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Chris Carlson: How to Get Your Layer Stack Right

Chris Carlson: How to Get Your Layer Stack Right Altium FAE, Chris Carlson, demonstrates two ways to make sure you get your layer stack right at your fabricator the first time...every time! Altium FAE, Chris Carlson, demonstrates two ways to make sure you get your layer stack right at your fabricator the first time...every time! Read Article

Why Would Anyone Migrate from Xpedition Enterprise to Altium Designer?

Why Would Anyone Migrate from Mentor Xpedition Enterprise to Altium Designer? Many users of Xpedition Enterprise didn’t choose it: it was inherited in an acquisition or packaged in a bundle with other products. Now they find they have expensive support costs and many features that they never use. Plus, the tool UI are old and tired, making design more time consuming than it should be. Moving to Altium Designer^® gives you a modern, efficient and unified UI, fast and efficient routing, and superior data management. A few Read Article

Which IoT Protocol Is Best Suited to Your Design Requirements

Which IoT Communication Protocols Are Best Suited to Your Design Requirements For IoT products, the interoperability question depends on the communications protocol you use, since most products can’t communicate with systems using a different protocol. The protocol you choose will also affect your hardware. For example, transmission distance will determine your available IoT modules, power requirements, and shape the network configuration for your system. There are a huge number of protocols to choose from. New versions Read Article

FIRST Robotics Competition Makes STEM Students into Superstars

FIRST Robotics Competition Makes STEM Students into Superstars Over 25 years ago, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) founder and prolific inventor, Dean Kamen, envisioned a high school robotics competition that rivaled the energy and excitement of the Super Bowl. An event that would turn science students into superstars and infect them with an unshakeable passion for STEM activities and careers. Chris Jennings has an infectious enthusiasm for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), as well as a rich history with Read Article

PCB Designer Cherie Litson: Accomplished BSEE and Master CID Instructor

PCB Designer Cherie Litson: Accomplished BSEE and Master CID Instructor Cherie Litson is an accomplished BSEE and Master Instructor for CID and CID+ training at Eptac. She has enjoyed a long career as a PCB design professional and now spends her days training and certifying other designers. Here she shares how she became a designer, her thoughts on differences between men and women in business approach, and what advice she would offer to others thinking about a PCB design profession. Warner: Cherie, can you tell us Read Article

How Low Power Wide Area Networks Are Enabling IoT Systems

How Low Power Wide Area Networks Are Enabling IoT Systems LPWANs can enable something like a “smart” city. What do civil engineers love, but electrical engineers hate? Concrete. This thing that makes up the base of our physical world often confounds the electrical signals that are the foundation of our digital world. Parking decks, malls, and underground structures all suffer from bad signal coverage. Without some kind of window or repeater, you’ll rarely get good coverage in these areas. That’s Read Article

Altium Designer 17.1: The Latest Version of Intuitive Design Technology is Here

Altium Designer 17.1: The Latest Version of Intuitive Design Technology is Here Altium Designer^® 17.1 was tailored specifically for today’s engineer. We understand that industry pressures to build more advanced, more efficient products can oftentimes mean a lag in the technology required to accommodate these demands. Our focus was to address these present-day challenges and fully equip designers with the necessary tools for optimum design. The pressure is on for you! You have to get to market in less time with more features Read Article

Over-The-Air Connectivity Means Quick Updates, but New Security Challenges

Over-The-Air Connectivity Means Quick Updates, but New Security Challenges Thanks to the accelerating pace vehicle systems are being computerized, updating and securing control firmware is a new responsibility for automotive manufacturers. Over-the-air connectivity means crucial patches, especially those closing security holes, can be silently pushed to thousands of cars without user intervention. That said, it’s important to realize that an over-the-air solution presents a double-edged sword: if not implemented Read Article

Biodegradable PCBs: Will They Really Help With PCB Waste Disposal?

