Best of Both Worlds

I belong to the generation which witnessed the transition from black-and-white to color television, as well as monochrome to full-color monitor. While no one will want to go back to the old way of watching TV or doing computing, nonetheless there's a sense of nostalgia to it that's magical.

What am I driving at here, you may be asking. Well, actually I was toying with the design of the cover for my fourth book, Manual PCB-RE: The Essentials. The idea of featuring the Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT video card with half-photo half-illustration seemed like a neat idea. But I decided to take it one step further by including a reversed version in the interior cover page which has to be in black-and-white for a non-color print. This has created an interesting contrast with the book's front cover which is in full-color. Here's what they look like side by side:

It's tough to write engineering books but I always take great care and delight in designing my own book covers, and this is the best one yet. Hopefully it will not only spur the imagination of would-be readers but create a great anticipation for its release. When will it hit the bookstore? I really have no idea, but I'm working on it as much as my schedule allows me right now.

Do leave a comment if you like what you see. It will certainly help to cheer me on this arduous journey of being an author.

Reader from Pakistan

Yesterday I received an email from a reader who resides in Pakistan, requesting for the free resources on the purchase of my books. Here's what he wrote:

I have had the chance to read your books and I did really enjoy it. It contains good references for beginners to understand the concept and build on the foundation. The experiences you shared for PCB troubleshooting is another area on which you can write a complete book, I think. I would definitely love to learn from your experience. A step by step guide based on your experience can help a lot to others trying to understand/learn the work. 

The thought of writing about PCB repair and troubleshooting did cross my mind, but given the current schedules I have there is no way I can squeeze out more time for that. Of course, this is not a niche subject to write on, judging by the available books and resources online. Given a choice, I would rather write on PCB testing on different ATE platforms, something which I had mused on in previous posts.

Poster of my former work center which I created.

Readers who have hands on experience in any of these automatic test equipment (ATE) are welcome to leave your comments here. If the response is good enough, I may consider writing about them...

GeForce 8600 GT Layout Diagram (Part 2)

Continuing with the layout diagram for the Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT graphics card, I have completed the solder side (rear view) of the board. Again, for contrast, here's the negative photo:

And the Visio drafted diagram:

I have also created different layers for each category of components for better management and flexibility of display:

Notice that besides assigning colors to components belonging to layer, it also shows the number of objects (not components) on each layer. I say 'objects' because each component is made up of a number of basic shapes which are grouped together. And until I merged these shapes, Visio will count them as individual objects still.

At this point of my PCB-RE process, though, there's no need to do so. But having different components in their own layers enables me to turn on or off a group of components at will. And once I assign reference designators to them, it will be much easier to locate a particular component, especially since the PCB does not order them according to location placement. These are two of the advantages of using Visio to create PCB layout diagrams which are mentioned in my books.

GeForce 8600 GT Layout Diagram (Part 1)

Three weeks ago, I mentioned about reverse engineering a GeForce 8600 GT graphics card. I haven't really gotten into doing it yet as I was busy with some other commitments. In between, when I could find the time, I would work a little on the layout diagram. Well, I managed to create the front view of the card using Microsoft Visio. For comparison, here's the negative photo for contrast:

And here's the Visio drafted diagram:

I've included the PCB artwork just for the fun and effects but there's really no need to do so if you only want to have a basic layout diagram for your PCB-RE work. Hopefully, this example gives you a glimpse of the versatility and power of Visio in creating technical illustrations.

I have yet to include the  reference designations of the components but that would be very cramp and messy, unless I use layering to segregate the components by their categories. This advanced technique is discussed in my first book, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering, along with how to create stunning layout and schematic diagrams using Visio's powerful features.

The Company That Nobody Leaves

These days it's hard to find a company that provides job satisfaction and continuous career growth path to retain valuable employees. At the same time, it's definitely harder to find loyal employees who will stick with a company through thick and thin. That's why Linear Technologies stands out among the myriads of electronics component manufacturers with one of the lowest staff turnover rate. So what is their secret?

Besides the solid engineering foundation and strong legacies left behind by its founders and legends in the analog design world, the company's top management believes in one important virtue: PATIENCE. What that means is, they value their engineers' passion and ideas, and give them the time and personal space to bring out their best ideas and innovations. They are able to achieve this remarkable feat by reducing company politics to near zero and bureaucratic processes to a minimum.

Incidentally, the above portraits of Linear Technologies' past design gurus are featured in my sequel book, PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques. There are many other engineering anecdotes that will inspire you and give you one of the best reading experience that a good engineering book should.

Click on the book cover to order your copy on Amazon now.

Note: As of August 2016, Linear Technologies was acquired by Analog Devices, Inc.