortlessly collaborate with
mechanical designers.

The world's most trusted
PCB design platform

Best in class interactive
routing

View License Options