Valley Services Electronics

Silicon Valley’s Premier Electronic and PCB Assembly Blog

tombstoning pcb assembly

Tombstoning Prevention – Design Analysis

Halloween is a yearly celebration in the neighborhood. Front yards that typically hold beautiful flowers and shrubs transform into decorative graveyard scenes in keeping with the holiday theme. One of the more common items is little plastic tombstones with humorous epitaphs such as: “Here lies Johnny Yeast, pardon me for not rising.” Tombstones on a…

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PCB Surface Finish: Preparing for Assembly

One of my first neighborhood jobs growing up was washing cars. With my dad’s trusted shammy, I would go around the block cleaning exteriors and vacuuming interiors to save a few bucks for video games. Part of my toolkit was wax – I didn’t understand its true purpose, but I could see the difference between…

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analog PCB layout guidelines

PCB vs. PCBA: From Bare Board To Final Assembly

I wrote a letter to a former teacher the other day, and given his impact on my career, I wanted to ensure I presented myself well. I used online tools to smooth over spelling and grammatical errors, but upon a reread, I realized I had used some imprecise (yet roughly synonymous) language. Most wouldn’t notice…

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Mixed-Signal PCB Design Best Practices

While smaller and more powerful electronics delight users, engineering these marvels can challenge the printed circuit board designer. Electronics used to contain multiple boards for digital processing, power supply, and analog functions, but that functionality typically packs into one dense PCB design in today’s devices. Analog circuitry takes sensory inputs and converts them into digital…

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