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Welcome to pcb-update vol. 7 – March 2010

“Has the crisis had any influence on electronic development”?

“Crises! What crises?” – is the title of a Supertramp album released during the oil crises in 1975. Many of us can recall the cover featuring a man in shorts sitting in a deck chair under a yellow umbrella with a drink in his hand on the top of the roof catching rays, while factories around him were polluting the sky behind him.

A clear: statement: No matter how hard the crises may seem there will always be people or companies who are not affected by the “misery” surrounding them, and at the end of the day we will all prevail. Right or wrong?

Well history shows that we prevailed and that the old saying: “If it does not kill you it will make you stronger”, seems to be right. We came out of the crisis in the seventies stronger and wiser and more determined to show the world, that though conditions had tightened, we had no plans of giving up.

Now 35 years later we seem to be at the bottom of a new crisis that was even worse than the oil crisis in the seventies. We are still standing but definitely hit harder this time and I feel that this time that the number of people saying “Crises! What crises?” have kept a much lower profile than in the seventies.

Though many companies are not what they were in 2007 and many had to give up, we might have reached the all time low and be heading for a long slow climb back to business as it was three years ago.

So where do we stand in the electronic world in 2010. Well the situation for many companies is that they today have less people to do a more demanding job than three years ago, as electronic devices not been laying low during the crisis. They have followed the path that electronics always has; they are getting smaller, more complex and have to use less energy.

So the answer to the opening question: Has the crisis had any influence on electronic development must be a roaring NO. The electronics has been sitting in the deck chair continuing the evolution towards smaller, faster and more efficient, as if nothing has happened around them.

How does the designer cope? There are two things he can do. Get the best possible knowledge about the new technologies and how to implement them properly and to get the best possible tools to assist them in this process. We will in the following issues of pcb-update help you finding articles and training that will give you the best possible knowledge about the latest technologies and market trends.

DDR2/3 Do's and don't's

DDR2/3 is the hottest topics in the market right now and as a designer you need to be confident in designing with these devices, as they for sure will be a central part of you future design challenges.

On the Mentor Graphics website we have found a webinar explaining the Do's and Don's in DDR2/2 designs.

Abstract: Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) is quickly becoming the new memory standard for today's applications, replacing standard DDR memory. As processor and transmit speeds continue to increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet timing and signal integrity requirements for these high speed system. The webinar is created by Steve McKinney and Bill Hargin from Mentor Graphics.

The webinar can be downloaded from:

http://www.mentor.com/products/pcb-system-design/multimedia/ddr2

Best regards

Mike Dyrberg

pcb-update®.com