Latest Layout Technical Articles

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Design Tips for Protecting High-Speed Interfaces

In this second installment of the "Protect Your Ports! Top Design Tips to Keep Your Communications Connected" series, we explore what protecting high-speed interfaces looks like, including USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, and eSATA.

June 29, 2021 by Todd Phillips

Examining the Negative Resistance of a Quartz Crystal Oscillator

This article discusses how we can examine the oscillator circuit to make sure that it has sufficient “negative resistance” or “oscillation allowance”.

June 18, 2021 by Steve Arar

Assessing the Effect of Load Capacitance on the Frequency of a Quartz Crystal

Learn how the load capacitance mismatch can “pull” the crystal to oscillate at a different frequency and how we can circumvent this problem.

June 16, 2021 by Steve Arar

Four Lessons an Adult Engineer Can Learn From Children’s Toys

Children’s toys aren’t just for children. Inside every toy, there are hundreds of hours of engineering experience just waiting to be discovered.

March 24, 2021 by Mark Hughes

PCB Layout Techniques for Reducing Harmonic Distortion of a Differential ADC Driver

Summary

February 19, 2021 by Steve Arar

How to Use Decoupling Capacitor Placement to Reduce Harmonic Distortion

Learn how to reduce second harmonic distortion by following some guidelines for placing decoupling capacitors in your PCB layout.

February 12, 2021 by Steve Arar

Understanding and Mitigating Motor Driver Board Parasitics through Simulation

This article explores using PSpice for TI to simulate potential causes for parasitic effects in a motor-drive design and offers design tips to mitigate the negative effects common with high-power motor-drive systems.

February 04, 2021 by Matt Hein, Texas Instruments

Reducing Second Harmonic Distortion with Symmetrical PCB Layout

Need a low-distortion ADC interface? In this article, we'll discuss how to reduce 2nd harmonic distortion by using symmetric PCB layout.

January 18, 2021 by Steve Arar

Introduction to Thermal Characterization Parameters

In this article, we’ll discuss another group of thermal data, called thermal characterization parameters denoted by the Greek letter Psi (Ψ).

January 14, 2021 by Steve Arar

Tips for Achieving Low-Frequency Precision and Improved Bandwidth in Photodiode Circuits

This article continues our discussion of design techniques that help us to improve the performance of transimpedance amplifiers.

January 13, 2021 by Robert Keim

Choosing the Right Redriver or Retimer Device to Extend PCIe Protocol Signal Range

Redriver or retimer devices can extend the Peripheral Component Interface Express (PCIe®) protocol signal range. This article discusses how to select the best one for compute system and NVMe™ storage applications today and into the future.  

January 12, 2021 by Tam Do, Microchip

Junction-to-Case Thermal Resistance in Thermal Design

Learn about an important thermal metric for designing the interface between an IC package and a heat sink.

December 30, 2020 by Steve Arar

Theta JA (θJA) Test Conditions for Assessing IC Package Thermal Design

Junction-to-ambient thermal resistance (or θJA) should be measured under standardized testing conditions. Learn about these details to use this thermal metric appropriately.

December 29, 2020 by Steve Arar

How Junction-to-Ambient Thermal Resistance of an IC Package Affects Thermal Performance

Assessing the thermal performance of an IC package becomes easier if you understand this common, but often misapplied, parameter known as theta JA.

December 27, 2020 by Steve Arar

What Is RF Integrated Circuit Design?

Learn the high-level steps behind RFIC design.

December 06, 2020 by Jean-Jacques DeLisle

What Is Analog IC Design?

Learn the basic steps of the analog IC design process and how it compares to digital IC design.

December 04, 2020 by Jean-Jacques DeLisle

Construction of a Guitar Amplifier

This article explains the theory and the construction of the circuit of a 10W practice guitar amplifier.

November 29, 2020 by Teja Sai Marellapudi

Understanding Multi-Faceted Modeling Within Fusion 360

Documentation within the project pipeline is essential and design modeling is no different. In this article, learn about how to leverage the different modeling methods in Fusion 360.

November 24, 2020 by Sam Sattel, Autodesk

How to Draw, Render, and Animate with Fusion 360

Learn how to use Fusion 360 to develop digital drawings, 3D renderings, and animations to help in the creations of complex designs.

November 12, 2020 by Sam Sattel, Autodesk

Processing Solutions for High-Density PCBs

Designers must consider processing temperatures, producibility, and solder joint integrity of every component as well as higher I/O connectors. This article looks at ways to enable smaller component footprints for high-density PCBs.

November 03, 2020 by Brian Niehoff, Samtec