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, February 23, 2026

The Seasons of Life


In setting out to write a memoir of my life, I have pondered on the paths I've taken. Not every one of them are by choice, but each has had its own share of challenges and surprises. From a boy watching his father fixed things around the house, to a student learning electronics, to an apprentice in the military and established engineer in the commerical sectors, until today as a self-published author sharing my thirty years of experiences, I have walked through my own seasons of life.

And this is precisely how I will frame my lifestory—as a four-part narratives:

1. The Academic Years
2. The Air Force Years
3. The ST Electronics Years
4. The Author Years

Nothing fanciful, really. Just authentic and personal. There are valuable life lessons that I am still able to recall, for now, and these anecdotes will interweave with the work experiences I will be sharing with my readers.

Hopefully, it will inspire more engineers to embrace their work as a calling, and not just a career. At least that's what I hope my memoir will achieve, if nothing else.

 

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