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How Innovative PCB Design Lets Internet of Things Devices Reduce Waste

How Innovative PCB Design Lets Internet of Things Devices Reduce Waste Innovative PCB design with proper component selection can help ensure your internet of things devices have less waste. Read Article

How Tesla Rethought Lithium Ion Cells Through Modular Design and Vertical Integration

How Tesla Rethought Lithium Ion Battery Cells Through Modular Design Schematics and Vertical Integration Lithium Ion batteries provide high performance and fast recharging, making them ideal for electric vehicles. However, their cost has always been a barrier to adoption in the world of electric vehicles. Tesla has sidestepped this issue by adopting a highly scalable modular approach. Every battery package they construct is made out of hundreds of one single standard cell. Tesla is taking their battery production in-house, constructing the Read Article

PCB Designer Mike Brown Offers Advice: Stay Hungry, Keep Growing, Nurture Relationships

PCB Designer Mike Brown Offers Advice: Stay Hungry, Keep Growing, Nurture Relationships Mike Brown is a PCB Design Consultant. He caught the design-bug at the tender age of 17 and has never looked back. Recently, he shared the story of his career path from being a young, to design manager, to entrepreneur and finally selling his company, Interconnect Design Solutions (IDS), last year to the Maryland-based contract manufacturer, Zentech Manufacturing. Warner: Mike, looking back, what indicators can you see from your childhood that Read Article

PCB Design Techniques to Help you Keep up with Increasing Complexity

PCB Design Basics to Help You Get Ahead PCB Design Basics in a Growing World Between the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable electronics, PCB design requirements are becoming more and more advanced. You need to keep your eye on the design techniques that can make PCBs smaller, faster, and more flexible in order to keep up with the times. In addition to keeping abreast of design trends, you will likely need training in how to implement the techniques they require. Do you Read Article

The Worst PCB Design Advice I've Ever Heard: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

The Worst PCB Design Advice I've Ever Heard: 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: The Worst PCB Design Advice I've Ever Heard. 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

How To Use A Modular Approach: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites

How To Use A Modular Approach: 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 Use a Modular Approach. 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 below. Read Article

Ubiquitous Internet of Things Devices Will Mean More Work in the PCB Design Industry

Ubiquitous Internet of Things Devices Will Mean More Work in the PCB Design Industry What do iPhones and iRobot have in common? Come on, the ‘i’ is too obvious. They both involve us surrounding ourselves with computers. While I think the future will certainly involve lots of computers, I doubt most of them will be quite as nice and shiny. They also hopefully won’t try to kill us. The ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) is giving birth to a world where everything will have a computer inside of it. In a world full of PCBs, the PCB Read Article

LiDAR Bringing Autonomous Vehicles into the Mainstream Market

LiDAR Bringing Autonomous Vehicles into the Mainstream Market One of my favorite movies from the 2000s was Minority Report. As an engineer, my favorite genre is Science Fiction, and Tom Cruise was my favorite actor. I imagined myself riding in one of those sleek autonomous cars, watching Tom try to outrun his fate. Those cars must have been pretty far in the future because I didn’t see any giant LIDAR arrays on them. New advances in technology could turn Science Fiction into reality. LIDAR developers are Read Article

Designing PCBs for IoT: How to Plan for FCC Certification

Designing PCBs for IoT: How to Plan for FCC Certification and Testing Learn key steps for planning FCC certification in PCB design for IoT devices to ensure successful market entry. Read Article

Electric Vehicles: PCB Designers Mitigate Heat Using Glass-Reinforced PTFE

Electric Vehicles: PCB Designers Mitigate Heat Using Glass-Reinforced PTFE In the demanding world of electric vehicles, PCB’s must provide power conditioning, voltage conversion, and battery management in addition to their usual roles in the automotive context. Unfortunately, these same PCB’s must cope with stringent thermal requirements without heat sinks or fans. PCB designers, however, have found a lasting solution. Board substrate materials with high thermal performance allow PCB’s to avoid or minimize their use of Read Article

How 3D Printed Prototypes are Changing the Landscape of PCB Design

How 3D Printed Prototypes are Changing the Landscape of PCB Design PCB Printers - 3d Printers for PCBs are now a reality and not just for PCB prototypes It’s no surprise that you hate waiting for PCB prototypes. In the time it takes for the test board to arrive you could probably invent a new method for fabricating prototypes. Lucky for you, someone already came up with a new method. New 3D printers use nanoparticle technology to suspend metals in ink (I don’t know how this works, so don’t ask) in order to print Read Article

Protect Your PCBs and Electronic Components from Counterfeit

Protect Your PCB Design: How to Avoid Counterfeit Electronic Components Just like Gucci or Coach handbags, counterfeiting electronic parts is big business overseas and it causes major problems in the printed circuit board component supply chain. Counterfeit electronic components that are sold as genuine can affect everything from your new electronic alarm clock to mission-critical military systems, such as thermal weapons sights, missile guidance systems, and aircraft. Whenever electronic parts are relabeled or Read Article

Structuring Your Design Data Management to Avoid Design Missteps

Structuring Your Design Data Management to Avoid Design Missteps When it comes to PCB design, one very important aspect of the overall process is proper data management and documentation. While the immediate consequences may not be as apparent, mismanagement of your data can have both a direct and indirect effect on your project and design. Proper implementation of data management and documentation ensures the organization, traceability, accountability and reproducibility of your design data. Read on to learn Read Article

DFM Guidebook

Design for Manufacturing Guidebook This guidebook offers a comprehensive look at design for manufacturing, and how to ensure your PCB design will be manufacturable at high yield. We've included over 100 pages with detailed examples, a huge glossary, and much more. Read Article

Flexible PCBs and the Internet of Things: How the Landscape of PCB Design is Rapidly Changing

Flexible PCBs and the Internet of Things: How the Landscape of PCB Design is Rapidly Changing The Internet of Things is a new category of exciting gadgets and appliances transforming the consumer market. However, developing that smartwatch isn’t as easy as putting it on. PCB designers are encountering unique challenges when developing powerful hardware solutions for these products. These PCB’s have to pack performance into a small space while preserving reliability and product budget. Thankfully, recent improvements to an oft-overlooked Read Article

Optimize Software Development for Cars with Standalone Debugging Tools

Optimize Software Development for Cars with Standalone Debugging Tools Expensive to license software development toolsets can cause bottlenecks in your company’s software development process. Standalone debuggers will help distribute the workload for faster, less expensive, development. When I bought my last car, the salesman upsold me on the newer model with heated seats. Well, in the heat of the moment I had forgotten that I live in California. I ended up paying a lot more for a car with heated seats that I only Read Article

How Cutting Edge PCB Design Has Enabled the Nest Thermostat to Transform Homes

How Cutting Edge PCB Design Has Enabled the Nest Thermostat to Transform Homes Not exactly the most thrilling thing in the world. Growing up in the northeast, the thermostat was always a point of contention in my household. It was never set high enough - only 60 degrees in the middle of January! My parents, being the practical people they are, wanted to save energy. If everyone is out at school or work all day, then there’s no point having the heat on full blast. “Besides, you can just put on more layers” they would always Read Article