This application note provides an overview of the various components that make up a power delivery network. It also describes the role of the PCB cutoff frequency (FEFFECTIVE) in designing an efficient system power delivery solution. The application note also describes the PCB design trade-offs and offers high-level design methodology that you can follow when combining multiple power rails on t...

This article presents an overview of the microstrip patch antenna and its design techniques. Basically a microstrip patch antenna comprises of a trace of copper or any other metal of any geometry on one side of a standard printed circuit board substrate with other side grounded. The antenna is fed using various feeding techniques like coaxial, strip line, aperture coupling or proximity coupling...

The common deterioration of civil infrastructure systems and the threat of extreme loadings require facility managers to improve their knowledge regarding the health of the structures that they manage. A dense array of wireless sensors installed in a structure could provide ample amounts of empirical data for monitoring structural health. In addition to being a low cost alternative to tradition...

We present a hierarchical classification scheme for the problems encountered in printed circuit board (PCB) assembly. The classification is based on the number of machines (one or many) and number of boards (one or many) present in the problem. The scheme also incorporates lower level classifications presented in the literature.

This work investigates the root causes of the incidence of solder flux residue underneath electronic components in the manufacture of power modules. The existing deionized water-based centrifugal cleaning process was analyzed and hypotheses for root causes of the problem were proposed. The experimentation included cleaning tests using agitation and soak cycles. Parameters such as chemical agent...

Available microwave techniques for crack detection have some challenges, such as design complexity and working at a high frequency. These challenges make the sensing apparatus design complex and relatively very expensive. This paper presents a simple method for surface and subsurface crack detection in metallic and non-metallic materials based on complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs). A C...

We report three novel demonstrations: 1. Coplanar electrowetting 2. Electrowetting on a printed circuit board (PCB) and 3. Transport and mixing in an “open” microfluidic substrate. Similar to “soft” lithography which enabled many researchers to easily prototype and experiment with continuous-flow microfluidics, this work allows researchers to easily experiment with discrete-flow microfluidics (...

This paper describes the implementation of a low cost PC based logic system suitable for either small scale chip or printed circuit board testing. The system incorporates a flexible graphical user interface (GUI) which permits users with little or no programming expertise to generate tests and operate the system quickly and efficiently. System cost is of the order of £1,000 which makes it very ...

Fujitsu’s MB86H06 set-top box (STB) chip is a high-density chip featuring high-performance, superior error concealment, robust audio-video (AV) synchronization, and low cost. It comprises a QFP256 package with DDR2 memory and supports a two-layer printed circuit board (PCB) layout for a low bill of material (BOM) cost. It is widely used in the China terrestrial television broadcasting (CTTB) ma...

With the miniaturization of electronic products, reducing the size of the printed circuit board that forms the backbone of the product is paramount. Embedding passive components, which otherwise occupy valuable “real estate” atop the printed circuit board, into the printed circuit board substrate itself is one way of achieving this objective. This first part of this paper examines the technique...