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

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

PCB-RE: A Niche Skillset

A novice starting out to learn PCB reverse engineering usually begins with a multimeter and the simple notion that it's all about finding the interconnection points between components on the circuit board. In truth, it's not entirely correct. If it were that simple, electronic engineers the world over would be doing it.

Like the game of Go, the basic rules of PCB reverse engineering is easy to pick up, but mastering the skill requires time and certain know-how, if you want to shorten the learning curve and avoid costly mistakes and pitfalls. That's the reason I set out to write the sequel book PCB-RE: Tools & Techniques. To some measure, I was prompted by readers to give this niche topic a more complete treatment; also, I was driven by the desire to enhance my own learning journey by leveraging from the expertise of engineers who are willing to share their knowledge in their own peculiar field and experience using equipment and approaches I might or might not have heard of.

Here is the table of content for this book:


While it is by no means complete (which book can claim that?), it's nonetheless thorough in the fields of interest presented. As one reader aptly commented: 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It has many chapters on all sorts of techniques to reverse engineer printed circuit boards, with the intent of either replacing them with identical boards that no longer exist or determining the schematic for debugging a faulty circuit.

So take it from the likes of renown individuals and companies like Joe Grand (aka Kingpin), John McMaster, Bill Loving and Jeff Rupert (and their remarkable team from ScanCAD International, Inc.), Bob Elder (Teel Technologies), Fraser Castle (a seasoned engineer in multiple disciplines), Dr. Sergei Skorobogatov (University of Cambridge), etc. It is my firm belief that:

The best experiences of our engineering careers and endeavors can become a lasting legacy for future generations of engineers.

If the Art of PCB Reverse Engineering is the de facto reference for PCB-RE, this book is definitely the companion supplement to it!

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