Valley Services Electronics

Trail construction, like roads or other similar pathing, has to contour to the features of the ground beneath it. These trails are usually built to minimize the impact of human activity, meaning the lay of the land takes precedence over ease of use (to a point). Trail designers avoid extended steep climbs, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. When there is the option, most trails will incorporate switchbacks, a longer but less taxing ascent than a direct route over the surface.

As high-density interconnect boards continue to proliferate to meet modern devices’ dual high-performance and functionality requirements, board real estate is becoming more precious. Couple this development with a general tendency for consumer electronics toward portability, and designers must face the all-too-common problem of doing more with less. Historically, one of the more intractable board features…

While most PCB drilling is for vias and through-hole components, some drilling does not encompass electrical connectivity. The board’s placement within the enclosure requires mechanical drilling for fasteners, and some large components, like connectors, may utilize support pins for additional vibration dampening. While simple features overall, PCB mounting hole sizes require a basic understanding of…

The increasing prevalence of electronics in automobiles is welcome to consumers for many reasons: improved features increase safety measures or add new functionality that would otherwise be unachievable. There is a drawback with increasing electronic automation of the vehicle, as issues with signal transmission can undermine or override these safety features. For signal integrity, circuits…

As the power demands of devices increase to keep pace with performance, the thermal capabilities of standard PCB materials cannot provide the requisite characteristics for reliable operations. Traditional active and passive cooling approaches can impede project goals and lead to sub-optimal solutions, especially constrained designs due to enclosure size, package weight, or power efficiency. Increasingly,…

Keep a cool head when tackling high-power circuit designs with a metal core PCB stackup.