Written by Duncan Nicol, Sales & Marketing Manager- Device Connections
PCB designers often complain about the lack of space when laying out a PCB. The overall dimension of the device has often been defined right at the outset and before the circuit design is complete. Therefore finding extra space on the PCB is a very welcome and valuable asset.
Continue readingWritten by Karl Fazakerley -Product Manager, Device Connections
Suppose you have an optical lens of some sort onto which you shine a light with a known photonic output. While most of the incident light passes through the lens, some fraction of the light is reflected and some is absorbed (the behaviour is also dependent on the wavelength of the incident light). You’d like to characterise that lens: Exactly how much light was reflected? How much passed through? What is it about the lens that prevented all of the light from passing through?
Written by Duncan Nicol, Sales & Marketing Manager – Device Connections
When it comes to designing a new electronic device, the initial considerations are function and aesthetics to ensure the device meets the requirements of the environment it is designed to function in.
Way down the list of things to consider is the connector(s). And this can be something of an issue if the layout is already defined by the silicon and enclosure design. By definition, a connector is a component that interacts with other elements in the device or with the outside world. It connects things together, and for this reason the connector(s) is an integral part of the design.
Written by Gary Nelson – Senior Product Manager – Device Connections
Will your new design need a component or enclosure that you’d ideally like to be customised in some way?
It can be a conscious trade off you end up making between using components and enclosures that exist in the general marketplace over having something that meets your specific needs. You may be looking for something as simple as a colour change or having characters marked onto the product or perhaps your needs are greater and you wish to have poles removed or holes milled into an enclosure. The more you modify the product the better the chance it has of meeting your exact needs and ensuring that your customers know the best way to handle your design especially where safety critical applications are concerned.
Written by Karl Fazakerley
The Internet of Things (IoT) is here, and it is the game changer. IoT has been described as the fourth Industrial Revolution. And if all the research and speculation is accurate, we’re going to be seeing at least 26 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. This is all great, but it’s easy to feel disconnected from the future-looking talk from a PCB Design Engineer viewpoint. After all, how much of a role are you really going to be playing in those fancy marketing words like Smart Homes, Smart Cars, and Smart Cities? Continue reading
Written by Duncan Nicol, Market Segment Manager- Device Connections
Imagine a food processing production line where freshly prepared ingredients are rushing down the line being prepared for tomorrow’s ready meal. This is a time critical process where a line failure can result in the loss of valuable produce and a missed delivery deadline. A stopped production line costs money, simple as that, and so when designing the electronics used to run production lines, reliability is a key requirement.
Of course, these days with automated assembly and test, electronic devices are significantly more reliable than they were a few years ago but despite this, things occasionally do still go wrong.