To My Readers



If this is the first time you're visiting my blog, thank you. Whether you're interested or just curious to find out about PCB reverse engineering (PCB-RE), I hope you'll find something useful here.

This blog contains many snippets of the content in my books to provide a more detailed overall sampling for my would-be readers to be better informed before making the purchase. Of course, the book contains more photos and nice illustrations, as evidence from its cover page. Hopefully, this online trailer version will whet your appetite enough to want to get a copy for yourself.

Top Review

I started doing component level repair of electronics with (and without) schematics more than 40 years ago, which activity often involves reverse-engineering of printed circuit boards. Although over the years my technical interests have shifted into particle beam instrumentation, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam technology fields, till this day——and more often than not——PCB repairs have returned multiple multi-million-dollar accelerators, FIB, and SEM instruments back to operation, delivering great satisfaction and some profit.

Many of the methods described by Keng Tiong in great details are similar to the approaches I've developed, but some of the techniques are different, and as effective and useful as efficient and practical. Systematic approach and collection of useful information presented in his books are not only invaluable for a novice approaching PCB-level reverse engineering, but also very interesting reading and hands-on reference for professionals.

Focus on reverse engineering instead of original design provides unique perspective into workings of electronics, and in my opinion books by Keng Tiong (I've got all three of them) are must-read for anybody trying to develop good understanding of electronics——together with writings by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Phil Hobbs, Jim Williams, Bob Pease, Howard Johnson and Martin Graham, Sam Goldwasser, and other world's top electronics experts.

Valery Ray
Particle Beam Systems Technologist

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Component Classifications (Part 2)

Before going into active components (semiconductors and ICs), let's take a look at one type of device
that is widely used in many digital and processor-based PCB designs—the crystal oscillator.


Crystal oscillators, whether excited by the host ICs which they are connected to, or powered by external sources, exhibit high quality factors (Q) above 10,000 and are suitable for use as resonators and in high stability tuned circuits.

In its simplest form, a crystal oscillator has a fixed frequency vibration with accuracy up to ±30ppm, but greater accuracy and stability can be further achieved in mission critical system using special variants like the voltage-controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO), temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO), and the oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO).

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