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PCB Design

Nothing’s Perfect: Tolerance and the IPC

PCB Dimensions: Tolerance and the IPC Here's where we boldly confront a grim reality - nothing is perfect in the real world. We do our best to maintain accuracy in our circuit board designs, but the manufacturing process produces imperfections. Our CAD systems assume a drill is perfectly centered in a round pad. It never is. We declare specific trace widths, and when we measure them on an actual board they are always slightly thinner or thicker than expected. Multiple layers are Read Article

IPv6 and the Internet of Things

IPv6 and the Internet of Things For a while now we’ve been told that IPv4 addresses (you know, the network addresses that look like 192.168.1.1) are running out. and, approximately three decades from now, there aren’t going to be enough of them left to go around. While we have reached the point of IPv4 being fully allocated at a high level, it's still easy to buy or lease IP addresses in any region, and ISPs are not turning down new customers because they cannot allocate them Read Article

Autonomous Device for the Preventive Measurement of Soil Condition

Autonomous Device for the Preventive Measurement of Soil Condition My name is Piotr Lazarek. I’m a second-grade student of the secondary school “Filomata” in Gliwice. For over 5 years, I have been interested in physics, informatics, and technology. One year ago, when I was thinking about the focus of my project, I considered the idea of building a Mars rover. After further thought, I realized that there are dozens of competitions around the world in which hundreds of such vehicles have already been presented. I Read Article

2:41 Greg Papandrew on the Services Better Board Buying Offers Watch Video

3:14 Why You Need to Ask the Questions Watch Video

1:21 Greg Papandrew on Engineers Driving the Buying Process Watch Video

46 Customizable Layer Stack Table Place and customize a layer stack table including width, text, and alignment directly in your PCB workspace. Watch Video

3:31 About the Altium Designer 19.1 Update In this video, Ben Jordan talks about the Altium Designer 19.1 software update, what’s new with some features and bug fixes, and why anyone with Altium Designer should update to this latest release. Watch Video

2:14 Greg Papandrew on His Background and the Buyers of Today Watch Video

3:07 Greg Papandrew on the Importance of Good Customer Service Watch Video

1:59 Greg Papandrew on Better Board Buying Watch Video

2:21 Greg Papandrew on the Need to Train Buyers Watch Video

21 TeamUpandSave_Q4Promo_ES Watch Video

Passive Intermodulation in PCBs for 5G Systems

Passive Intermodulation in PCBs for 5G Systems 5G networks are coming. Are your PCBs ready? Anyone pays attention to the top bar on their phone has noticed the 4G indicator. If you use a major wireless carrier in the U.S., you’ll likely see 5G in the top bar once you buy your next smartphone. 5G systems designers, especially PCB designers, will need to work with higher frequencies, faster data rates, lower power budgets, and plenty of other performance requirements. Nonlinearity will also Read Article

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