Book Description

This is the enhanced eBook version of the printed book. It contains 1 hour and 48 minutes of video conversations and circuit animations from the industry's leading circuit design engineer, Doug Brooks. Today, PCB designers must deal with issues such as crosstalk and EMI–issues that were once associated only with components. This requires electronics knowledge that many PCB designers never gain through formal training. In PCB Currents, renowned PCB designer Douglas Brooks teaches these essentials descriptively, in plain English, with as little reliance on mathematics as possible. Building on his widely praised seminars, Brooks explains what current is, how it flows, and how it reacts. He begins by reviewing the nature of current, and then explains current flow in basic circuits, discusses sources that supply and drive current, and addresses the unique problems associated with current on PCBs. Brooks concludes by thoroughly illuminating signal integrity issues caused by current flow. He offers practical design solutions for each common type of problem, as well as for complex challenges involving very high frequency harmonics and very short wavelengths. The text is written to be accessible and valuable for PCB designers at all levels of experience, whether they have engineering training or not. Finally, in this Enhanced eBook Edition, some videos and animations have been incorporated as an additional benefit. They fall into four categories. First, there is an introductory video at the beginning of the Preface. It is intended to help put the entire book into a perspective. Second, each section has an introductory video that outlines what is contained within that section and, in most cases, the most important points to be discovered in that section. Third, each chapter has its own, short introduction, again highlighting the most important points within the chapter. Finally, in Chapters 17 and 18, we have some animation videos to help explain some dynamic interactions. It is hard to envision what is happening when a signal reflects off the far end of a trace, or when a signal couples into an adjacent trace (crosstalk) as it travels along using just static figures. But an animation video makes these phenomena much easier to understand. These videos are an important benefit available to you, the ebook reader, and one that cannot be incorporated into a print edition.