💻 How to Select the Best PCB Design Software for Your Project
This article will help you to understand what features you can expect from an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tool.
▫️ Allegro Design Authoring (HDL) has two major benefits: it allows for managing PCB physical constraints in the schematic editor, which is very helpful for communicating complex constraint information. For PCB layout, Allegro is a very capable PCB editor overall. It’s worth noting that some advanced features in Allegro require an additional license.
▫️ Altium is another popular tool, which has schematic capture and layout capabilities in one tool. This EDA tool also allows for SPICE simulation, and includes an Electro-Magnetics solver for accurate impedance and propagation delay calculations during PCB layout.
▫️ KiCad comes with a standard component library, and supports many advanced schematic and layout techniques. It does lack some important features, especially for complex designs.
#articles #electronics #design
This article will help you to understand what features you can expect from an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tool.
▫️ Allegro Design Authoring (HDL) has two major benefits: it allows for managing PCB physical constraints in the schematic editor, which is very helpful for communicating complex constraint information. For PCB layout, Allegro is a very capable PCB editor overall. It’s worth noting that some advanced features in Allegro require an additional license.
▫️ Altium is another popular tool, which has schematic capture and layout capabilities in one tool. This EDA tool also allows for SPICE simulation, and includes an Electro-Magnetics solver for accurate impedance and propagation delay calculations during PCB layout.
▫️ KiCad comes with a standard component library, and supports many advanced schematic and layout techniques. It does lack some important features, especially for complex designs.
#articles #electronics #design
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📃 5 Embedded Technologies to Master in 2022
Article describes different technologies in the embedded systems industry and provides suggestions on the technologies that developers and teams should investigate and try to start mastering.
▫️ Embedded DevOps: First, learn how to use Docker to set up an embedded toolchain. Next, automate your build processes using a CI/CD server. Finally, as time allows, continue to improve your CI/CD process by adding code analytics, unit testing, integration testing, and so forth.
▫️ Automated Hardware-In-Loop Testing: Over time, manual testing will be removed and replaced it with automated tests that will save everyone time, stress, and your company money.
▫️ Multicore Microcontroller Development: Over the next few years the use of multicore microcontrollers is going to skyrocket because of the fact that many applications need isolation run-time environments. Additionally, the cost for multicore microcontrollers is dramatically coming down.
#articles #design
Article describes different technologies in the embedded systems industry and provides suggestions on the technologies that developers and teams should investigate and try to start mastering.
▫️ Embedded DevOps: First, learn how to use Docker to set up an embedded toolchain. Next, automate your build processes using a CI/CD server. Finally, as time allows, continue to improve your CI/CD process by adding code analytics, unit testing, integration testing, and so forth.
▫️ Automated Hardware-In-Loop Testing: Over time, manual testing will be removed and replaced it with automated tests that will save everyone time, stress, and your company money.
▫️ Multicore Microcontroller Development: Over the next few years the use of multicore microcontrollers is going to skyrocket because of the fact that many applications need isolation run-time environments. Additionally, the cost for multicore microcontrollers is dramatically coming down.
#articles #design
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📰 Taiwan's New Solar Panel 'Sun Rock' Will Deliver 1 Million kWh Per Year
A high-profile Dutch firm has launched an urban sustainability project of epic proportions.
Called the Sun Rock project, MVRDV has announced plans to build a building almost totally smothered in solar panels, capable of generating roughly 1 million kWh of green energy, every year, according to a new page on the company's official website.
Crucially, if it works, it could even pump excess energy back into the city grid, raising the question of whether entire neighborhoods of functional and residential buildings could also serve as power sources in the world of tomorrow. It's slated to be up and running by 2024.
#news #energy
A high-profile Dutch firm has launched an urban sustainability project of epic proportions.
Called the Sun Rock project, MVRDV has announced plans to build a building almost totally smothered in solar panels, capable of generating roughly 1 million kWh of green energy, every year, according to a new page on the company's official website.
Crucially, if it works, it could even pump excess energy back into the city grid, raising the question of whether entire neighborhoods of functional and residential buildings could also serve as power sources in the world of tomorrow. It's slated to be up and running by 2024.
#news #energy
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📘 A Summary of Electronics
This text is a summary of electronics written for hobbyists or people with little technical knowledge. However, it is a rigorous summary of the electronics, so that a global but useful overview can be obtained.
In addition, a summary of the electronics of this style also serves to review concepts to professionals or engineers who might have forgotten basic notions. Below is the index with direct links to the different sections.
More information...
#beginner #electronics
This text is a summary of electronics written for hobbyists or people with little technical knowledge. However, it is a rigorous summary of the electronics, so that a global but useful overview can be obtained.
