Workflow Management

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PCB Workflow Management

Agile Development and Testing: The Role of Simulations

Agile Development and Testing: The Role of Simulations Simulations can help you avoid repeated prototyping and testing Design, build, test; whether you are a hardware designer or a software engineer, you’ll go through multiple iterations when developing complex systems. The build and test portions are the moment of truth—when you find out whether your hard work will pay off. An important part of design, build, and test iterations concerns narrowly defining test cases and functionality requirements Read Article

Hardware Design for Edge Computing vs. Cloud Computing

Hardware Design for Edge Computing vs. Cloud Computing The next great developments in IoT products are in edge computing. The term “cloud computing” is now a regular piece of technical vocabulary, and for some time it was viewed as the solution to every data-intensive computing problem. While cloud computing certainly gives many developers a simple way to create value and scale quickly, edge computing is quickly becoming a viable alternative to deploying software applications on the cloud. In fact Read Article

Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: A Deeper Investigation

Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: A Deeper Investigation In Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: An Introduction we discussed the concept of creating a diverse team of people with a diverse set of skills. In today’s market, it is virtually impossible to build a team of homogenous engineers who can deliver from start to finish. Each engineer, possessing unique skill sets, contributes to the sum of parts within the design lifecycle. In this article, we will dive more deeply into the different Read Article

Designing Printed Electronics with Altium Designer 19

Designing Printed Electronics with Altium Designer 19 As far as I know, Altium Designer 19^® is the first electronics design tool that effectively supports printed electronics design . With this tool you can create printed electronics designs in the same level as with capabilities parallel to standard PCB designs, and to do that, Altium created electronics design features specific to printed electronics. With Altium Designer 19 you can define design rules according to production capabilities that Read Article

ECAD-MCAD Collaboration - Bridging the Communication Gap

ECAD-MCAD Collaboration - Bridging the Communication Gap Let’s face it, there are things that we do the same way every day, simply because ‘we have always done them that way’ and we are used to them. Due to schedule pressures and outside demands, there is rarely time to think about how to make these things better, never mind try to actually implement something new. This makes the motivation to invest in exploring different methodologies challenging. Our general tendencies lean more toward continuing to Read Article

How Do the Seamless Transfer and Use of PCB Design Data Improve Workflows?

How Do the Seamless Transfer and Use of PCB Design Data Improve Workflows? Introduction One of the more thrilling events in track and field is the 400 Meter relay race. Understand, I don’t run; rather I enjoy watching. However, the most critical part of every race is the transferring of the baton to the next runner. I was watching a race some time back where one team was way ahead of the others and was coming around the final turn for the last hand-off. But, THEY DROPPED THE BATON, and they ended up losing. How Read Article

How does Altium Designer improve PCB design workflows?

How Does Altium Designer Improve PCB Design Workflows? One of the great pleasures in my life is to be the grandfather of—as of now—five grandkids. It’s interesting to watch them go through various stages of learning. There is Caleb, who is four, and Ashley, who is five (though she loves to remind everyone that she is NOT five, but five and seven months). Both are in different stages of learning. Ashley’s question for everything is “WHAT”, and Caleb, his question is “WHY.” What are we doing? Why is Read Article

Engineering Laptop Buying Guide Mid 2019

Engineering Laptop Buying Guide Mid 2019 Previously, I covered buying a desktop computer for engineering purposes in The Definitive Engineering Computer Buying Guide Mid 2019 . I only touched on engineering laptop/notebook computers at that point, if you’re looking at buying an engineering laptop this is the guide for you. If you’re looking for a laptop specifically for engineering work, my expectation is that you are traveling a lot or are a student. Either way, you’re not looking for Read Article

The Definitive Engineering Computer Buying Guide Mid 2019

The Definitive Engineering Computer Buying Guide Mid 2019 If you’re looking for a new PC for engineering (electronic or otherwise), you don’t need to break the bank. This guide is for those of you more focused on engineering than keeping up with the latest PC hardware. Laptop vs Desktop Unless you plan on moving around a lot, or just don’t have a place to put a desktop computer, buying or building a desktop computer instead of a laptop will save you a lot of money and give you significantly better Read Article

Why Your Root Cause Analysis Starts with Component Traceability

Why Your Root Cause Analysis Starts with Component Traceability At this point, we’ve reached a significant milestone. Having followed through with the last article , we now have a very stable and, more importantly, reliable PCB library. Since we can safely use the data in designs, many people decide not to go beyond the review process. You should, however, continue to the fifth pillar if you want to ensure success. So, why the fifth pillar? Because although we have a great structure, we must take the Read Article

Agile Product Lifecycle Management Methods in PCB Design

Agile Product Lifecycle Management Methods in PCB Design Supercharge your productivity with agile product lifecycle management Any industry that relies heavily on new technologies must frequently reinvent itself and address product obsolescence. Every piece of technology has a finite lifecycle that ends due to obsolescence or malfunction. Electronics and the PCBs that support them are no different; components on PCBs eventually wear out and malfunction, or the product can no longer compete with a Read Article

Agile Embedded Software Development: The Best of Both Worlds

Agile Embedded Software Development: 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

ECAD/MCAD Co-design for PCB Manufacturing with 3D Printing

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

High-Quality, Reviewable PCB Component Libraries

Mastering PCB Design: Best Practices for Developing Accurate and Reliable Component Libraries Over many years, I have seen many elaborate PCB Library systems. The best ones were not based on the size, but rather on the quality of the information. The old axiom is “not Quantity but rather Quality.” I recently sat with a VP of Engineering, and I asked what he thought of his PCB Library. He thought for a moment and said, “I believe it is pretty good.” I asked my question another way, “But do you know?” There is a difference. If I tell you Read Article

The Evolution Of Simulation Technology and Impedance

The Evolution Of Simulation Technology and Impedance When design engineers started using simulation toolsets, we originally cared only about impedance and terminations. Then when things got fast, we had to worry about loss in the path. Next, we had to address differential pairs (which are specialized transmission lines) and skew. Most recently, we have had to worry about the effect of vias at very high data rates. Note: Of all of these elements, skew is the only one which cannot be simulated. From Read Article

Addressing The PDS Design Challenge

Addressing The PDS Design Challenge In part 1 of this article , I described the various challenges and problems associated with maintaining the power integrity of a PCB as accomplished through the design of a fully functioning PDS for any given product implementation. This article will address those problems and challenges by outlining the elements that comprise a PDS, what the job of an engineer is in designing a PDS and the resources available for that design process. It should Read Article

Cost vs. Price:The Economics of PCB Design

PCB Manufacturing Cost vs. Value: The Economics of PCB Design Every decision made in the design process of any PCB or system has an economic as well as an engineering effect. Some of these effects are more visible or tangible than others but if the “dollars and cents” elements are weighted along with the design decisions it is more likely that that the resulting product will be both economically efficient and well-engineered. As with most everything in life, price and cost are not the same things Read Article