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PCB Design

MIPI Physical Layer Routing and Signal Integrity

MIPI Physical Layer Routing and Signal Integrity If you’re not familiar with MIPI physical layer design and routing, we’ve compiled the information you need for M-PHY, D-PHY, and C-PHY. PCB designers this one is a must read. Read Article

Leveraging Component Data to Build Better Design’s Faster

Leveraging Existing Components Data to Build Better Design’s Faster 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. In the business of robust electronics design, it’s not enough to build something that works, or even something that works well. Working phenomenally is the bare minimum in a competitive landscape. A robust design at a holistic level is one that is made of the correct Read Article

Webinar on XR | Think AR on Steroids

Webinar on XR | Think AR on Steroids Making the business case for XR (Image source: XR Intelligence) Do you remember when the internet first reached the popular consciousness with the release of the MOSAIC web browser circa 1993? A couple of years later, even though almost everyone was aware of the internet by that time, many companies -- including large, multibillion-dollar concerns -- were still debating internally whether it was worth spending their time and resources on having Read Article

8-Bit Micros are Alive and Kicking

8-Bit Micros are Alive and Kicking in Nucleo-8s207k8 Boards The NUCLEO-8S207K8 board boasts a 32-pin STM8S207K8 MCU (Image source: STMicroelectronics) I just heard from the guys and gals at STMicroelectronics (ST) that they are "making design starts using 8-bit STM8 microcontrollers (MCUs) faster, more affordable, and more accessible for creative minds of all types by introducing new development boards in the easy-to-use Nucleo-32 form factor." We will return to consider these little rascals in a moment Read Article

EMI from Heatsinks and What You Can Do About It

EMI from Capacitor Heatsinks and What You Can Do About It Selecting the right heatsink can help you keep your system cool and prevent EMI. While it may not be obvious, or while most designers may not think to check, heatsinks can generate EMI when they are connected to a switching element. This is a common problem in power supply design, and whenever a heatsink is placed in contact with a component that switches with high current draw at high frequency. Reducing EMI from heatsinks requires balancing the Read Article

Some Techniques for Suppressing DC-DC Converter EMI in IoT Products

Some Techniques for Suppressing DC-DC Converter EMI in IoT Products This Li ion battery is most likely connected to a switching regulator to provide stable power. Suppressing EMI susceptibility in IoT devices from various sources is critical to ensuring your new product will work as designed. Similarly, your IoT product should limit spurious emissions if you want it to comply with EMC regulations. Among the various sources of radiated EMI from your next product, EMI within the device itself should also be Read Article

Load Line Analysis for Nonlinear Circuits in Altium Designer

Load Line Analysis for Nonlinear Circuits in Altium Designer If you’re in the business of analog circuit design, then you’ll likely need to run simulations of your system to determine its functionality. Linear systems are rather intuitive, even in the case where strong feedback becomes an important determinant of stability. With nonlinear circuits, this can get more complicated, and it’s not always easy to see how the system operates unless you have some experience with similar systems. Transistors and Read Article

A Retro-Computing Christmas

A Retro-Computing Christmas Sinclair 48K ZX Spectrum computer (1982) (Image source: Bill Bertram/Wikipedia) It's starting to look a lot like (a retro-computing) Christmas. I understand why many younger readers cannot imagine a world before today's incredibly powerful computing and gaming systems with their high-resolution graphics subsystems. We all enjoy these systems, but those of us who are more... let's say "seasoned"… remember the raw excitement we felt just to own any Read Article

Splitting Planes—The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Splitting Planes—The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Splitting planes or making plane cuts is another one of those technical issues wherein there is a lot of conflicting information. Some say it’s a good thing to split power planes; others say you can split ground planes and power planes both, some say you make cuts only in power planes, and others say to avoid plane cuts altogether. This article will debunk the myths surrounding split planes, provide evidence as to when they are useful, and Read Article

Non-functional pads—what are they and what problems can they create?

Capture Pads and Non-functional Pads in PCB Design: What Are They? In previous articles on my blog, I have stated that non-functional pads in PCB artwork should always be removed, but I have not gone into detail as to why this should be the case. In the industry at large, there is some confusion about these pads in PCB designs and whether or not they serve a useful purpose. In this article, I will define what they are, how their use originated, the problems they can create and why they should be removed from PCB Read Article

Geeky Holiday Gift Ideas

Geeky Holiday Gift Ideas The holiday season is coming! I asked both the Altium community and my Altium Library community what geek gifts they are looking for, and I’ve added some of my own for the first ever Altium Geek Gift Guide! This is mostly for electronics geeks, but there should be something for everyone! There are so many amazing geek gifts out there it would be impossible to cover them all, so I’ve tried to keep to community suggestions. I then added just a few Read Article

Calculating your Fabrication Capability Coefficients

Calculating Your Fabrication Capability Coefficients People have long asked me, “How do you know if a fabricator is capable of manufacturing my boards?” First, I tell them to ask for an IPC PCQR2 Report. If that is not available and there is no time or money to go through the process, then calculating the Fabrication Capability Coefficient is a good ‘second-best’. Fabrication Yields The Fabrication Capability Coefficient (FCC) is computed from a fabricator’s electrical test data, their First Pass Read Article

High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project

High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project This week, I’m building a high-performance sub-1GHz transceiver that I want to use as a standalone Internet of Things node using the ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller. As with my other projects, this project is open source and published on GitHub for you to use as the basis of your own design, or to use as-is. The RF schematic and layout are production proven, as are the microcontroller schematic and all footprints on the board. However, do keep in Read Article

Pad Stack Design And Fine Pitch Components, Part 2

Pad Stack Design And Fine Pitch Components, Part 2 What happens when you try to route two traces between pins on 1mm and below pitch BGAs? In Part 1 of this article, I reviewed the various aspects of unplated holes in the pad stack and what is needed to calculate the complete dimensioning of the finished hole size of the plated through-hole. Within this article, an analysis was done to determine how much room there was for traces between BGAs with a pin spacing of 1 mm on high layer count PCBs Read Article

SMPS Circuit Design: Which Switching Frequency to Use?

SMPS Circuit Design: Which Switching Frequency to Use? Power supply on a network switch Power electronics and switched-mode power supply (SMPS) designers should know that working with higher switching frequencies can lead to higher switching losses in your system. However, the push to miniaturize power supplies, and the components that go into them, compels designers to work with higher switching frequencies in their SMPS circuit designs. This then creates problems where switching losses and noise Read Article

Frequency Modulation Simulation in Altium Designer

Frequency Modulation Simulation in Altium Designer When working with analog signals, you need to ensure your device is operating linearly in order to prevent problems like harmonic distortion during operation. Nonlinear interactions in analog devices lead to distortion that corrupts a clean analog signal. It may not be obvious when an analog circuit clips just from looking at your schematic or datasheets. Instead of tracing through your signal chain manually, you can use simulation tools to get Read Article

PCB Trace Width vs. Current Table for High Power Designs

PCB Trace Width vs. Current Table for High Power Designs Copper is a strong conductor with a high melting point, but you should still do your best to keep temperatures low. This is where you’ll need to properly size power rail widths to keep the temperature within a certain limit. However, this is where you need to consider the current flowing in a given trace. When working with a power rail, high-voltage components, and other portions of your board that are sensitive to heat, you can determine the Read Article