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Thought Leadership
Editing Multiple Components Anywhere in Footprint
Circuit board design has changed a lot over the years, and the way we work with library components has shifted as well. Originally, PCB designers created library components by laying down a sticker or “dolly” on a sheet of mylar on a drafting board. Later on, as designers migrated to CAD tools, the components were built using those same CAD tools. Those first tools didn’t offer much assistance to designers and you had to be really good at
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Compare PCB Design Software Features For Your Device to Move to Manufacturing
So you’ve just devised your new device that will revolutionize the world on the back of a cocktail napkin. Maybe your new medical device will have diseases running for the hills. Maybe you’ve got a great sensor for high-moisture environments. But how do you breathe life into your new product and finally implement your master plan for success? Those of us who have had such grand ideas are familiar with this dilemma. A PCB designer might know
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Layer Stackup in Rigid and Rigid-Flex PCBs
Building multilayer PCBs is like building with Legos. The all fit together easily, but you still need to follow directions if you want your design to stay together. Nowadays, only the simplest PCBs use a single layer, or a pair of top and bottom layers. Multilayer PCBs are now the norm rather than the exception, and manufacturers can fabricate PCBs with up to 30 layers. Layer stackup strategies in these boards are important for a number of
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Linear Devices in Electronics and How They Affect Your Signals
Many cultures view time as linear or as something that moves along a straight line. The flow of time moves from past to present to future. Other cultures, however, have a different perspective about time. Those see time moving in cycles. History repeats itself and all human events occur in cycles. Linear devices in electronics have nothing to do with how we perceive time, but they do matter for how your circuits perform and how they should be
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PCB Design Guide to Controlled Impedance During PCB Routing
In June 1831, Sir James Clark Ross discovered the North Magnetic Pole on the Boothia Peninsula in Northern Canada. While the term “discovery” seems to indicate that the North Magnetic Pole is static, the North and South Magnetic Poles, in fact, move continuously. The Earth’s magnetic field changes over time and as those changes occur, the positions of the poles also shift. Given the rate of movement at 55 km per year, we may have another meaning
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Coupled Versus Uncoupled Inductors Procurement: Which is Right for Your Switching Power Supply?
I recently took a deep dive into the various types of topologies surrounding switching power supplies. This article examined the benefits and downfalls of some of the most common topologies and aimed to assist you in the process of choosing how to power your design. The SEPIC topology is a very common switching mode power supply that can operate as both a Buck and a Boost converter. In other words, the SEPIC can act as a step-down (Buck converter
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Kick Your EDA Translations to the Curb: Choose Unified Design
Personal computing devices have significantly changed how bills are paid. And it’s getting better as utilities, banks, and medical enterprises get onboard with unified, intuitive user interfaces . Not long ago, moving from writing and mailing checks to using online banking for paying bills was excruciating. All the environments and web pages were slightly different. Even the simple process of paying a bill was inconsistent and there was no
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Demonstrations for Multi-Layer Designs: Best Uses for Each Layer
In your career as a PCB designer, you will design a lot of different printed circuit boards to accommodate various design technologies that you’ll be confronted with. To that end, you will use a plethora of circuit boards with all kinds of different sizes, shapes, and layer counts. How you decide to configure your PCB layers and what you put on each layer will, of course, be dictated by what you’re designing. Stripline and microstrip routing will
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Using Kirchhoff’s Law to Determine Sufficient PCB Trace Thickness
For as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of peanut butter. Back in elementary school, my mom limited my peanut butter intake to a thin spread on a slice of bread. This didn’t come close to satisfying my cravings so I’d sneakily add a generous inch of peanut butter on sandwiches without my mom’s knowledge. My peanut butter thickness preference, unfortunately, did not help with PCB trace thickness in earlier days of hardware design. It wasn’t
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Schematic Organization: How to Systematically Organize Your Messy Schematic Design
Even as a six-year-old, my son is great at organizing his toys and personal belongings. At that age, I used to chuck all my possessions into a huge storage box. My son, on the other hand, has a knack for orderliness that borders on obsessive. Although his meticulous attention to detail can be mildly frustrating at times, it means that I can always trust him to keep his play area organized. In PCB design, you need to exhibit the same level of
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Medical Technology Innovations and the Electronics That Enable Them
Ten years ago, who would have thought one of the world’s largest medical equipment manufacturers, General Electric, would look to exit the industry and sell-off its medical equipment business? It is also a fact of life that changes like these tend to drive companies to look for profit opportunities in other industries. In the 21st century, with a rapidly aging global population, you have the likes of aerospace giants, such as Lockheed-Martin and
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Developing 3D Printed Electronics to Minimize PCB Design and Manufacturing Costs
After moving to a new city, I couldn’t resist visiting the local library to pick up my library card and explore educational resources. As I walked in, the librarian cheerfully handed me a pamphlet on using a 3D printer. I was thrilled to see how easy it is becoming to access a 3D printer. Once restricted to research universities and high-budget labs, 3D printing is now ubiquitous. 3D printed electronics are also starting to become more reliable
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Manufacturing Cost Tradeoffs with FR4 PCBs
My frugal nature means that I tend to be a slow shopper. I don’t go to the mall too often, but when I do, I spend too much time weighing the costs and benefits of two different pairs of jeans. Such neurotic behavior will probably annoy your spouse, but it pays to be neurotic when you are debating which material and board thickness to use in your PCB. Most designers consider the PCB fabrication costs associated with FR4 PCBs to be a rather simple
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Use Interactive Routing to Mitigate EMI Issues from High-Speed PCB Traces
Having a robot clean the house and perform laundry chores continues to elude modern technology given intricate steps to complete each chore. Given the repetitive nature of the chores, you’d think robotic automation would be the perfect application to turn over to a robot. It turns out that cleaning the house and doing the laundry is much more complicated and too advanced for robot understanding. Only simplistic chores, like vacuuming the floor
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Rigid-Flex Command Set-up and Layer Stack Design
Once you take that nose dive into PCB design, you start to realize how many of your home electronic devices actually work. From DVD drives to laptop monitors, and just about anything that folds, it is all made possible with rigid-flex PCBs. Rigid-flex PCB design can be a tricky beast depending on the software you’re using to create it, but at the end of the design, your printed circuit board will bend and flex like a gymnast. A rigid-flex PCB, at
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How Much Does Cad Software Cost and Is It Worth It?
We've all been there, we buy bargain products to save money only oftentimes for disappointment. This might happen when that knock-off shirt doesn't fit you properly or the cost CAD software ends up being far from what you were looking for. Although it takes money to make money holds true at times - the question still stands: How much should I invest in this software in order to achieve my desired result and how much does CAD software cost? The
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PCB Routing Options to Maximize Design Adaptability
Amusement parks often feature small raceways with gasoline-powered, two-passenger mini-cars going around a multi-lane track. Drivers can experience the thrill of steering and accelerating while trying to beat friends or family to the finish line. There’s a catch though. A rail-like barrier positioned in the middle of each lane prevents cars from moving from one lane to another. Consider the amusement park like a circuit: designing the amusement
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