Biodegradable PCBs: Will They Really Help With PCB Waste Disposal? Isn’t the expansion of the PCB industry incredible? In the last 100 years, we’ve gone from using brass wire and pieces of wood to etched copper traces and fiberglass substrates. New industries like the Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in cars are accelerating that growth. There are millions of PCBs in existence today, and that number will only continue to grow. The funny thing is that we design a printed Read Article

Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles: Pros and Cons of Multiple Sensor Fusion

Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles: Pros and Cons of Multiple Sensor Fusion Think back to when you were a child, how did you think the future would look? Spaceships, flying cars, internet connected eating utensils? We have many of the things I hoped we would, but somehow cars have lagged behind. I was expecting to see flying cars zooming through the sky and driverless cars whizzing through the streets. I don’t have a solution for flying cars, but there is something that’s making unmanned autonomous vehicles a reality Read Article

How to Choose a Communications Module for Your IoT Product

How to Choose Communications Modules in Your IoT Products A lot of my friends are engineers and we are constantly talking shop. If you’re in the mood for hearing about weird IoT, then it’s always a good idea to ask what project they are working on. I’ve stopped asking what programs they’re using since everyone is learning Python. Seriously, everyone. We talk about what’s fun at work, it’s usually design, but sometimes it’s soldering. We talk about what’s terrible at work, and it’s usually component Read Article

IoT Security: Physical Layer Security for IoT PCBs

IoT Security: Physical Layer Security for IoT PCBs Internet of Things security will be a big issue as the IoT expands. IoT security is definitely an issue getting more attention with the proliferation of devices and services coming to market. As the number of IoT products grows there are greater security risks. You’re not helpless to stop them, though. There are several methods that can mitigate physical security risks for your IoT PCB. These include shielding your board from EMI, designing for Read Article

How Ultrafast UV Lasers are Improving HDI PCB Design Layouts

How Ultrafast UV Lasers are Improving HDI PCB Design Layouts Don’t let your manufacturers use Kylo Ren’s lightsaber - too unstable and too many defects. Do you remember the first time you saw Star Wars? I was 12 and it changed my world forever. I’d seen my future. Instead of a car, I would fly a spaceship. Instead of being an accountant like my father, I would be a lightsaber-wielding Jedi. Sadly, I turned out to be neither a Jedi or an accountant, but a humble PCB. Lasers still have a place in my life Read Article

Why You Need Integrated Circuit Simulation: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

Why You Need Integrated Circuit Simulation: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites Altium Audio Bites gives 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: Why You Need Integrated Circuit Simulation. 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 comments Read Article

Why Version Control Should Be Implemented in Your PCB Design Software

Why Version Control Should Be Implemented in Your PCB Design Software Everyone’s worst nightmare - the blue screen of death! Getting back into the flow after a business trip is never easy, but my return this week has been particularly challenging. We have a time critical contract with our client, so everyone on the project is operating at >100%. I was staying on track until I opened my Board design software and saw that someone had made changes to my layout. They removed two of the four tines from my smart fork Read Article

PCB Mechanical Design and 3D Modeling Assists With PCB Design In Embedded Systems

PCB Mechanical Design and 3D Modeling Assists With Board Design In Embedded Systems When I was in college, we electrical engineers (EEs) always looked down our noses at the mechanical engineers (MEs). Our department had an introduction to electrical engineering class for the MEs (with a full-fledged 3D printer), which we referred to as “shocks for jocks.” It’s a bit sad that the mechanical nerds were “jocks” to us. The rivalry between electrical and mechanical engineering often continues after university and plays out in the Read Article

Using Cans for EMI Shielding on Your PCB

Using Cans for EMI Shielding on Your PCB Make sure your can has enough clearance from the components it’s shielding. Preventing electromagnetic interference is critical for proper functioning of your PCB design. In addition to good design practices, can shields can also be used to isolate sensitive components. Did you ever play Operation? The game where you had to fish little pieces out of an awkward looking body without touching the edges of the slot. When you hit an edge, your failure Read Article