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

Monday, January 23, 2023

Glossary vs Grocery

English can be quite confusing to those foreign to its nuances, or even near similar spellings. Take the word 'glossary' for example. It means an alphabetical list of words or terms relating to a specific subject, usually accompanied by a brief explanation each. It can, however, be confused with the word 'grocery' which means a list of items to be bought from a supermarket.

Well, I don't normally include one in my books but somehow for this last engineering book I'm currently writing, I thought it would be a good idea to:

And while I was busy working on the list of terms to put in, my wife was also busy coming up with a list of items for her groceries as well. In some way, we are both writers I suppose, except that my content caters to the intellectual (food for thought) while hers satisfies the physical (food for the body). Either way they are just as important to our well-being.

By the way, the Chinese lunar New Year is a time of great feasting with families and friends too, and this year it's right after Christmas. I'd probably gain a few pounds by the end of the 15-day festival. Then it's time for some sweaty workout... 

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