Duane Benson, Chief Technology Champion, Screaming Circuits As PCB assemblers, we’ve been asked the question,”Do I really need soldermask and silkscreen?” many times. And, we’ve been asked with good reasons. To us, soldermask protects exposed metal, reduce the chance of shorts and keeps solder where solder needs to be. Silkscreen removes ambiguity, ensuring that parts […]
PCB design
Analog Top Talks in December on EDABoard.com forums
Peer-to-peer, engineer-to-engineer questions and answers from the EDABoard.com engineering community around analog ICs and analog design. Click the “Read more” link and follow the entire conversation and maybe add your two cents by logging in to EDAboard.com. Low Dropout Voltage Regulator (LDO) design – Read more How to make a fast analog switch? – I would […]
Solid-state temperature sensing, part 1: principles
Temperature is by far the most commonly measured physical parameter in industrial, commercial, and even residential settings. It’s obviously about much more than just “what’s the temperature, so I will know what coat to wear?” Temperature readings are needed to control processes and systems via a negative feedback loop, PID algorithms, and comparators (References 1 […]
Analog Top Talks in November on EDABoard.com forums
Peer-to-peer, engineer-to-engineer questions and answers from the EDABoard.com engineering community around analog ICs and analog design. Click the “Read more” link and follow the entire conversation and maybe add your two cents by logging in to EDAboard.com. Adaptive biasing of source degeneration – I am designing an OTA with improved linearity, and I have used source […]
Analog simulator includes support for digitally enhanced power analog controllers, linear regulators, MOSFET and LED drivers
PLAB Mindi analog simulation software, which was updated to include more models and features, is now available from Microchip Technology Inc. The MPLAB Mindi Analog Simulator is a circuit simulation tool that now supports more than 300 Microchip analog products, with SIMetrix’s enhanced SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) and SIMPLIS Technologies’ SIMPLIS (SIMulation of […]
Software models multi-level photonic IC designs
Version 2017.09 of the Synopsys RSoft product portfolio software tools for photonic component and optical communication system design includes important new features to streamline and enhance photonic and optoelectronic modeling. The RSoft Photonic Component Design Suite reduces development time with efficient analysis of silicon photonics components at the device, circuit and system levels. The RSoft Photonic System […]
Free automated part builder for PCBs
Software billed as the first free automated part builder uses computer vision technology to let PCB designers make schematic symbols in just minutes. Called InstaBuild, it uses a datasheet as the input and automatically extracts symbol pinouts, understands whether a pin is an input, output or power pin, and auto-arranges the symbols based on published […]
Cloud-based symbol/footprint library speeds PCB design
Designers can now search and download free, cloud-based symbols and footprints directly during PCB design capture and layout, significantly boosting design productivity. “For forty years, PCB designers have frittered away countless hours defining parts because there simply wasn’t a workable, affordable source for accurate, ready-made parts. In fact, surveys show that most professional designers spend […]
Free lit: Photo etching of thin-metal parts, shielding and flexible circuits
A capabilities brochure describes how the photo etching process lets Tech-Etch produce prototype quantities and large production runs of intricate parts for many diverse mechanical and electrical applications, without the high cost and long lead times of hard tooling. Custom light-gauge parts are produced with intricate patterns, precise tolerances and burr-free edges, in addition to […]
Top analog threads on EDAboard.com – July
(editor’s note: Intrigued by the problem? Have a question or another solution? Then click the “Read more” link and follow the conversation on EDAboard.com or log in to EDAboard and participate in the analog forum threads.) Simulate a simple differential amplifier – My current source is 50 uA but the drain current of M16, M29 […]
