Optical PCB Manufacturing Moving Data With Light Instead of Copper For most of the history of electronics, data has moved as current along copper conductors. The approach works, but copper has limits: the losses rise with frequency, the signal degrades over distance, and the energy required to drive a long…

UAV Communication System PCB The Link Is the Aircraft’s Lifeline An unmanned aircraft depends entirely on its communication system. The control link carries the commands that keep it in the air, the telemetry link reports its state, and the video or payload link carries what the mission is collecting. If…

Avionics PCB Manufacturing Electronics That Fly Avionics covers everything electronic in an aircraft: the flight control computers, the navigation and communication equipment, the radar and sensor systems, the displays in the cockpit and the monitoring systems that track the health of the airframe and the engines. Every one of those…

Military PCB Manufacturing Cost Why the Price Is What It Is A military board looks, at first glance, like an industrial board with a thicker specification. The difference is that the specification is the product: the board has to work in temperature extremes, under vibration, in humidity and in the…

Gaming Monitor PCB Manufacturing The Board Behind the Refresh Rate A gaming monitor is sold on refresh rate, response time and colour, and all three are produced by the electronics rather than by the panel alone. The panel defines the maximum, but the board has to deliver the timing, the…

Security System PCB Manufacturing Equipment That Cannot Take a Day Off A surveillance system is expected to run continuously, often for years, and to be recording on the day something happens. The cameras, the access controllers and the alarm panels are installed in places that are inconvenient to reach, exposed…

Measurement Equipment PCB Manufacturing What the Instrument Measures Is What the Board Delivers A measurement instrument is defined by its accuracy, and the accuracy is the sum of everything between the sensor and the displayed number. The analog front end sets the noise floor, the reference sets the stability, the…

Micro Inverter PCB Manufacturing One Panel, One Inverter A micro inverter sits behind a single solar panel and converts that panel’s direct current output to alternating current on the spot. The architectural difference from a string inverter is significant: because each panel has its own converter, shading or a fault…

Hard Drive PCB Manufacturing The Control Board Under the Drive A mechanical hard disk drive is a precision electromechanical device with a surprisingly small amount of electronics attached to the underside. That board has to run the spindle motor, drive the actuator that positions the heads, process the read and…

Capacitive Touch PCB Manufacturing A Switch With No Moving Parts A capacitive touch control replaces the mechanical switch with a copper electrode printed on the board and a controller that measures how much the electrode’s capacitance changes when a finger approaches. There is nothing to wear out, nothing to get…