Covid-19 Positive!

Ever since Singapore announced an endemic (living with Covid-19) policy with relaxed measures and opening up of borders through VTLs, the onset of Omicron has seen a marked increased in the daily cases of infection, though mostly with mild symptoms. Our health minister even preempted that it's only a matter of time before any of us will get it.

Last Friday, I woke up with body aches and a slight feverish feeling, so decided to do an Antigen Rapid Test (ART). It turned out positive. My wife did hers and the results confirmed that both of us are down with Covid-19.

According to the latest health protocol, it has to be 72 hours before we do another ART to assess if we are OK or need to serve a longer home recovery program.

Hopefully, at least one of us will be negative so we do not need to trouble our friends to help us get the groceries and meals. The so-called mild symptoms are not in anyway trivial as we experience coughs, vacillating fevers and muscle aches. I could only manage to do a bit of writing but most of the time I'm down and out due to fatigue from fighting the virus, despite having been vaccinated.

That's all for the update. Mind's a bit foggy right now...

Deciphering Digital Circuits

Starting a new chapter on this topic. I intended to illustrate using two real-world examples: a MCU-based mixed design and a CPLD experimental board. Here's the introduction page:

It's not easy to cover every aspect of digital circuits. My focus is more on understanding and making sense of a schematic diagram, rather than how to be a hardware or firmware designer, which itself is a subject that can fill a volume or more. So it's important to manage your expectations.

Chapter 3 will also contain quite a lot of information on various digital circuit design aspects, which you might already have some idea based on my previous posts. Hopefully, these should cover enough ground on the digital aspect of schematic diagrams.

Progress Update

The start of a new year has always been busy with tight schedules, more so with the constant changes in government policies over the evolving pandemic situation. Thankfully, after a hectic Lunar New Year saga, I am able to sit down once again and resume writing.

Finally, completed Chapter 3: Elements of Digital Circuits for my book, Deciphering Schematics. Here is the Summary page at the chapter's end:

I've outlined nine chapters plus several appendices for this book, so at 100 pages currently, I foresee it will probably run up to 250 pages or more when it's completed. I still have the other book, PCB Diagnostics, at the back of my mind but somehow I don't seem to have the motivation to work on it, yet.

Again, this year being the seventh and likely final year for me in book writing as an author, I do hope to at least finish one of them before I call it quit. If I can write both, that will be a bonus for my readers. That will be six engineering books in total, which accounts for about 60% of my knowledge and experience. I don't foresee that I will go beyond that, unless there are very good reasons to. Still, I'm thankful to my wife for her patient support and belief in my hard work.

That's all for now. Stay safe and well, my friends.

Universal Serial Bus

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is perhaps one of the most versatile and common serial bus protocol ever to be implemented in modern digital technology, from computers to storage devices and mobile gadgets that we hold in our hands. But what makes them so popular and universally adopted compared to the other types of serial buses?

The answer lies in one of the greatest features of the USB—hot swapping. This feature allows a device to be removed or replaced without the past prerequisite of rebooting and interrupting the system. Older ports required a PC to be restarted when adding or removing a new device. Hot swapping is fault-tolerant—the ability to continue operating despite a hardware failure. That said, when hot-swapping certain devices such as a camera, damage can occur to the port, camera or other devices if a single pin is accidentally shorted.

Since its inception, the USB has undergone several revisions, not only to improve on the speed of data transfer rates, but also to adapt to smaller designs and the multi-functional requirements of today's powerful computing platforms.

So while SPI, I2C, CAN and the RS family of serial buses have their own specialized usage in certain industrial and design applications, we can be sure that the USB will remain a top favorite when it comes to plug-and-play and on-the-go user experience for a long time to come.

Year of the Tiger

According to the Chinese zodiacs, 2022 is the year of the Tiger. As the pandemic rages on, people wonder if it will go on indefinitely, or will this king of the mountain put a stop to it and restore some normalcy to daily life once again?

Reminds me of a poem by the English poet William Blake:

We'll never know for sure what 2022 and beyond holds for all of humanity. One thing I do hope is that as we move ahead, we will have the courage and resolve of the Tiger to face whatever challenges, knowing that we're not alone in this journey.

Those who are into PCB-RE will know what it takes to overcome the odds. For those who aren't, why not consider getting a copy of my books and begin this extraordinary journey of a lifetime? I'm sure it will not only enrich your engineering experience but your overall outlook of life as well.

Stay safe and strong, my friends!