In addition, a summary of the electronics of this style also serves to review concepts to professionals or engineers who might have forgotten basic notions. Below is the index with direct links to the different sections.
More information...
#beginner #electronics
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📃 Wi-Fi Sensing Technology
Wi-Fi can do more than just communication—it has the power to improve our lives through meaningful applications.
What you will learn:
▫️ How Wi-Fi Sensing technology is influencing the future of the Wi-Fi ecosystem.
▫️ How Wi-Fi Sensing works.
▫️ How the 802.11bf Wi-Fi standard could lead to broader adoption of the technology.
The applications of Wi-Fi and wireless technology are rapidly evolving, and scientists have developed new ways to make sense of Wi-Fi signals. This is called Wi-Fi Sensing. You may soon see this new functionality in your security systems, your health at home monitoring, your cars, and the IoT devices you use daily.
Wi-Fi Sensing technology harnesses Wi-Fi signals to sense activities and interpret movement. The technology applies AI capabilities to make sense of Wi-Fi signals, called “channel state information,” to perform the sensing. Some sensing capabilities include basic motion detection, motion localization, presence detection, etc.
#articles
Wi-Fi can do more than just communication—it has the power to improve our lives through meaningful applications.
What you will learn:
▫️ How Wi-Fi Sensing technology is influencing the future of the Wi-Fi ecosystem.
▫️ How Wi-Fi Sensing works.
▫️ How the 802.11bf Wi-Fi standard could lead to broader adoption of the technology.
The applications of Wi-Fi and wireless technology are rapidly evolving, and scientists have developed new ways to make sense of Wi-Fi signals. This is called Wi-Fi Sensing. You may soon see this new functionality in your security systems, your health at home monitoring, your cars, and the IoT devices you use daily.
Wi-Fi Sensing technology harnesses Wi-Fi signals to sense activities and interpret movement. The technology applies AI capabilities to make sense of Wi-Fi signals, called “channel state information,” to perform the sensing. Some sensing capabilities include basic motion detection, motion localization, presence detection, etc.
#articles
👍5
🧠 Neural Network From Scratch
Neural nets are increasingly dominating the field of machine learning / artificial intelligence: the most sophisticated models for computer vision, natural language processing, translation, and more are based on neural nets.
How do they work? Why are they so good? Why are they so slow? Why are GPUs/TPUs used to speed them up? Why do the biggest models have more neurons than humans, yet still perform worse than the human brain?
The best course of action to answer those questions is by implementing a simple neural net from scratch.
More information...
#articles #programming #artificial_intelligence #python
Neural nets are increasingly dominating the field of machine learning / artificial intelligence: the most sophisticated models for computer vision, natural language processing, translation, and more are based on neural nets.
How do they work? Why are they so good? Why are they so slow? Why are GPUs/TPUs used to speed them up? Why do the biggest models have more neurons than humans, yet still perform worse than the human brain?
The best course of action to answer those questions is by implementing a simple neural net from scratch.
More information...
#articles #programming #artificial_intelligence #python
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💻 Shedding too much Light on a Microcontroller’s Firmware Protection
Almost every microcontroller with integrated flash features firmware readout protection. This is a form of content protection which aims at securing intellectual property (IP) as well as cryptographic keys and algorithms from an adversary.
One series of microcontrollers are the STM32 which have recently gained popularity and thus are increasingly under attack. However, no practical experience and information on the resilience of STM32 microcontrollers is publicly available.
The paper presents the first investigation of the STM32 security concept, especially targeting the STM32F0 sub-series.
More information...
#articles #security
Almost every microcontroller with integrated flash features firmware readout protection. This is a form of content protection which aims at securing intellectual property (IP) as well as cryptographic keys and algorithms from an adversary.
One series of microcontrollers are the STM32 which have recently gained popularity and thus are increasingly under attack. However, no practical experience and information on the resilience of STM32 microcontrollers is publicly available.
The paper presents the first investigation of the STM32 security concept, especially targeting the STM32F0 sub-series.
More information...
#articles #security
👍2
📃 4 Tips for Rapid Prototyping with the Raspberry Pi Pico
The Raspberry Pi Pico opens a wide range of development options at a low cost.
▫️ Prototype with the Raspberry Pi Pico Module Board. If your prototyping and playtime are short, or you want to be efficient, using an existing prototype board can be helpful.
▫️ Use the MicroPython SDK. Writing applications in Python are faster, more portable, and easy for hardware and software engineers to understand.
