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Why You Should Take a Modular Approach to PCB Design for Internet of Things Applications

Why You Should Take a Modular Approach to PCB Design for Internet of Things Applications As engineers, one of our worst nightmares is doing the same pointless thing over and over again. Adopting a modular design philosophy for Internet of Things PCBs will save you from that monotony. Optimize your design process and save time, money, and sanity, by reusing your PCB designs. Read on to find out more! While in college I did several projects with Arduino boards. I started with the basic Arduino Uno but later bought several different Read Article

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Which Altium PCB Design Software is Right For You?

Which Altium PCB Design Software is Right For You? Confused as to which Altium professional PCB design product is right for you? Are you just looking to dip a toe with CircuitMaker^®? Are you a professional PCB just starting out or are you a full-blown Printed Board design maestro who needs all the flexible horsepower that Altium Designer^® offers? Find out what Altium software is right for you. Our CMO, Ted Pawela, recently did a live interview with the folks over at Adafruit. One of the questions Read Article

The Best PCB Design and Manufacturing Practices for Moisture Management

PCB Protective Coatings: The Best PCB Design and Manufacturing Practices for Moisture Management A source of PCB malfunctions during PCB manufacturing, especially in outdoor environments, comes from moisture on the boards. Fortunately, there are several options for protecting your boards when they are deployed. Read on to learn which is best for your application. I once had an outdoor sensor system with a custom PCB protective coating that would stop recording data for two hours at dawn every day. This was not because the board needed its Read Article

How to Design Efficient High-Density Interconnect PCBs using Buried and Blind Vias

How to Design High-Density PCBs While Managing Buried and Blind Vias The modern is always being pushed to go smaller and cheaper. Blind and buried vias can help you save space and money on your high density PCB layout (HDI). Blind and buried vias help reduce outer layer usage, leaving more room for SMTs and BGA breakout channels. Read on to find out more! Moore’s Law predicts that the number of transistors in integrated circuits (ICs) will double approximately every two years. This law has held true since 1965 Read Article

Why You Need Integrated Circuit Simulation

Why You Need an Integrated Circuit Simulator Integrated Circuit Simulation: integrated circuit simulator, or simulating ICs? You aren’t a newbie anymore but here’s why we say keep the integrated circuit creator in your toolkit. As your career progresses, you become more confident. You’ll tend to collect circuits you know work well in different designs - power supplies, filters, oscillators, etc. Most of the time these reusable blocks will work great in any place you choose to use them, but Read Article

Requirements and Implications of ASPICE Auto Software Developer Certification

Auto Software Developers: ASPICE Certification and What it Means to You Software developer certification is necessary to guarantee functional safety and quality software products in the automotive industry. The ASPICE auto software developer certifications tell customers if a developer’s products work to specification, if the developer is able to provide support for its products, and how efficiently the developer operates. In college, a few friends and I got our first taste of embedded systems programming during our Read Article

When to Use PCB Thermal Pads or Paste for Thermal Management Design

When to Use PCB Thermal Pads or Paste for Thermal Management Design It’s rare that one will offhandedly know which thermal interface material will work the best for their PCB thermal pad. This article weighs the advantages and disadvantages of thermal pads vs. pastes with these helpful guidelines. Read on to find out more about thermal management and thermal design! I used to live in Alabama, which I casually referred to as Hell in the summertime. Lots of heat, lots of humidity, lots of sweat. I am thankful Read Article

High-Speed PCB Design Principles: Keep Traces Short and Direct

High-Speed PCB Design Principles: Keep Traces Short and Direct Your signals travel at the speed of light, and so does their EMI. As you know, high-speed PCB design can often have issues with EMI. This EMI risk can come from long traces that form transmitting or receiving antennas. Longer traces also cover more distance, which increases the chances that sensitive circuits are affected along the way. Using short traces that take direct paths will help reduce EMI risk from both antennas and trace proximity. I Read Article

High-Speed PCB Differential Pair Routing to Preserve Signal Integrity

High-Speed PCB Differential Pair Routing to Preserve Signal Integrity Proper routing of differential pairs in high speed digital circuits is necessary for preserving signal integrity in PCBs. Some other items to consider when looking at your PCB, may be the ferrite bead or decoupling capacitor. However today, let's discuss some things to set you on the right path. Follow these differential pair routing guidelines and leave your EMI troubles behind. I once went on a blind date with a woman who, unbeknownst to me Read Article

What Are Molded Interconnect Devices or MIDs?

What Are Molded Interconnect Devices or MIDs? What is the next big thing in design? Is it graphene? flex? or maybe something else. If you’ve been thinking about the future of PCB design then you may have come across molded interconnect devices or MIDs. In this blog we’ll explore what MIDs are and some molded interconnect device uses. What are Molded Interconnect Devices? According to MIDIA (Molded Interconnect Devices International Association), a Molded Interconnect Device is an injection Read Article

SpaceX to Launch Modular Falcon Rocket with Reused Engines

SpaceX to Launch Modular Falcon Rocket with Reused Engines Modular, reusable design is a design methodology that demands serious consideration. SpaceX have put the associated advantages to work with their Falcon family of spacecraft. The Falcon Heavy long-range heavy payload rocket, their latest effort, is built from existing Falcon models. Moreover, the Falcon rockets are engineered to land in a controlled manner, so that they can be reused for future missions. In their next mission, SpaceX will launch Read Article

How to Reduce EMI in Mixed-Signal Systems Using Proper PCB Ground Designs

The Right PCB Grounding Design Will Reduce Mixed-Signal EMI Use these PCB grouding design practices to help you prevent EMI in your mixed-signal PCB layout. Read Article

Through hole technology and plated through-hole circuit board mounting for PCBs

Why Use Plated Through Hole Technology in PCB Design? Plated through hole technology components remain important or required in many applications. Learn more about through-hole mounting technology in PCB design. 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

OrCAD Users®のためのAltium Designer®評価ガイド

OrCAD Users®のためのAltium Designer®評価ガイド Read Article

How the Evolution of PCB Design Has Allowed SpaceX's Visions to Take Flight

How the Evolution of Space Mission PCB Design Has Allowed SpaceX's Visions to Take Flight Today, the new frontiers of spaceflight are explored by SpaceX. SpaceX is an ambitious venture to create a new reusable launch system and, ultimately, interplanetary travel. The most visible of these efforts is the Falcon series of rockets. Designed with the goals of reusability and reduced costs, the Falcon series is engineered around ease of manufacturing and assembly. What role does today’s printed circuit board technology, and the computing Read Article