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Multilayer PCB Design: Manufacturing Boards for High Voltage PCBs

Multilayer PCB Design: Manufacturing Boards for High Voltage PCBs One of my favorite movies is the original Shrek. It was thrown into the nerd vernacular of my friends and siblings, along with more traditional sources of quotes, like Star Wars. One scene particularly stands out, when Shrek explains to Donkey that ogres, like himself, are complex creatures. “Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” Donkey points out that not everyone likes onions, but everyone Read Article

Expert PCB Design Advice from the Pros: OnTrack Newsletter July 2017

Expert PCB Design Advice from the Pros: OnTrack Newsletter July 2017 On Track Newsletter July 2017 VOL. 1 No 4 Welcome to the July edition of Altium’s On Track newsletter. In Rock Stars and Superheroes we continue with part two of our conversation with signal integrity guru Rick Hartley, who shares some timeless wisdom for today’s EE and PCB designer. In Maker Space, you will enjoy learning about team Badgerloop from the University of Wisconsin. These undergrad underdogs are just weeks away from their 2nd SpaceX Read Article

PCB Design Guidelines for Designing Solar Powered Embedded Systems: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

PCB Design Guidelines for Designing Solar Powered Embedded Systems: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: PCB Design Guidelines For Designing Solar Powered Embedded Systems. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you Read Article

How to Plan Your PCB Layout for a High Voltage Design: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

How to Plan Your PCB Layout for a High Voltage Design: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: How To Plan Your PCB Layout For A High Voltage Design. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the Read Article

High Speed PCB Design Guidelines: An Overview for Getting Started: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

High Speed PCB Design Guidelines: An Overview for Getting Started: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: How Speed PCB Design Guidelines: An Overview for Getting Started. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you Read Article

Learn from the Master of Signal Integrity: OnTrack Newsletter June 2017

Learn from the Master of Signal Integrity: OnTrack Newsletter June 2017 On Track Newsletter June 2017 VOL. 1 No 3 If the PCB design galaxy had Jedi knights, Rick Hartley would be the Obi-Wan Kenobi of signal integrity. In this month’s edition of Altium’s On Track newsletter, you will have the unique privilege to hear first-hand about Hartley’s failures and triumphs throughout his design career. Next month, in part two of this interview, he will share a few of his “Jedi mind tricks” and offer some advice for today’s Read Article

Machine to Machine Communication and Internet of Things Can Benefit from Wireless Connectors

Machine to Machine Communication and Internet of Things Can Benefit from Wireless Connectors Have you ever bought a new gizmo or gadget and wondered how you lived a life before it? For me, smartphones obviously come to mind. When I was a kid I was content to play with sticks and rocks. Now my kids play with virtual sticks and rocks on their iPhones. High-speed wireless M2M connectors will be like that for the Internet of Things. Keyssa has developed a new short-range chip that operates in the 60 GHz band that they say will replace all Read Article

What Causes Ringing on a PCB and How to Solve It: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

What Causes Ringing on a PCB and How to Solve It: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: What Causes Ringing on a PCB and How to Solve It. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the Read Article

BOM Management Tools and Real Time Part Access: How It Will Help Your PCB Design for Manufacturability

PCB BOM Management Tools and Real Time Part Access: How It Will Help Your Design for Manufacturability Have you ever been so ready to take off on a new project that you can’t wait to jump into it? Of course you have. As engineers that’s part of what makes us tick. We’ve got so many ideas running around in our head that we would rather forego sleep or food in order to create a design. Then it happens, some kind of delay forces us to lock up the brakes on our creative process. There are many scenarios that can do this, but one of the worst is when Read Article

PCB Technology: Considerations for Turning Your Embedded System into a Modbus Remote Terminal Unit

PCB Technology: Considerations for Turning Your Embedded System into a Modbus Remote Terminal Unit There is a misconception that engineers are terrible dates and hopeless in relationships. While I’m no relationship guru, past experiences have taught me that communication, or the lack off, is one of the main reasons relationships fail. Great communication isn’t talking endlessly to your partner, but rather being attentive to what they have to say, or decoding the hidden meaning of their cold silence. If you have mastered the elusive skill of Read Article

10 Best Practices of PCB Design

10 Best Practices of PCB Design Read Article

PCB Design, Robotics, and Video Tips: OnTrack Newsletter May 2017

PCB Design, Robotics, and Video Tips: OnTrack Newsletter May 2017 On Track Newsletter May 2017 VOL. 1 No 2 Welcome to the second edition of the Altium On Track newsletter. This month we feature a very special PCB designer, Cherie Litson, who is a CID and CID+ Master Trainer. We also take you inside the FIRST Robotics Competition and Team Mechanical Mayhem 1519. We’ve also launched a new monthly On Track educational video series which offers design tips and tricks. As usual, there’s plenty of Brain Food and a Read Article

PCB Design and BOM Management: How to Ensure Profitability in Low Volume Manufacturing

Circuit Board Design and BOM Management in Low Volume PCB Assembly What’s the difference between Angry Birds and SpongeBob? I’m probably at an age where I shouldn’t be caring about these things, but choosing the wrong character for my son’s 5th birthday cake could spell disaster. As a designer, you probably can’t relate to my need to carefully consider the repercussions of choosing SpongeBob. However, you might understand it better knowing that I apply the same level of caution when designing for low volume Read Article

PCB Layout Constraints That Help Manage Component Obsolescence

PCB Layout Constraints That Help Manage Component Obsolescence Just about everyone in the world of engineering has heard some variation of the “Iron Triangle” theory. It’s a popular way to talk about what is or isn’t possible among those given the task of getting things done. Basically, it is a philosophy that says you can get something done fast, cheap, or good; pick two. For example, when designing a PCB for an aircraft, cheap goes out the window, fast takes a back seat and quality is paramount Read Article

The Benefits of Having an Automated Bill of Materials in Project Management

BOM Automation: The Benefits of Having an Automated Bill of Materials in Project Management I have some friends who founded a startup company to create and market a brilliant new product. Their product quickly became a success, but all their hard work was constantly undermined by communication issues between departments. It wasn’t long until the engineers found their creative hands tied, purchasing was buried under an avalanche of unreliable documentation, and the product build-in manufacturing was slowed to a crawl from incorrect and Read Article

Flywheel and Flyback Diodes Prevent Electrical Noise in Circuits

Using Flyback Diodes in Relays Prevents Electrical Noise in Your Circuits What is a flyback diode, and how does a flyback diode protect a circuit? When used properly, flyback diodes can reduce electrical noise and prevent flyback voltages from building up. Read Article

How a Bill of Materials Can Improve Your Supply Chain Management

The Benefits of a Bill of Materials In Supply Chain Management Some of the most complicated engineering projects I’ve worked on were made up of multiple layers of sub-assemblies. Before we could order parts for a new assembly, we needed to go through every component in each tier of the final product to ensure that they would meet the rigorous current, voltage, and temperature derating requirements for different customer applications. The first few times I had to do this, it was by merging dozens of excel Read Article