Technology

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

Embedded Optical Interconnects in PCBs for Ultra High Speed Design 5G will be here sooner than you think, creating plenty of new opportunities for PCB designers, manufacturers, and companies that provide optical networking equipment. The huge data transfer rates in 5G networks and in specialized applications like aerospace requires greater use of optical interconnects throughout electronic systems, ultimately requiring conversion to electro-optic systems and fully photonic systems. What can PCB designers do to Read Article

Optical Transceiver Layout for Gigabit and Faster Ethernet Mind your manufacturing process during optical transceiver layout and design The story of PCB layout and channel design for optical transceivers is really a story of high speed PCB design; it requires considering all aspects of high speed design, especially at very high data rates. Data rates reaching 400 Gbps on 10 lanes (that’s 40 Gbps per lane!) are possible over long distances with the right PCB layout and routing techniques. Challenges in Read Article

Silicon Photonics Integration Challenges in PCB Design Silicon photonics will use the same manufacturing processes used in silicon ICs I was honored to meet Richard Soref at a recent IEEE conference and discuss the current state of electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs). The man is often called “the Father of Silicon Photonics”, and for good reason. If you ask him nicely, he’ll tell you how to build all the fundamental logic gates as photonic circuits directly on silicon. Now is a landmark Read Article

Agile Development for Embedded Systems: The Best of Both Worlds You might want to use agile development to build this embedded system As unique hardware platforms that provide computing power in a variety of applications, embedded systems combine the best of every techie’s dreams: hardware design and software development. Design processes for simpler embedded systems tend to be linear, and the hardware and embedded software may even be developed in parallel by different design teams. As systems become more Read Article

Integrate Your ECAD Tools with Mechanical Design Software Communication between ECAD and MCAD teams can be like a game of telephone Ever play a game of telephone as a child? Once the message gets back to the sender, successive miscommunication along the way causes the original message and idea to be completely modified. This is the same thing that happens when mechanical and electrical design teams are siloed into different groups. Collaboration breaks down and communication becomes difficult. The Read Article

ECAD/MCAD Co-design for PCB Manufacturing with 3D Printing It is ironic that PCB design has helped drive the adoption of new technology in all industries, including manufacturing automation, yet PCB manufacturing processes themselves have not seen radical innovation for many decades. Some innovative companies are looking to change this and are driving PCB manufacturing into Industry 4.0. 3D printing is already driving new manufacturing methodologies in every industry, such as “lights out” and digital Read Article

In-House Manufacturing for Electronics Projects The news media like to embellish the advances and proliferation of affordable 3D printers, sometimes calling them ‘a factory in your home’. While this concept of being able to avoid buying products at a store and building them at home sounds ideal, I personally don’t believe we’re anywhere near it being a reality. I purchased my first 3D Printer in 2012, built my first CNC router in 2007 and purchased my first CO2 laser cutter in 2014, so I have Read Article

Why and How to Use an Aluminum PCB Substrate for Your Next Design Aluminum can be used for more than just soda cans I don’t drink soda so much anymore now that I’m in my thirties, but I know aluminum has plenty of uses outside of making coke cans. One use is in the core of your PCB as a material for thermal management. Aluminum has high thermal conductivity and can be used to carry heat away from active components on a PCB when other passive or active cooling measures cannot bring component temperatures to a Read Article

What Size Decoupling Capacitor Should I Use for My Digital ICs? Are these capacitors sized properly? There is quite a bit of information out there about bypass and decoupling capacitors. Both components are vitally important for maintaining power integrity and signal integrity. When you start looking through the information on this topic, you’ll find that the procedure for sizing a decoupling capacitor for a digital IC is quite simple. Bypassing vs. Decoupling: What’s the Difference? Although you wouldn’t Read Article

Ethernet Layout Routing Standards: MAC, PHY, and RJ-45 Connectors Even complex systems like this are easy to design thanks to ethernet layout routing standards Ethernet over copper is likely part of the backbone of your office building’s networking infrastructure. Thankfully, Ethernet routing standards make it easy for designers to create everything from complex networking equipment to single-board computers for any application. The overall architecture for creating Ethernet-capable devices is deceptively Read Article

Embedded System Power Supply Guidelines for Power Integrity This system will require its own power supply and regulation Embedded systems that require a significant amount of processing power and that need to interface with analog components require important embedded system power supply guidelines in order to ensure power and signal integrity. Whether you design your own external power supply, or embed a power supply directly alongside your board, you’ll need to follow some important power integrity Read Article

5G Antenna Tuning in Mobile and IoT Devices 5G antenna tuning is like tuning a guitar as you play Guitar players know all about tuning their instruments. Whether swinging a whammy bar on stage or just ensuring each string hits the right note, this tuning changes that the resonant frequencies of each to the tone desired by the musician. To continue the recent series of articles on PCB design for 5G systems, one other aspect of designing RF design for 5G-capable wireless systems involves a Read Article

Phased Array Antenna Design for 5G Applications New antenna designs are the cornerstone of next-gen 5G devices As the 5G rollout begins, designers have an important role to play in designing the technical infrastructure to support more connected devices and provide higher data rates. More component manufacturers are also providing a broader range of solutions for antennas in 5G systems. Designers of 5G-capable mobile devices need to consider appropriate antenna designs for their systems. Two Read Article

Designing Your PCB for a Boundary Scan Test You can avoid some manual circuit tests with a boundary scan test On simple boards with few components and surface-level traces, you can probably test all aspects of your board by hand without much difficulty. Imagine you needed to do this with a multilayer PCB, and you’ll see that there are many aspects of a manufactured and assembled board that cannot be tested by hand. With more advanced boards, where traces are embedded in the interior layers Read Article

Meeting EMI/EMC Standards in Your PCB Designs Your next device might make it to a GTEM test cell for EMC testing What if you set two cell phones next to each other and suddenly neither of them worked properly? Thankfully, this doesn’t happen because designers and manufacturers made serious efforts to ensure these devices comply with EMC standards on conducted and radiated EMI. Any device should comply with EMC standards before it makes it to the marketplace. While this sounds complicated Read Article

Long Range WiFi for Remote Sensors and Connectivity If you need to have network access from sensors which need more than a little bandwidth, cellular can get quite expensive. There are quite a few long-range wireless systems that are targeted towards sensors, however, trade bandwidth for range. If you need to stream video, send pictures, or have a constant stream of data from a range of sensors these wireless links might not be suitable. WiFi has rather limited range by comparison but does have Read Article

PCB FR-4 Materials Are Not All The Same In the PCB industry, “FR-4”.is a common designation for laminate materials. To a certain extent, FR-4 as a specific type of laminate is one of the many myths promulgated throughout the industry. This blog will address the history the term FR-4, what it really means, the various quantifiers associated with it, and the characteristic issues of concern when selecting design-specific laminates. The Origins of FR-4 If you research FR-4 as a term Read Article