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, July 17, 2023

My Profile as an Engineer

Formerly, I worked as a test engineer in the home-grown defense industry, Singapore Technologies under the Engineering arm. I was privileged to be trained and had worked on the following automated test equipment (ATE), and developed over 30 test program set (TPS) projects:

1. Schlumberger S700 Series Testers

 a. S720 Functional Tester
 b. S730 In-Circuit Tester
 c. S750 Combinational Tester
 d. CADAT concurrent fault simulator
 e. CATS 10000 hardware modeller
 Programming language: Mediator

2. Teradyne Testers

 a. Spectrum 8851 In-Circuit
 b. Spectrum 8852 Combinational
 c. M910 Digital Test System
 d. Inline Device Programming (ILDP)
 Programming language: C

3. F5E Tiger Aircraft

 a. AITS Test System
 b. P200 Power Supply Tester
 Programming language: ATEasy and 
 PowerBasic

4. F16 Fighting Falcon

 a. DATS/2000 Test Station
 b. LASAR simulator
 Programming language: ATLAS-716

5. AS332 Super Puma

 a. Apodis SDC/CCU Test Station
 Programming language: ATEasy

Of course, no test station is standalone or self-sufficient on its own, and I had the opportunity to work on the following test and repair equipment:

 1. Data I/O 3900 Device Programmer
 2. Altera Device Programmer
 3. Acugen ATGen Test Vector Generator
 4. Pinpoint Workstation
 5. QMax QT150 and QT200 Testers
 6. Polar Toneohm 950 Short Locator
 7. Polar PFL780 Fault Locator
 8. ABI System 8 Test Systems
 9. PACE Soldering & Rework Station
10. ERSA SMT Rework Station

In retrospect, it was an exciting and fulfilling engineering career I had which allowed me to put my valuable experiences into print, though the current six engineering books cover less than half of what I knew and did. It's a shame that my seven years endeavor could not afford me the luxury of full-time writing to continue imparting my knowledge. Perhaps one day, if there is a turn of fortune, I may return to complete what I left undone. Hopefully it will not be too little, too late...
 

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