Printed Circuit Board Design with Open-Source Software

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design allows for the creation of the modern-day electronic systems. Open-source PCB design software allows people to easily access, modify, share, and collaborate on electronic projects. This project created several designs demonstrating various PCB design techniques for a keyboard interface, a transmission line test card, and a 2.4 GHz antenna. KiCad EDA is a cross-platform and open-source electronics design automation suite and was used for creating the boards in this project. Open-source software has few restrictions and no licensing costs, other commercial PCB design packages include Altium Designer

Design automation for 3D circuits

Traditional electronic systems are usually fabricated via printed circuit boards (PCBs). In a regular PCB, the electronic components are placed and mounted on a two-dimensional board. Such a component layout limits the freedom in the component placement process which results in larger electronic devices. With the use of Additive Manufacturing technology, it is possible to create 3D Circuits which are structures with embedded electronics. 3D circuits allow for easier electrical component placement which results in building smaller electrical devices, but they have disadvantages too. Heat transfer is a big concern in creating functional 3D circuits since the electrical components which generate heat are placed in a compact space. To solve this issues, there is a need for a design framework in which an automation tool places the electrical components in the most optimum way to achieve the minimum electrical resistance resulting in less wire length and possibly smaller designs. The automation tool considers heat transfer constraints to prevent electrical components from overheating. In this thesis design automation methods for 3D circuits have been explored and implemented as a proof-of-concept of future commercial grade software that will facilitate 3D circuit design. The developed automation tool uses a stochastic approach (Genetic Algorithm) to optimize the electrical component layout.Keywords: Routing, Circuits, Component Placement, Design Optimization, 3D Circuits, Heat Transfer, 3D PCBs, Electrical Design Automation, Design Automatio

Printed Circuit Board for Introductory Animatronics Course

For many years, freshmen Computer Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University have taken a course that introduces them to the “processes of electronics manufacturing. They are lectured on concepts such as CAD/CAM design, Design for Manufacture (DFM), documentation requirements, prototyping and production planning”. The laboratory portion of the course allows students to “use hands-on techniques to solidify knowledge of project planning, soldering, automation, hand tool usage and production methods” by manufacturing their own power supply, starting with aluminum sheets, a bag of components, and and an unassembled printed circuit board (PCB). While the project is popular among students, department faculty see the need for modernization to keep up with today’s emerging technical education tools. With the proliferation of easy-to-use development boards and prototyping software, such as the Arduino and Fritzing, people who aren’t pursuing degrees can easily master basic microcontroller programming and PCB design. With this in mind, Dr. Smith is testing a course that has the potential to fill this new role. In previous quarters, students have taken this optional elective to build and program an animated stuffed animal. They have been using the Arduino environment and a custom shield that interfaces with the servo motors. In collaboration with Dr. Smith, we have expanded the course by adding custom printed circuit board (PCB) design for each student, as well as allowing for the replacement of the Arduino+shield with a standalone breadboard prototype. My responsibilities included researching methods of transitioning the project to a breadboard prototype followed by a student-designed printed circuit board (PCB). This involved compiling hardware requirements to operate an ATmega328p microcontroller separate from the Arduino board. I also created breadboard and PCB reference designs using the Fritzing prototyping software environment. Following my reference design, I created a set of instructions that leads students through the process, starting with a bag of parts and a breadboard, through the creation of a breadboard prototype, and culminating in a custom-designed PCB

Development of digital application specific printed electronics circuits : from specification to final prototypes

This paper presents a global proposal and methodology for developing digital printed electronics (PE) prototypes, circuits and application specific printed electronics circuits (ASPECs). We start from a circuit specification using standard Hardware Description Languages (HDL) and executing its functional simulation. Then we perform logic synthesis that includes logic gate minimization by applying state-of-the-art algorithms embedded in our proposed electronic design automation (EDA) tools to minimize the number of transistors required to implement the circuit. Later technology mapping is applied, taking into account the available technology, (i.e., PMOS only technologies) and the cell design style (either Standard Cells or Inkjet Gate Array). These layout strategies are equivalent to those available in application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) flows but adapting them to Printed Electronics, which vary greatly depending on the targeted technology. Then Place & Route tools perform floorplan, placement and wiring of cells, which will be checked by the corresponding layout versus schematic (LVS). Afterwards we execute an electrical simulation including parasitic capacitances and relevant parameters. Finally, we obtain the prototypes which will be characterized and tested. The most important aspect of the proposed methodology is that it is portable to different PE processes, so that considerations and variations between different fabrication processes do not affect the validity of our approach. As final results, we present fabricated prototypes that are currently being characterized and tested

