Microwave Transmitter PCB Manufacturing Where the Margin Goes A microwave transmitter runs continuously at high frequency and often at high power, and the link budget that the system was designed around is consumed by losses that mostly live on the board. A small change in dielectric constant, a deviation in…

Medical Robot PCB Assembly Precision That Has to Hold for Years A surgical robot, a rehabilitation exoskeleton or an imaging robot is judged by how precisely it moves and how reliably it repeats that motion. The servo drive, the force feedback, the imaging chain and the embedded controller all sit…

ABS Control Module PCB Assembly A Safety System With a Board Inside An anti-lock braking system has to decide, several times a second, whether a wheel is about to lock and how to release pressure without losing braking force. The control module that makes that decision combines wheel speed input,…

Camera Module PCB Manufacturing Where the Image Is Decided A camera module is a sensor, a lens and a board, and of the three, the board is the one that is usually treated as an afterthought. In practice it sets the noise floor, the data rate and the mechanical stability…

GPS Module PCB Assembly A Radio Receiver Built on a Board A GPS or GNSS module is a radio receiver that has to find a signal which arrives at the antenna weaker than the thermal noise floor of most circuits. The satellite signal reaching the ground is typically below minus…

Implantable Medical Device PCB Manufacturing The Most Demanding Class of Medical Board A pacemaker, a neurostimulator, a cochlear implant or an implanted sensor is expected to work inside the body for five to fifteen years without maintenance. There is no service access, no replacement of a failed component and no…

Continuous Glucose Monitor PCB Manufacturing What Makes a CGM Board Different A continuous glucose monitor reads a sensor under the skin for one or two weeks at a time and transmits the result to a phone or a pump. The electronics are tiny, they run from a coin cell or…

MRI Medical PCB Manufacturing Why Imaging Electronics Needs a Different Board Magnetic resonance imaging sits at the top of the medical imaging pyramid for technical complexity, and the electronics behind it have to work in an environment that no ordinary medical product faces. The scanner generates a strong static field,…

Signal Generator PCB Manufacturing Where the Signal Quality Comes From A signal generator is judged by three things: how accurately it holds its frequency, how much phase noise it adds, and how repeatable it is from unit to unit. The synthesiser and the firmware get most of the attention, but…

Blood Pressure Monitor PCB Manufacturing Measurement Accuracy Starts on the Board In a digital blood pressure monitor the reading depends far more on the circuit board than on the cuff or the housing. The cuff only has to hold pressure; the board has to capture a pressure oscillation that is…