Technology

Browse our library of resources to learn more about new technology used in pcb design.

Avoid the First Pass Perils in Prototyping Runs for Your Electronics Anything worth doing is difficult, and hardware is no different. My first PCB for a hardware product crashed and burned several times before I got it to work as designed. Even after all of this work, we never moved beyond building functional prototypes. After your design and initial testing phases are completed, it is time to order your first manufacturing run. Improper testing and design means your first manufacturing run will be fraught with Read Article

Competitive Exoskeleton by Project March from the Delft Technical University Dream Team Judy Warner: Robbert, please tell us about your major at Delft Technical University and your role at Project March. Robbert de Lange: I’m studying civil engineering and my role on the Project March team is Acquisition and PR. Presently, I have taken off a full year of studies to focus full-time on Project March. Warner: What motivated you to take a full year off of your studies to invest in Project March? De Lange: Beyond all the academic Read Article

Mary Elizabeth McCulloch Developed Voz Box and Project Vive Judy Warner: It’s so nice to talk with you, Mary Elizabeth! Please share your background, education and what inspired you to choose engineering as a vocation. Mary Elizabeth McCulloch: I was always good at science and math and I graduated from Penn State University with a biomedical degree in 2016. Both of my parents were very inspirational in my choice to pursue engineering. My Dad studied physics in college and is now an engineer who Read Article

7 Benefits of Bringing Additive Manufacturing In-House If you are like 98% of the PCB designers out there, you know what it can be like to run through the gauntlet of outsourcing a design to a third-party manufacturer to receive a prototype or two. The process is usually a little painful, often pricier than you’d have hoped, and leaves you waiting for longer than you’d expect. I often think that the manufacturing process is similar to going out to dinner at an overrated restaurant; you’ll wait on an Read Article

Build and Design an Inverted-F Antenna Directly on Your PCB Thursday night is New Tech night at The Nines hotel in Portland. At the last meeting, I realized that all the hardware engineers were building wireless Bluetooth and GPS devices. One can’t help but marvel at how a small strip of copper on a PCB allows us to connect so many different devices and solve such unique problems. An inverted F PCB antenna design is used in many mobile devices and a popular choice compared to chip antennas. Applications Read Article

Incorporating DFM for Panelization in Your Electronics Oftentimes, in a larger production environment, companies seek small tips and tricks along the manufacturing route in the hopes of significant cost savings. As a ‘low hanging fruit’ of costs savings, manufacturing is (or at least should be) a highly discussed topic early on in the design phase. Keeping manufacturing principles and specifications in mind at the design stage is what is known as design for manufacturing (DFM). There are a handful of Read Article

Hybrid or Compact: Fractal Antennas in PCB Design The Mandelbrot Set was always a popular poster among my fellow students when I was in college. The zoomed-out picture hung on dorm room walls and even appeared on some graphic t-shirts. The fact that no one seemed to know about the Mandelbrot Set or understand fractals didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how useful fractals could be in designing antennas. There are many antennas in the PCB world including: microstrip Read Article

EMI Reducing PCB Shielding Techniques to Incorporate in Your Designs I spent most of my twenties producing and mastering music for local artists. As much as I love older consoles, it gets annoying to listen to audio from one channel bleeding over to other channels. Newer consoles are built with proper EMI shielding and crosstalk reduction measures, and the analog signals in these newer consoles are much cleaner. Digital devices are not immune either. Modern computers and smartphones continue to pack more silicon Read Article

Augment This! How AR is Changing PCB Design If you’ve yet to play with an AR or VR experience, you should! The emerging technology is quickly becoming a game changer for industries such as entertainment, healthcare, education, military, and the list goes on. Providing, quite literally, an infinite amount of potential applications, it’s no wonder that so many industries are affected by and are embracing the new tech. While VR places the user inside an entirely manufactured environment, AR Read Article

What’s the Future of WiFi for the Internet of Things? I’ve come to adopt several different modes of communication between the different social circles in my life. Slack, messenger, texting, calling, letter writing and various other messenger services - all of which are unique to particular people or friend groups. Most of the time, I can barely keep track of them all and more often I end up sending the right text to the wrong person. IoT protocols are just as diverse, and new options come out Read Article

Electronic Product Life Cycle Management Avoids Unpredicted Application Results Everyone has a smartphone these days. Well, everyone except my grandparents. They still use clamshell phones and perfectly happy with them. The rest of us have moved on to leaner and meaner communication devices. Eventually, the product life cycle for clamshell phones will end and they will be relegated to the history books. A look back through the history of technology reveals that no piece of technology can thrive forever. Project life cycle Read Article

Managing Your Audio Power Supply Designs: Tips for Circuit Design As I get older, I suspect I’m gradually getting deafer. My hearing was pretty sharp during my teenage years but these days, I miss out on conversations and need to frequently ask people to repeat themselves. Perhaps my hearing ability is deteriorating due to age; however, when I hear static noise creeping out of an amplifier, I know to trust my ears. In electronics, the power supply of audio circuits can mean the difference between perfect audio Read Article

Choosing the Right RFID Card Technology For Your Embedded System As a pure introvert who fears small talk, I absolutely dread networking events. Besides maintaining endless empty chatter with strangers, picking out the best attire is challenging, especially considering my dreadful fashion sense. Thankfully, I’m much better at choosing the right type of Radio Frequency Identification or RFID card technology for my embedded system projects. What is an RFID Card? In the simplest sense, an RFID card is a token Read Article

Use Unique ID EEPROM in Your Embedded System to Prevent Design Counterfeiting There’s a saying that smart people don’t always finish the race first. In college, I remember some classmates copying my assignments, only to end up getting better scores than I did. Being smart didn’t necessarily guarantee me the top grades in college and watching others achieve success based on my ideas became demoralizing. The business world is similar; it isn’t uncommon for companies to copy concepts that work well for their competitors and Read Article

Internal Versus External Surge Protection: What’s Best for Total PCB Protection My girlfriend is seriously paranoid about securing the house before going to sleep every night. While I’m content with a single padlock, she ensures that all locks are in place before turning off the lights. Clearly, when it comes to home security, we are stark opposites. When it comes to surge protection, however, the roles reverse and I become the paranoid engineer. Regardless of how internally protected from lightning surges the PCB is, I Read Article

Checklist to Troubleshoot a Faulty Embedded System in Your PCB Kids these days are much smarter than we were. When I was six, all I cared about was watching Sesame Street every evening. My son, on the other hand, regularly searches for his favorite cartoons on Youtube and asks for the correct phrases to type in to receive the exact results he’s looking for. Even at such a young age, he understands that asking smart questions leads to quicker, and more efficient, solutions. Although finding the right terms to Read Article

Before Commissioning an Embedded System, Implement These Test Cases Dating someone who loves shopping and obsesses over tiny details like thread count means making countless trips back to the store for exchanges and returns based on microscopic defects. Not surprisingly, I often grumble about the amount of time and money spent traveling to complain about minor defects that no one would likely even notice. Of course, while I can’t understand the need to obsess over perfection in clothing, I do understand the Read Article