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OnTrack

OnTrack with Judy Warner discusses PCB design, manufacturing, and everything in between. Judy interviews inventors and experts in printed circuit board design, fabrication and assembly to learn what's next for electronics, hardware, and system design. OnTrack also publishes a monthly newsletter available here.

Component Shortages Report from IHS What are the coping strategies available for PCB Designers to face the challenging impact of component shortages in the industry? Watch and learn in this episode with expert Greg Wood of IHS. Read Article

Remotely Powering Devices, Wirelessly With electronic devices being available in smaller and smaller sizes and the prevalence of wi-fi networks, the rise of remote monitoring devices around the home and the workplace continues to grow. Smart heating solutions now place sensors in every room, monitoring everything from temperature to occupancy to provide a highly efficient zonal heating system. Intruder detection systems no longer require thousands of meters of wiring to be installed Read Article

Guidelines for Creating Useful Schematic Symbols The schematic symbols that you use to represent the components are at the heart of your schematic design. The quality of the symbol and how it is arranged can be one of the most critical factors influencing your schematic’s readability. A poor quality schematic symbol will lead to an unreadable schematic sheet that is difficult to understand. I created the largest open-source library for Altium Designer over five years ago, initially as a way to Read Article

Using a Thermal Camera for PCB Diagnostics There has likely been a time when you’ve powered on a freshly built prototype for the first time, only to find you’ve hit the current limit on the lab power supply. Even as you increase the current limit to way beyond what you would expect your board to draw, the lab power supply is still limited. If it’s safe, you poke around the board with your finger, but you can’t feel any parts that are hot to the touch. Also, probing around with a Read Article

What does AMD’s purchase of Xilinx mean for the electronics world? Who is Xilinx? While AMD is focused on microprocessor production, Xilinx is a specialist producer of FPGA (field-programmable gate arrays), which are particularly useful for telecommunications applications, and the development of 5G across the world has opened up significant growth in this sector. The expected number of new 5G cellular base stations required over the next five to ten years will be in the millions. Xilinx has been one of the front Read Article

Smart Micro Fan Controller If you’ve ever had to wear eye protection for an extended period of time, especially if you have prescription inserts in that eye protection, you’ve probably noticed fogging can be a major issue. Last year I designed and 3D printed a small fan unit that mounts a 25mm x 25mm x 10mm fan on each side of a military eye protection. It directs a small flow of air over the inside of the lenses and keeps them clear even during physical exertion on cool Read Article

Create a Buck-Boost Power Supply In this series of articles, we’re looking at the design and implementation of the main types of power regulators and converters you might use in an electronics project. I gave a graduate engineer who I mentor a series of requirements to demonstrate each of these types and have recorded the results here so you can work through the same exercises and hopefully come up with the same results. The next switching regulator is the last in our switching Read Article

Taking Simulation to a New Dimension Tarun and Keshav Amla from Avishtech join us in this OnTrack episode to discuss about PCB stackup simulation. Read Article

Four Commonly Held Myths of EMC Design “Don't gap your ground plane, there's never really a good reason to do that.” Dr. Hubing our guest for today is an EMC expert with 30 years of experience in the industry. Watch this episode or listen on the go now. Read Article

Bogatin’s “Practical Guide to” Book Series Eric Bogatin, the Dean of Signal Integrity Academy, is here to talk about empowering PCB designers to become their own experts. Eric also shares the inspiration behind his new book. Read Article

Test-Driven Development for Embedded Systems What is Hardware-in-the-loop testing and how it can save you time and resources when designing your board? Watch this podcast episode with Ari Mahpour to learn more. Read Article

Key Factors of Thoughtful Design Ed Becze of Pegmatis, a highly experienced R&D company with end-to-end product development capabilities, joins us to help start-ups and design engineers like you avoid electronic product development failures. Read Article

8 Things you Need to Know about Copper Copper roughness has an impact on high-speed digital designs. Choose your copper wisely. John Coonrod gives us pro tips when picking the most suitable copper to use on your next design. Read Article

Sub-25 Micron Traces with Averatek ASAP Technology High-density designs, simplified. Averatek offers a disruptive solution for complex electronic design. In this episode, we are very fortunate to have the powerhouse executive team from Averatek Corporation. Watch or listen on the go. Read Article

Supply Chain Intelligence from Octopart Daniel Schoenfelder, Head of Octopart, is our guest in this episode. We will talk about the importance of having reliable access to electronic part data. Read Article

Macrofab: Modern EMS Solutions in North America Macrofab offers a better electronics manufacturing experience for the customer. Chris Church, Founder and Chief Product Officer at MacroFab, Inc. tells us more in this OnTrack episode. Read Article

Reinventing the Business of Electronics Altium’s Chief Ecosystem Officer, Ted Pawela, and Altium’s Chief Software Architect, Leigh Gawne, join us to give us information about the launching of Nexar—an open ecosystem with zero cost. Read Article