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Putting Constraints to Work for You in Your Circuit Routing Software

Putting Constraints to Work for You in Your Circuit Routing Software When I was a kid, my parents had a 1955 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday. What a great car. As an eight year old though, the main thing that stood out to me was that it had a decorative rope that stretched horizontally across the back of the front seat. Sitting in the back with my brother one day, we informed our parents that with the fancy rope in place we no longer needed to use our seat belts. I saw my dad wink to my mom, and then at a very slow Read Article

Designing Your PDN to Work Within Your PCB Layout Guidelines

Designing Your PDN to Work Within Your PCB Layout Guidelines I enjoy watching the occasional episode of Star Trek here and there, and I get a kick out of noting the inconsistencies in their technology. In one episode they may be firing all of their energy weapons at the bad guys, moving at warp 3-billion to time travel and showing no regard as to where their power was coming from. In the next episode though, someone will plug in a space toaster to warm up their breakfast in the galley, and the whole ship Read Article

Through It All: PCB Tools and What Experience Has Shown

Through It All: PCB Tools and What Experience Has Shown I have always been aware that places exist in the world where the January gray skies and chills never happen, but I’m still not entirely sure where they are. Whether it’s picking up a new hobby, being invigorated by your resolutions, or rewatching some of your favorite movies under a heavy, comfortable blanket, January has a lot more to offer than the cold, wet, and gloomy weather that is on the other side of most of our windows. As the doorstep Read Article

See Where You are Going with Your PCB Power Distribution Network Design

Electric Distribution Systems and PCBs: Power Distribution Network Design For those of you who have only experienced the brilliant high power of LED, Xenon, or Halogen headlights in today’s modern cars, you may not realize how fortunate you are. My first car was old enough that its headlights could have been candles. One year I received Halogen fog lights for my birthday, and the difference at night was amazing. Not only could I now see what was next to the car in the dark but the fog lights almost out-distanced the Read Article

Manage Embedded Software through Design Rules for a No-Line PCB Design

Manage Embedded Software through Software Architecture and Design Rules for a No-Line PCB Design Recently, Amazon opened its first grocery market where one of its main points was its refusal of lines. Of course, its first-day publicity was a line of people outside waiting to try it out. I’m sure that as the newness diminishes it will be able to fulfill its promise of no lines; however, for now, I am mostly hoping that the store still had some rules in place in-case there was a line. After all, if one of your basic premises is to avoid lines Read Article

Soup-Up Your CAD Tools as a 64-Bit PCB Designer

Soup-Up Your CAD Tools as a 64-Bit PCB Designer For all the hazards that come along with older cars—rips in their vinyl, paint missing, smoking, rusted frames, and oil leaking—I will admit they are fun. I owned a 1969 Chevy Impala and for all the bad, one thing going for it was that it had been built to go fast. Even though it had a 4 barrel Quadrajet carburetor on a 350 cu in small block driving 350 horses into a Muncie 4 speed transmission, it still would only carry 6 people (well, and the Read Article

Learning Current Density: Don’t Pop the Balloon

Learning Current Density: Don’t Pop the Balloon One area of PCB design that probably does not get the attention that it deserves is current density. Current density in a PCB trace is much like the pressure in a balloon. You want to squeeze as much air into the balloon as you can, but if you put too much: boom! The same is true of PCB traces many times. We want the traces to be as small as possible yet carry the most current possible, and if the trace carries too much: boom! For PCBs, that boom Read Article

Not That Much Force: Software for Updating PCB Layouts

Not That Much Force: Software for Updating PCB Layouts and Avoiding Redesigns The other night I went to see the new Star Wars movie, “The Last Jedi," and although I really enjoyed the movie I found myself laughing out loud during one sequence. I wasn’t laughing because of the humor of the movie, or a silly looking alien—there were plenty of those to go around already. Instead I was laughing because for one brief sequence they showed some electronic circuitry that appeared to be composed of what looked like thru-hole Read Article

Bill of Materials for PCB: Part Number System and Organization, or Packing Tetris?

