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PCB Design

Series-Terminated Transmission Line Voltage and Current Waveforms

Voltage and Current Waveforms on a Series-Terminated Transmission Line In both of our books, Right the First Time, A Practical Handbook on High Speed PCB and System Design, Volumes 1 and 2, as well as in our on-site and public courses, we talk about the value of a series-terminated transmission line. With this type of transmission line, no power is being used unless the line is being charged up. This enables a lot of computing with a minimum of power. But having a clear understanding of how this type of line Read Article

Building the Library - Unified Data Model

Building the Library - Unified Data Model Altium Concord Pro™ as a standalone product and brand name has been discontinued and the capabilities are now available as part of our Altium enterprise solutions. Learn more here. Introduction This may come as a shock to some, but I was raised on a farm back in Pennsylvania. Every spring, we would prepare for the planting season. It was amazing to me to take the seeds, plant them in the field, tend them, and in time end up with a crop. Within Read Article

PAM4 Vs. NRZ Modulation Techniques

PAM4 Vs. NRZ Modulation Techniques If there has been one constant about products designed for the internet/networking market spaces, it’s the data rate and frequency of operation at which the technology operates. In some cases, it can be argued that these two dynamics (data rate and frequency) are not necessarily proportional. Still, the former of these meets the criterion of being TNGT (the next greatest technology). With software, the evolution of products is mostly Read Article

Altium 365 Library Migration: How it Works and Why You Should Use It

Altium 365 Library Migration: How it Works and Why You Should Use It Your libraries are the cornerstone of your PCB design projects. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to load up custom footprints, access schematic symbols, or much else for your PCB projects. When you need to share projects or existing component data with your team, what’s the easiest way to get the data you need without creating long email chains? Before working with Altium 365, we were stuck using tools like Slack, email, an FTP server, Dropbox Read Article

Making Connections! Scott McMorrow, on Building Relationship with Samtec as a Connector Supplier

Making Connections! Scott McMorrow, on Building Relationship with Samtec as a Connector Supplier When it comes to providing the widest range of connecting or interconnect technology, there probably isn’t a company that offers a more diverse range of products than Samtec. And when it comes to being at the forefront of the connector industry and technology range, there isn’t anyone more well-versed and knowledgeable than Scott McMorrow, who serves as CTO of Samtec’s signal integrity product group. This article will address the ways in which Read Article

How to Create a CI/CD Pipeline for Your PCB Design

How to Create a CI/CD Pipeline for Your PCB Design In this article, Ari Mahpour demonstrates how to create a full CI/CD project example using GitLab, which offers a free Git server with built-in CI/CD capability. Read Article

An Introduction to NFC

An Introduction to NFC I used to work in a research lab that worked primarily with RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, particularly for the agriculture industry and cattle identification. These were very specialised fields. However, the lab also worked on projects which involved retail and various other applications for NFC. It’s an amazing technology that you might be using every day without thinking about it - from Read Article

USB Power Delivery for Your Next Project

USB PD: Power Delivery for Your Next Project Since its introduction in the late 90s, the USB standard has never ceased to grow in popularity. Multiple revisions of the standard have kept it relevant to the growing demands of data delivery, which has made it the ubiquitous choice for electronic devices. There has been a growing trend toward USB being a power delivery interface with data, rather than a data interface that can supply power, as the 1.0 specification originally intended. To Read Article

EMI Case History — Noise Problems And Their Solutions — Part 1

EMI Case History — Noise Problems And Their Solutions — Part 1 There is an old saying about experience being the best teacher but, more often, the appropriate adage is: “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives us the test first, the lesson afterward.” (Vernon Law). This can definitely apply to the PCB product development process when problems missed during design can arise when the working hardware is put into operation. The foregoing is an apt description of an EMI design issue that we encountered Read Article

The “Mini Monkey” Board – Using the LPC55S69 in the VFBGA98 Package

The “Mini Monkey” Board – Using the LPC55S69 in the VFBGA98 Package For as long as I can remember, I have been a microcontroller addict. In 2020 there is no shortage of component selection. We are also at an interesting period where MCUs can tackle complicated tasks that we may have chosen a high-end applications processor for. Quite a bit of my career has been focused on doing really awesome things in the MCU space as you get a great balance of cost, design control, and simplicity. I am always on the lookout for Read Article

how to keep schematics organized

Perfect Styling for Your Organization with Altium 365: How to Keep Schematics Organized We all had a moment when piles of annotated schematics were growing on our desk, and we started losing track of what was what. What revision is this? Did my colleague check it? Is this IC the new one, or the one that used to go up in flames every full moon? In this article, I want to show you how to how to keep schematics organized and make a stunning personalized schematic template for your business that is ready for Altium 365 and the 21st Read Article

Why PCB Power Rails Need to be Low Impedance

Why PCB Power Rails Need to be Low Impedance Read to learn what constitutes power rails, how it functions, and how fear can be a driving factor in making bad design decisions. Read Article

EMI Case History — Noise Problems and Their Solutions — Part 2

EMI Case History — Noise Problems and Their Solutions — Part 2 In Part 1 of this article, I described an EMI noise problem occurring in a LCD touch screen display of an autonomous robot cleaning machine. In order to provide consulting services we needed to solve a problem which originated because of the ground and supply bounce in the leads of the IC devices that were incorporated into that display. In Part 1, I also described the type of equipment in which the operation problem arose, the origin of the Read Article

How to Create a PCB Manufacturing Cost Estimation

How to Create a PCB Manufacturing Cost Estimation Unless I receive a layout job directly from a manufacturer, my clients will usually ask if I’m a manufacturer. My company doesn’t manufacture boards, but I think it’s important to keep clients informed of the manufacturing costs for new PCBs. Once I started gathering estimates for some of my first projects, I started to better understand the primary cost drivers of PCB manufacturing and how to properly structure a comprehensive estimate for my Read Article

DIY Vapour Phase Reflow Control Shield

DIY Vapour Phase Reflow Control Shield With all the projects I’ve been working on, I want a better way to do reflow soldering during board assembly than just using a hot air rework station. Initially, I was looking at converting a toaster oven to run picoReflow, and building a Pi Hat for the required electronics but I was finding that a good convection toaster oven on Amazon was starting to look rather expensive for the quality of work it would do. Another factor that I had to Read Article

Earn Cash Rewards by Referring Friends to Altium

Earn Cash Rewards by Referring Friends to Altium “We use the Altium 365 workspaces as a way to keep all our components, designs, and projects all in one place so that everyone is working from the same source of information. It is also useful for keeping track of these parts as well, and we found the version control system in that very useful.” - Chris Brawn | Senior Design Engineer | Skyships You’ve always been our biggest fans. Why not get a bonus for your efforts? Altium’s referral program Read Article

PCB routing techniques

Altium Designer 20 Changed My PCB Routing Techniques I just finalized my first PCB design using Altium Designer 20®. At the same time, I tested some new AD20 features, and in this article, I’ll share my thoughts about new PCB routing tools which had the biggest impression on me: sliding, and any-angle routing. Having read about and watched videos on these PCB routing tools beforehand, I was eager to try them out. These new features have given me more options for my PCB routing techniques. New PCB Read Article