HDI Design With 1 to 4 Order Blind and Buried Vias Phones, tablets, wearables and high end industrial modules all rely on high density interconnect boards to fit the routing into the space available. Designing one is harder than designing an ordinary multilayer board, because the stack-up, the via strategy,…

PCB Bulk Capacitor Versus Ceramic: Two Kinds of Storage Electronics manufacturing has become a discipline of small details. Solder paste volumes, placement accuracy, temperature profiles and inspection limits all add up to the final result. This guide looks at PCB bulk capacitor versus ceramic from the perspective of a PCBA…

PCB Power Plane Resonance: When the Plane Rings Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article explains…

Repeat Order Assembly of an Industrial Robot Control Board After a prototype has been verified, the usual next step is to order the same board again in a larger quantity. It looks like a matter of adding a zero to the quantity, but three things have often changed in between:…

PCB Star Ground Versus Ground Plane: Two Ways to Return Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB star ground versus ground plane gives you…

Micro Main Board Assembly for Wearable Devices The main board in a wearable device fits in a small area and still has to carry a processor, sensors, memory, power management, charging contacts and a board to board connector. For a project like this the question is not only whether the…

Volume Assembly of an Automotive Body Controller Board A body controller board carries a main controller, a communication transceiver, a protected supply circuit, relays and several connectors. When a project like this is prepared for volume, the useful conversation does not start with the date the line can run. It…

PCB Mixed Signal Grounding: Analog and Digital Together Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. Understanding PCB mixed signal grounding gives you a practical advantage when…

Signal Anomaly Investigation on a Data Acquisition Board A data acquisition board can pass placement and visual inspection and then show a drifting zero, excessive noise, or readings that differ between channels. Replacing the amplifier, the converter or the reference is the usual first reaction and usually the wrong one,…

Automotive Electronics Development to Automotive Grade Standards The share of electronics in a vehicle keeps rising, from body control modules to intelligent cabins, from battery management to domain controllers, and the requirements have risen with it. A part that goes into a car is not a consumer part with a…