May 2017

At low frequencies, current takes the shortest path home. At high frequencies, it abandons direct routes for minimal inductance paths beneath traces. Ground plane discontinuities create radiation havoc—measurements prove theory right.

The “power distribution system” is all parts of an electric system between the “bulk power source” and the consumer’s service-entrance equipment.

High-quality inductors and capacitors can create dangerous resonant circuits, generating voltage peaks up to Q times the input voltage. This underdamped behavior causes EMI issues, component damage, and circuit malfunctions. Strategic damping with resistors or ferrites provides effective solutions for power integrity problems.

ISO 26262 requires a variety of processes and frameworks for safety management, safety concept development, requirements flow-down, and verification & validation activities.

Social media and the internet in general have given manufacturers a much greater ability to communicate with their consumers on a regular and frequent basis.

Tests and manufacturing results have proven that some static dissipative materials can still produce significant and possibly damaging discharge currents.

In the beginning there was Underwriters Laboratories, and not much else.

After causing a bit of a stir in the compliance testing industry in the last few years, the FCC recently defused some tension when they accepted a pair of US-based Accreditation Bodies to accredit laboratories in foreign lands.