Bill of Materials for PCB: Part Numbering Systems and Organization, or Packing Tetris? It would be great if spending a day at the beach didn’t require gathering towels and chairs, fixing lunch, and making sure there was enough sunscreen to go around. Swimsuit selection, packing up, and traveling are also unpleasant chores. It would be nice to just think “beach” while sitting on the couch, and suddenly be comfortably working on a tan with your toes in the sand. That’s the thing about organization though; it’s what really gets us Read Article

Your PCB Bill of Materials Report Can Be So Much More Than a Simple Statement

Your PCB Bill of Materials Report Can Be So Much More Than a Simple Statement I just finished going through my bank balances and I am very grateful for the online utilities that my bank provides. It used to be that you could only get an account statement in the mail from your bank that you had to reconcile with your checkbook. Today’s online banking systems are far superior with different utilities to help you track and organize your finances. With these tools you can move money around, create and monitor budgets, as do Read Article

No Icebergs Here, Captain! Board Rule Checking for Bill of Materials Management

No Icebergs Here, Captain! Board Rule Checking for Bill of Materials Management You know the story of RMS Titanic and how just before midnight on April 14th, 1912, it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. What you may not know though is how one small item may have saved the ship from sinking. During the inquiry, one of the surviving crew members who was a lookout reported that they did not have a pair of binoculars to use in the crow’s nest. When asked if having the binoculars would have made a difference or not Read Article

Don’t Get Caught Sleeping: Resolve PCB Power Distribution Problems

Don’t Get Caught Sleeping: Resolve Symptoms of Bad PCB Power Distribution in Networks and Designs I’ve got a heating problem at the moment—after 30 years of service to the various owners of this house, my furnace is finally throwing in the towel and no longer providing heat. Unfortunately, this has come at a, let’s say, inopportune time with it hovering just under freezing lately, and with nights being even more frigid. We installed an ad hoc heating system comprised of the gas fireplace and several space heaters; however, this is not a long Read Article

Don't Stay in the Tower: BOM System Communication and Component Pricing Costs

Don't Stay in the Tower: BOM System Communication and Component Pricing Costs Once upon a time, way back in the dark ages of the 20th century, there were three kingdoms: design, manufacturing, and purchasing. The royal design engineer’s process would look like this: they’d design the product, take their carriage to the manufacturing department kingdom where the designer would submit the design quickly and leave, trying to minimize as much chatter and cross communication as possible. The manufacturing engineers who receive Read Article

Cross-Probing Electronic Components in PCB BOM Software

Cross-Probing Electronic Components in PCB BOM Software with a 1968 Bel Air I have a friend who once bought a 1968 Bel Air that was in immaculate condition inside and out. There was one problem though: the engine ran really rough. Since my friend was pretty good at working on cars, he bought it for a very low price thinking that he could simply tune it up. It didn’t work though, and my friend came to realize why this beautiful car had come with such a cheap price tag. Then he took a closer look under the hood and was Read Article

Old Wisdom: Best Schematic Software Simplifies Schematic to PCB Synchronizing

Old School Wisdom: Best Schematic Software Simplifies Schematic to PCB Synchronizing You’ve heard it said: “there’s no school like the old school.” Is that always true though? When I was a kid my “old school” taught me to type on a typewriter, not a word processor. If I was using that old school typewriter today, it would take me significantly longer to write this article. I wouldn’t have access to spell checking or any of the other helpful utilities that I’ve become accustomed to. I wouldn’t be able to easily backspace and re Read Article

pcb layout checklist before manufacturing

Your PCB Layout Checklist: What’s The Difference Between DRCs & MRCs? When you're working your way through a complex PCB layout, there is a large number of important design features to keep track of. Will it be high speed? What about the vias and solder mask? Your PCB layout can be quite complex, and your layout will have to conform to multiple design guidelines to ensure it will function properly once manufactured. Your layout will have to go through multiple design rule checks (DRCs) to spot electrical errors and Read Article

Is Cloud Data Storage a Gold Rush for Remote Access to BOMs in PCB Design?

Is Cloud Data Storage a Gold Rush for Remote Access to BOMs in PCB Design? Imagine yourself as a dusty miner, fresh to the erratic outlands of the west in the 19th century. You tell yourself you’re going to make it rich, and that there’s gold in the hills, the rivers—everywhere. Now, obviously the trip has been heralding and there isn’t any particularly effective, high-speed transportation available, so you won’t be able to take whatever gold you find very easily, or very quickly to wherever you want to go. There might Read Article