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

Freebies

As mentioned in my book, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering, readers who support my work through purchases are eligible to receive free resources. These include:


1. Sample Visio drawings found in the book:
    a. A3 and A4 templates (portrait and landscape)
    b. Anonymous TTF (monospace font with a slashed zero)
    c. Layout and schematic diagrams of the simple NCR SCSI adapter card (see above)
    d. Miscellaneous Visio objects


2. SMD Code Reference Book

This pdf ebook contains over 500 pages of nearly 24,000 SMT code references to help in identifying small SMD devices with markings.Useful and practical when reverse engineering SMT type PCBs, and since it is in electronic form it facilitates ease of searching without having to leaf through a thick printed hardcopy.


3. IC Master References

Most ICs contain prefixes and suffixes that are confusing and hard to decipher. I have collated a total of 152 pages of IC component prefixes and suffixes from 90 manufacturers, a ready reference on hand to refer to and know straight away what the IC component specifications are when gathering information on a PCB.


4. IC Packages and Dimensions

This ebook contains many integrated circuit packages and their dimensions which you can reference to create your own Visio layout drawings. There are a total of 109 different drawings, ranging from the standard DIP, SOJ, SOP, SSOP, TSOP to the BGA, uBGA, QFP, LQFP and PLCC, etc.


5. Visio Layering Example PCB

This PCB is featured in Chapter 5 Advanced Topics where you'll learn one of the powerful techniques to organize and display a PCB layout (applicable to schematic diagram as well, once you understand the concept).

To obtain the above freebies, email me at: ngkt@engineer.com with proof of purchase.

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