PCB Design

Read the latest information PCB Design from the industry's leading experts.

The Most Important Features for PCB Layout Software Comparison Have you ever gone to a used car dealership and tried to get a good deal on a car? It’s nearly impossible for anyone but a mechanic. When I went I ended up with a choice between two cars that seemed nearly identical to me, except for their price. I picked the cheaper one and took it to a local shop, and found out that I’d chosen a jalopy. Sometimes choosing PCB design software can feel the same way. You use a free program or spend some money on Read Article

How to Design a 4-20mA Current Loop Receiver with Minimal Components I’ve always been a fan of Gordon Ramsay. He never fails to amaze me with his colorful cursing as raw scallops are continuously served by hapless Hell’s Kitchen contestants. But what really amused me was when he tried his hand at Asian cuisine. The tables were turned, and he learned the hard way that good Asian cuisine is a completely different beast than his usual beef wellingtons. Process Control: Where 4-20mA reign supreme. I had a similar Read Article

Why Increasing Design Complexity Requires the Best Professional PCB Design Software Didn’t everything seem so simple when you were a kid? No job to work at, no mortgage to pay, and no kids of your own to wrangle. My main occupation was to run around outside and try not to get too dirty while playing. Now life is certainly better, but also quite a bit more complicated. Similarly, the PCB industry is also growing up and become more convoluted. Gone are the days of large, simple boards. Now everything has to be small, sleek, and Read Article

The Top 3 DFM Problems That Affect Every PCB Design: 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 Top 3 DFM Problems That Affect Every PCB Design. 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 Read Article

How Proper PCB Layout Can Help You Avoid Adding Heat Sinks to Your Design: 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 Proper PCB Layout Can Help You Avoid Adding Heat Sinks to Your Design. 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 Read Article

6 Common Misconceptions about PCB Design: 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: 6 Common Misconceptions about PCB Design. 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

5 PCB Design Facts That Your Boss Needs to Know: 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: 5 PCB Design Facts That Your Boss Needs to Know. 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 Read Article

Should You or Your Manufacturer Specify Every Aspect of PCB Construction? I was finally taking a trip to China; something I had been planning for years. I was about halfway through the flight when all of a sudden, my vacation excitement turned to dread. I realized that back at home, where I am PCB assembling, there might have been a critical board mistake during assembly. I was regretting not specifying that reflow profile. Then again, maybe I was regretting over specifying it? Any mistakes on my board were made days Read Article

5:05 PCB Design: Layer Stacks in High Speed Designs - OnTrack Watch Video

8:26 PCB Design: Tips and Tricks for Rigid-Flex Designs - OnTrack Altium FAE, John Magyar, shows you tips and tricks to bring your Rigid-Flex Designs to life. Learn more about Rigid-Flex Watch Video

Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery vs Lithium Ion For Embedded Systems Two of the most popular battery choices for embedded systems are lithium-ion batteries (Li-Ion) and lithium iron phosphate batteries (Li-phosphate or LiFePO4). These two types of batteries have very different charging and discharging characteristics, although they have similar chemistry and use some of the same materials. In some systems, you could use either type of battery, but each has its advantages in different applications, which can depend Read Article

How Embedded Machine Learning Applications Will Benefit From 5G and the Cloud Editorial credit: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com When I was studying late at night in college I often wished I had a cybernetic brain implant. Then I could just download any information I needed and instantly recall it later. No more studying, no more forgetting my girlfriend’s birthday, maybe I could even watch Netflix inside my own head. Sadly the illustrious electrical engineers who came before me designed Internet of Things (IoT) devices Read Article

How Internet of Things Wireless Sensor Networks Can Benefit From Multi-Sensor Platforms Some people like dogs or cats, but my family has always been a cat family. We have one important rule to keep us from graduating to a “crazy” cat family. We are not allowed to have more cats than we have family members. Sometimes we don’t want limits, but we still have to have them to keep things from getting out of hand. The same principle applies to the Internet of Things (IoT). While I do think many IoT devices are a bit overboard, their Read Article

Data Management in Four Steps When it comes to electronics design, data management is at the bottom of most engineers’ priority list. When you first enter the engineering field, you don’t learn about all the tiny details you need to keep track of during the design process. These minute details build up into the mountain that is data management. Something as simple as finding a previously used part can mean spending your day fumbling between spreadsheets, approved lists, and Read Article

Design Data: Organize to Optimize You’re Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link As engineers, we tend to focus on the end technology and forget about the important ECAD design data that actually makes up our designs. The links between technology and design data create something greater than the sum of their . We often overlook the benefits of establishing solid links between our design technology and our design data. The truth is data management provides organization, traceability Read Article

Professional PCB Design Data Your PCB design is like a novel. The words of that novel are the you use. You wouldn’t write a novel without defining the language structure; you need syntax, grammar, organization, and diction. You know everything that you want to place in your design, you just have to define it. Once you define the in your ECAD environment, keeping them all organized in libraries can be a challenge. We tend to focus on the end product of our designs. Printed Read Article

Complete Library Management for PCB Design Data Complete Management Components are the basic building blocks of designs and even the slightest discrepancy can derail your whole design process. If one bad footprint makes its way through manufacturing, the rest of your design can be invalidated with necessary layout changes. Worst of all, you’ll have to identify everywhere a bad component has been utilized across several designs. The work required to change your layout grows exponentially the Read Article