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FEATURES

CAD SOFTWARE
Price vs. Function
Functionality, breadth of features and ease of use top what designers like most about their preferred CAD software. But their biggest concern is not speed; it’s cost.
by Chelsey Drysdale

STANDARDS
IPC-1782: The New Dawn of Electronics Traceability
Traceability is thought of as expensive, complex, unreliable, incomplete, a threat to business and different for everyone. Can a new standard for electronics overcome those hurdles?
by Michael Ford

PCB DESIGN
5 Common Mistakes in Board Design
From wrong component selection to thermal imbalance, many of the most frequent yield spoilers are fixable.
by Arbel Nissan

TRANSITIONS
In Memoriam
Remembering those who left us in 2016.

FIRST PERSON

• CAVEAT LECTOR
  What the Mentor deal could portend for EDA.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• ROI
  A verified waste of time.
  Peter Bigelow
  

• FOCUS ON BUSINESS
  Changing of the generational guard.
  Susan Mucha

TECH TALK

• DESIGNER’S NOTEBOOK
  Cutting the cost.
  Duane Benson
• THE FLEXPERTS
  The limits of via-in-pad.
  Mark Finstad

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FEATURES

THERMAL MANAGEMENT
How AC Currents Affect PCB Trace Temperatures, Part 2
Past articles looked at the relationship between trace current and temperature for pulses that propagated through the trace. A look at the slightly more complicated topic of analog waveforms to see if the same conclusions apply.
by Douglas G. Brooks, Ph.D. and Dr. Johannes Adam

PCB MATERIALS
Nano Anchoring Copper Foil for Next-Generation Printed Wiring Boards
Newly developed treatment technology for copper foil enables ultra-low profile surfaces.
by Osamu Suzuki, Akito Yoshii, Hironobu Tsubura, Makiko Sato, Naoki Obata and Yoshinobu Kokaji

How Can the IoT Be a Solid Rock to Build Products and Profits On?
by Jon Howes

FIRST PERSON

• CAVEAT LECTOR
  Plugging the leaks.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• ROI
  Cybersecurity is all fogged up.
  Peter Bigelow
  

• FOCUS ON BUSINESS
  Making sense of the Philippines.
  Joseph Fama
• GLOBAL SOURCING
  Where the supply chain begins.
  Greg Papandrew

TECH TALK

• DESIGNER’S NOTEBOOK
  For reference – or not?
  Duane Benson
• TECH TIPS
  Getting to the bottom of void problems on QFNs.
  Timothy O’Neil

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FEATURES

HIGH-SPEED DESIGN
Analyzing the DDR Simulation Results
After looking in past months at critical signal integrity concerns that engineers face designing the DDR bus, and points to consider while setting up the simulation, this month the author discusses what to look for in the results of the simulation.
by Nitin Bhagwath

HIGH-FREQUENCY MATERIALS
Choosing Copper Foils for High-Frequency PCBs
Perhaps surprisingly, the same type of electrodeposited copper processed with two different treatments can yield two different levels of circuit performance. Thinner materials for microwave boards benefit from smooth surfaces to decrease insertion loss.
by John Coonrod

FIRST PERSON

• CAVEAT LECTOR
  Driven to excess?
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• ROI
  Business planning.
  Peter Bigelow
  

• FOCUS ON BUSINESS
  Integrated training.
  Susan Mucha

TECH TALK

• DESIGNER’S NOTEBOOK
  LED conspiracy.
  Duane Benson
• THE FLEXPERTS
  When a little more class might be wrong.
  Nick Koop

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FEATURES

TRACE MODELING
How AC Currents Affect PCB Trace Temperatures
Methods for estimating how AC currents behave on PCB traces, and verification with empirical testing.
by Douglas G. Brooks, Ph.D., and Dr. Johannes Adam

RIGID-FLEX DESIGN
Ensuring Reliable Products with New Rigid-Flex Design Rules
Using both the rigid and the flexible areas of a PCB for component placement, while possible, introduces new design constraints that require more advanced PCB design strategies. Rules and guidelines for routing and placement.
by Jim Frey

FIRST PERSON

• CAVEAT LECTOR
  Breaking the (m)old.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• ROI
  Trying harder.
  Peter Bigelow
  

• FOCUS ON BUSINESS
  Dealing with protectionism.
  Joseph Fama

TECH TALK

• DESIGNER’S NOTEBOOK
  Panel tabs.
  Duane Benson
• TECH TIPS
  Particle size vs. nanocoatings.
  Timothy O’Neil