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If you’re a designer of extremely high-speed PCBs or high-frequency RF devices, then you’ll be taking advantage of impedance controlled routing features in your PCB design software. These tools are designed to ensure the impedance of a transmission line is consistent along its length, thereby allowing termination at each end to prevent reflections. Consistent impedance […]

Your PCB substrate materials are a major determinant of many aspects of performance. In any real operating environment, you’ll need to make several compromises to ensure your next board operates as intended. The PCB substrate materials industry has spent a significant amount of time engineering PCB core and laminate materials with a variety of material […]

3D printing of large, complex objects like automobiles and rockets was once thought to border on the realm of science fiction. Today, serious companies are producing 3D-printed rocket engine parts and finished engines with lower weight and cost compared to traditionally manufactured engines. 3D printing capabilities now span beyond fabricating mechanical parts for rocket engines […]

When only a small number of designs ran at extremely high speeds (<1 ns rise times), most designers did not worry so much about the fiber weave effect in PCB design and manufacturing. With low bandwidth digital signals and at low GHz frequencies, the effects of a loose fiber weave were generally too small to […]

Whether you work on high-speed digital or high-frequency analog devices, losses and signal distortion are important performance metrics in these systems. In planar PCBs on rigid substrates, the industry is moving away from FR4 PCBs, and a variety of high-speed laminate materials are available with low losses and nearly flat dispersion. Despite the availability of […]

Mass manufacturing has made modern life possible for people around the globe. The need to quickly manufacture products in high volumes is not going to change any time soon, but the traditional production environment is not suitable for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing of complex products. This is especially true for a number of plastic and mechanical […]

Additive manufacturing technologies have advanced to the point where 3D printing processes and systems have moved outside the laboratory and onto the factory floor. More than 90% of Fortune 500 manufacturing CEOs agree that additive manufacturing will play a pivotal role in their operations in the future, and we can expect greater use of these […]