▫️ Use rshell to Interact with the Board. rshell is a remote shell for use with MicroPython. Developers can connect their Pico board, open rshell and it will create a serial connection to the Pico. Once the serial connection has been enabled, developers can use shell commands like cp to copy files between a host and the Pico or vice versa.
▫️ Explore the Multicore Examples. The C SDK examples contain several examples of how to write multithreaded applications, share data between cores, and interact with the programmable I/O.
#articles #raspberry
The Raspberry Pi Pico opens a wide range of development options at a low cost.
▫️ Prototype with the Raspberry Pi Pico Module Board. If your prototyping and playtime are short, or you want to be efficient, using an existing prototype board can be helpful.
▫️ Use the MicroPython SDK. Writing applications in Python are faster, more portable, and easy for hardware and software engineers to understand.
▫️ Use rshell to Interact with the Board. rshell is a remote shell for use with MicroPython. Developers can connect their Pico board, open rshell and it will create a serial connection to the Pico. Once the serial connection has been enabled, developers can use shell commands like cp to copy files between a host and the Pico or vice versa.
▫️ Explore the Multicore Examples. The C SDK examples contain several examples of how to write multithreaded applications, share data between cores, and interact with the programmable I/O.
#articles #raspberry
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📃 Soldering SMDs with Hot-Air Tips
Modern electronic PCB assemblies make use of Surface Mount Devices (SMD). SMDs with very small and closely spaced leads are difficult to solder using a soldering iron. A hot-air soldering technique makes the job much easier and quicker, and produces robust solder joints that eliminate solder bridges on the leads.
Tips on soldering with hot air:
▫️ The temperature should be adjusted to assure the solder melts without damaging the component or the circuit board.
▫️ The solder pads on the circuit board should have a sufficient amount of solder already melted and solidified before the component is placed.
▫️ Once the component is placed squarely on the solder pads, the hot-air soldering station wand is placed directly above the part.
▫️ Quality solder joints are a combination of proper technique as well as proper equipment and materials.
▫️ The technique is a learned process which is optimized through experience.
#articles #electronics
Modern electronic PCB assemblies make use of Surface Mount Devices (SMD). SMDs with very small and closely spaced leads are difficult to solder using a soldering iron. A hot-air soldering technique makes the job much easier and quicker, and produces robust solder joints that eliminate solder bridges on the leads.
Tips on soldering with hot air:
▫️ The temperature should be adjusted to assure the solder melts without damaging the component or the circuit board.
▫️ The solder pads on the circuit board should have a sufficient amount of solder already melted and solidified before the component is placed.
▫️ Once the component is placed squarely on the solder pads, the hot-air soldering station wand is placed directly above the part.
▫️ Quality solder joints are a combination of proper technique as well as proper equipment and materials.
▫️ The technique is a learned process which is optimized through experience.
#articles #electronics
👍9
🎬 Unknown ESP32 saving modes
We all know that we send our ESP32s to deep sleep to save energy. But do you know the other possibilities to save energy like light sleep and clock reduction? And what about modem sleep or hibernation?
https://youtu.be/JFDiqPHw3Vc
#video #esp32
We all know that we send our ESP32s to deep sleep to save energy. But do you know the other possibilities to save energy like light sleep and clock reduction? And what about modem sleep or hibernation?
https://youtu.be/JFDiqPHw3Vc
#video #esp32
YouTube
#410 Unknown ESP32 saving: Light Sleep, Clock Reduction, Modem Sleep, Hibernation, and a few tricks
We all know we send our ESP32s to deep sleep to save energy. But do you know other energy-saving possibilities like light sleep and clock reduction? And what about modem sleep or hibernation?
Links:
ESP32 Adapter board: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_A1zQa8…
Links:
ESP32 Adapter board: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_A1zQa8…
💻 Top 10 C++ Advantages over C in Embedded Systems
The article is comparing the most important aspects of these two programming languages with code examples.
▫️ Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) - In C++, the compiler will manage the data object for you.
▫️ Stronger Types - Where C will give you a warning (or just be silent), C++ will produce and error and force you to inspect the issue.
▫️ Template Programming - C++ is more concise, the exact same code can be used for a variety of types. The compiler then handles generating the function for different types.
▫️ RAII - “Resource Allocation is Initialization” means that every class has a constructor that allocates resources and a destructor that cleans them up.
▫️ Polymorphism - In C++, it means code can take multiple forms based on the context.
▫️ References - In C, you can pass by value or pass a pointer (by value). C++ has references which are basically more strict pointers.
#articles #programming
The article is comparing the most important aspects of these two programming languages with code examples.
▫️ Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) - In C++, the compiler will manage the data object for you.
