Smartwatch PCB Design: Sensors, Power and Durability A Computer the Size of a Wrist A modern smartwatch tracks heart rate and blood oxygen, logs position, runs an application processor, drives a colour display, connects over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and takes contactless payments. All of that fits into a case roughly…

AR Smart Glasses PCB: Miniaturisation, Flex and Thermal Design Electronics Inside a Frame Smart glasses squeeze a processor, sensors, wireless radios, power management and a display driver into a temple arm a few millimetres thick. There is no airflow, no space for a heatsink, and the device sits against a…

Imaging System PCB Cost: Layers, Materials and Volume Why Imaging Boards Sit at the Top of the Price Range An imaging board captures, processes or displays an image, and each of those functions places a demand on the substrate that a general purpose board never sees. Sensor interfaces run at…

Smart Meter PCB: Metrology, Isolation and Communication Requirements A Board That Must Be Right for Fifteen Years A smart meter is installed once, sealed, and expected to bill accurately for a decade or more without intervention. Its board measures current and voltage continuously, computes energy consumption in real time, stores…

EV Powertrain PCB: Engine, Transmission and Motor Control Boards The Board That Manages the Drivetrain Powertrain electronics decide how a vehicle turns stored energy into motion. In a combustion car that means ignition timing, fuel mixture and emissions control. In a hybrid it means arbitrating between an engine and a…

EV Battery Management and Power PCB: Design and Cost Where the Electronics Meet the Current An electric vehicle is a battery, a power conversion chain and a control system, and the boards that tie those together operate under conditions no consumer product faces: hundreds of volts, hundreds of amperes, continuous…

Defence Systems PCB: Standards, Materials and Design A Different Set of Requirements A defence board has to work in conditions that would be considered a fault in any commercial product: continuous vibration from an airframe, temperature swings of a hundred degrees, humidity, salt fog, shock, and in some cases ionising…

Amplifier PCB Layout Design: Audio, Power and RF Boards The Board Is Part of the Amplifier An amplifier circuit that measures perfectly on a breadboard can fail as a product, and the usual reason is the board it was built on. Gain stages amplify what reaches their input, including noise…

Surveillance Camera PCB: Components, Design and Manufacturing The Board Behind the Image A security camera is judged on the image it produces and on how long it keeps producing it. Both outcomes depend on the board inside. It supplies clean power to a sensitive image sensor, encodes a video stream…

Power Converter PCB Price Guide: Copper, Layers and Volume Why Converter Boards Cost More Than They Look A power converter board does the same job as a control board in principle: it moves signals and supplies power. In practice it does something a control board never does, which is carry…