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Connect the Dots: Designing for Reality: Strip-Etch-Strip

12/05/2024 | Matt Stevenson -- Column: Connect the Dots
In the previous episode of I-Connect007’s On the Line with… podcast, we focused on pattern plating. At this point, we are close to completing our boards and ready for the strip-etch-strip (SES) process. By this stage of the manufacturing process, we have laminated all the internal layers together, drilled the through-holes, applied the image to the external layers through photoresist, plated the copper in those channels to beef up the copper thickness for traces, pads, and through-holes, added a layer of electrolytic tin over the top of that copper to protect it during subsequent stages of production.

Elementary, Mr. Watson: Rules of Thumb—Guidelines vs. Principles for PCB Design

11/26/2024 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. Watson
The infamous "rules of thumb" are simple guidelines that help you make decisions based on experience, not exact facts. They’re like shortcuts we use because they work most of the time. For example, if you want to know if spaghetti is done cooking, a common rule of thumb is to grab a spaghetti strand and throw it against the wall to see if it sticks. I used to do that, except that instead of the wall, I used the ceiling, which drove my mother crazy.

Beyond Design: High-speed Rules of Thumb

11/21/2024 | Barry Olney -- Column: Beyond Design
The idiom “rule of thumb” is often used in electronics design and has its origins in the practice of measuring roughly with one’s thumb. Rules of thumb are easy-to-remember, broadly accurate guides or principles based on practice rather than theory. They are used to help feed our intuition to find a quick solution based on experience. We are often forced to use rules of thumb in PCB design in the absence of expensive analysis tools. We also use them to get quick ballpark figures initially and then fine-tune the numbers with further analysis. We can use rules of thumb as a sanity check to assess whether we are using our tools correctly. In this month’s column, I will present some commonly used and helpful rules for high-speed PCB design.

Danish-founded Defense Group Aims for More Responsibility Within Defense Supply Chain

09/09/2024 | CONFIDEE
Under the slogan "Together We Are Stronger," the AS9100 Nordic Consortium unites a powerful network of committed Danish companies, along with one Norwegian partner. This collaboration strives to elevate the defense and aerospace industries through a shared focus on traceability and quality management.

Beyond Design: Termination Planning

06/24/2024 | Barry Olney -- Column: Beyond Design
The characteristic impedance of a transmission refers to the impedance seen by a driver looking down an infinitely long trace. Interestingly, the characteristic impedance is independent of trace length. It’s a measure of the ratio of inductance to capacitance at any point along the trace. Therefore, while trace length matters for signal propagation delay, it doesn’t directly impact characteristic impedance. When a transmission line is perfectly matched to the driver and load, the signals propagating electromagnetic (EM) energy are totally absorbed by the load. This is the perfect scenario that all electronics designers strive for. However, this is rarely the case, and reflections do occur whenever the impedance of the transmission line changes along its length.
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