▫️ Stronger Types - Where C will give you a warning (or just be silent), C++ will produce and error and force you to inspect the issue.
▫️ Template Programming - C++ is more concise, the exact same code can be used for a variety of types. The compiler then handles generating the function for different types.
▫️ RAII - “Resource Allocation is Initialization” means that every class has a constructor that allocates resources and a destructor that cleans them up.
▫️ Polymorphism - In C++, it means code can take multiple forms based on the context.
▫️ References - In C, you can pass by value or pass a pointer (by value). C++ has references which are basically more strict pointers.
#articles #programming
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📟 MutantW V1 – An open-source ESP32 smartwatch designed with Autodesk Fusion 360 and EAGLE
The smartwatch is equipped with a 1.7-inch IPS LCD display (non-touch), two hardware buttons, a NeoPixel RGB LED, a vibration motor, as being powered by an ESP32 SoC offers both 2.4GHz WiFi 4 Bluetooth LE connectivity.
MutantW V1 specifications:
▫️ WIreless module – A.i. Thinker ESP32-S WiFi and Bluetooth module with ESP32 dual-core processor @ 240MHz with 520KB SRAM, 4MB SPI flash
▫️ Display – 1.69-inch SPI IPS LCD display (ST7789 driver) with 280 x 240 resolution, scratch-resistant front glass.
▫️ Misc – 2x programmable buttons, NeoPixel RGB LED, vibration motor
▫️ Battery – 3.7V/200mAh LiPo battery likely good for one or two days; charged with 4-pin charging cable
More information...
#projects #esp32
The smartwatch is equipped with a 1.7-inch IPS LCD display (non-touch), two hardware buttons, a NeoPixel RGB LED, a vibration motor, as being powered by an ESP32 SoC offers both 2.4GHz WiFi 4 Bluetooth LE connectivity.
MutantW V1 specifications:
▫️ WIreless module – A.i. Thinker ESP32-S WiFi and Bluetooth module with ESP32 dual-core processor @ 240MHz with 520KB SRAM, 4MB SPI flash
▫️ Display – 1.69-inch SPI IPS LCD display (ST7789 driver) with 280 x 240 resolution, scratch-resistant front glass.
▫️ Misc – 2x programmable buttons, NeoPixel RGB LED, vibration motor
▫️ Battery – 3.7V/200mAh LiPo battery likely good for one or two days; charged with 4-pin charging cable
More information...
#projects #esp32
👍7
📃 What are system integration issues with FPGAs?
The complexity of FPGAs is both a strength and a weakness. It’s a strength because of the many system performance benefits and capabilities they bring for designers to leverage. It’s a weakness because of the complexities of successfully integrating high pin-count FPGAs into high-speed systems.
As a result of FPGAs’ complex and extensive functional capabilities, debugging a new design can encompass 50% or more of the overall design time.
There are many challenges to deal with when integrating FPGAs into systems – including pin assignments that don’t work in the board layout, signal integrity problems on the board, power and grounding issues, parasitic package inductances, and more.
#articles #fpga
The complexity of FPGAs is both a strength and a weakness. It’s a strength because of the many system performance benefits and capabilities they bring for designers to leverage. It’s a weakness because of the complexities of successfully integrating high pin-count FPGAs into high-speed systems.
As a result of FPGAs’ complex and extensive functional capabilities, debugging a new design can encompass 50% or more of the overall design time.
There are many challenges to deal with when integrating FPGAs into systems – including pin assignments that don’t work in the board layout, signal integrity problems on the board, power and grounding issues, parasitic package inductances, and more.
#articles #fpga
👍5
🤖 Open Dynamic Robot Initiative
An Open Torque-Controlled Modular Robot Architecture for Legged Locomotion Research
This project originated in an effort to build a low cost and low complexity actuator module using brushless motors that can be used to build different types of torque controlled robots with mostly 3D printed and off-the-shelves components. This module, and extensions, can be used to build legged robots or manipulators.
All the hardware (drawings) and software has been open sourced under the BSD 3-clause license so the robots can easily be reproduced by other research laboratories.
More information:
Official website
Research article
Hardware Repository
Software Documentation
#projects #robots
An Open Torque-Controlled Modular Robot Architecture for Legged Locomotion Research
This project originated in an effort to build a low cost and low complexity actuator module using brushless motors that can be used to build different types of torque controlled robots with mostly 3D printed and off-the-shelves components. This module, and extensions, can be used to build legged robots or manipulators.
All the hardware (drawings) and software has been open sourced under the BSD 3-clause license so the robots can easily be reproduced by other research laboratories.
More information:
Official website
Research article
Hardware Repository
Software Documentation
#projects #robots
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