Electronics and control technology

Until recently, there was no requirement to learn electronics and control technology in the New Zealand school curriculum. Apart from isolated pockets of teaching based on the enthusiasm of individual teachers, there is very little direct learning of electronics in New Zealand primary or secondary schools. The learning of electronics is located in tertiary vocational training programmes. Thus, few school students learn about electronics and few school teachers have experience in teaching it. Lack of experience with electronics (other than using its products) has contributed to a commonly held view of electronics as out of the control and intellectual grasp of the average person; the domain of the engineer, programmer and enthusiast with his or her special aptitude. This need not be true, but teachers' and parents' lack of experience with electronics is in danger of denying young learners access to the mainstream of modern technology

Tactile Sensors Based on Conductive Polymers

This paper presents results from a selection of tactile sensors that have been designed and fabricated. These sensors are based on a common approach that consists in placing a sheet of piezoresistive material on the top of a set of electrodes. We use a thin film of conductive polymer as the piezoresistive mate¬rial. Specifically, a conductive water-based ink of this polymer is deposited by spin coating on a flexible plastic sheet, giving it a smooth, homogeneous and conducting thin film. The main interest in this procedure is that it is cheap and it allows the fabrication of flexible and low cost tactile sensors. In this work we present results from sensors made using two technologies. Firstly, we have used a flexible Printed Circuit Board (PCB) technology to fabricate the set of electrodes and addressing tracks. The result is a simple, flexible tactile sensor. In addition to these sensors on PCB, we have proposed, designed and fabricated sensors with screen printing technology. In this case, the set of electrodes and addressing tracks are made by printing an ink based on silver nanoparticles. The intense characterization provides us insights into the design of these tactile sensors.This work has been partially funded by the spanish government under contract TEC2006-12376-C02

Electronic control of elastomeric microfluidic circuits with shape memory actuators

Recently, sophisticated fluidic circuits with hundreds of independent valves have been built by using multi-layer soft-lithography to mold elastomers. However, this shrinking of microfluidic circuits has not been matched by a corresponding miniaturization of the actuation and interfacing elements that control the circuits; while the fluidic circuits are small (~10–100 micron wide channels), the Medusa's head-like interface, consisting of external pneumatic solenoids and tubing or mechanical pins to control each independent valve, is larger by one to four orders of magnitude (mm to cm). Consequently, the dream of using large scale integration in microfluidics for portable, high throughput applications has been stymied. By combining multi-layer soft-lithography with shape memory alloys (SMA), we demonstrate electronically activated microfluidic components such as valves, pumps, latches and multiplexers, that are assembled on printed circuit boards (PCBs). Thus, high density, electronically controlled microfluidic chips can be integrated alongside standard opto-electronic components on a PCB. Furthermore, we introduce the idea of microfluidic states, which are combinations of valve states, and analogous to instruction sets of integrated circuit (IC) microprocessors. Microfluidic states may be represented in hardware or software, and we propose a control architecture that results in logarithmic reduction of external control lines. These developments bring us closer to building microfluidic circuits that resemble electronic ICs both physically, as well as in their abstract model

A study of reverse osmosis reject water at Bukit Gambir, Tangkak Haemodialysis Centre

Water is categorized by their few aspects according to the specific feature and it function usage in a certain compatible condition. Yet with rapidly population growth increasing around the world by about 85 million per year, the accessibility for fresh water supply per persons keep declining [1]. The increasing clean water demand causes the increasing environmental risks, costs and economic exploitation as it may disturb surrounding nature which leads into the more distant sources or greater depth. At this state, the minimization of waste water produce should be focused on to prevent it become worsen