Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - Features

Features

How will the pandemic play out in the PCB world?

Here we are, nine months into 2020, with little insight as to how the rest of the year will turn out for printed circuit fabricators. When was the last time that occurred? Perhaps more than a decade ago? The 5G implementation drove revenue gains at the best-performing PCB fabricators last year and are providing a foundation for 2020 as well. Automotive, on the other hand, is sputtering, as car sales have crashed with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Who could have seen any of this when the book closed on 2019?

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How to determine the critical length of a signal.

Ed.: The following is excerpted from the author’s new book titled High-Speed Constraint Values and PCB Layout Methods. The book and accompanying calculator give effective constraint values based on signal edge rate and stackup information. The book and calculator are available as free downloads at https://pcdandf.com/pcdesign/index.php/constraints. This excerpt presents Chapter 3, which describes the best way to determine if a routed signal needs high-speed management. Other chapters in the book describe the layout methods and constraints to prevent signal degradation.

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Despite competing goals of price and reliability, the technology requirements for most products are similar.

Updates in silicon and electronics technology.

Fresh off its latest acquisition, there’s a sense of déjà vu. Is this the next big American fabricator?

When a pair of West Coast US fabricators called Pacific Circuits and Power Circuits merged more than 30 years ago, probably no one knew the new entity would someday become the largest PCB manufacturer in the world. The deal was financed by two private equity firms, one of which was Thayer Capital Partners. With it came a rebranding to TTM Technologies. The deal was the first in a long series of M&A activities that over the next 15 years eventually rolled up Details, the PCB units of Honeywell and Tyco, Hong Kong’s Meadville PCB, and Viasystems, among others.

So, observers are forgiven then if the narrative developing with Summit Interconnect feels a little familiar.

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Leveraging common fabrication processes to encapsulate transformers.

Like embedded resistors and capacitors, embedded magnetics provide a means for reducing system size and cost. Transformers and inductors used in power and telecommunication applications are often the more expensive devices in a system design. When realizing a power converter or RF module, cost and size reductions can be realized by combining the magnetics and PCB functions. This article provides an overview of embedded magnetics design and construction.

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