Book on Analog Prototyping techniques

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko

Okkim Atnarivik <Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> writes:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .


Yes AN47 is the one that springs to mind.

For modern SMT parts the little stick-down adapters are useful, like
John Larkin uses or I have used strips like these:

http://ee.devereux.me.uk/IMG_1087.JPG

If I am feeling extravagent I sometimes do a "one and a half sided"
board like this:

http://ee.devereux.me.uk/img_1005.jpg
http://ee.devereux.me.uk/img_1007.jpg

It is fairly easy to make since hardly any drilling and no alignment
issues.

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:30 +0200 (EET), Okkim Atnarivik
Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> wrote:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko

That's 20 years old now, and Jim postly used leaded parts. Nowadays,
the good stuff is usually not available in DIP packages, so one is
faced with MSOP10s and even leadless chip-scale parts.

The best thing to do is simply not prototype. Read the data sheets
carefully, do all the math and check it, lay out the real,
sellable-product PC board, and go for it.

There are huge long-term benefits from working that way.

Sometime it does make sense to breadboard a tiny circuit to evaluate a
part or sometimes an idea. That can sometimes be done with an eval
board, or with surface-mount adapters on a slab of FR4.

Here are a few:

http://johnlarkin.yolasite.com/pics.php

John

Any suggestions for such a beast? In particular, methods that don't
necessarily involve a PCB or that use a PCB of less than ideal
characteristics (eg. a 2-layer for a 4-layer).

I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Surely someone has put this stuff down in a book? I'd hate for the
young 'uns to have learn the way many of us did.

Any suggestions for such a beast? In particular, methods that don't
necessarily involve a PCB or that use a PCB of less than ideal
characteristics (eg. a 2-layer for a 4-layer).

I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Surely someone has put this stuff down in a book? I'd hate for the young
'uns to have learn the way many of us did.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:42:29 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:30 +0200 (EET), Okkim Atnarivik
Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> wrote:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko

That's 20 years old now, and Jim postly used leaded parts. Nowadays,
the good stuff is usually not available in DIP packages, so one is
faced with MSOP10s and even leadless chip-scale parts.

The best thing to do is simply not prototype. Read the data sheets
carefully, do all the math and check it, lay out the real,
sellable-product PC board, and go for it.

Yeah, it's what I almost always do. But I know what math to do.

There are huge long-term benefits from working that way.

Sure, with seasoned team members.

Not doing it avoid analysis paralysis, and helps the inexperienced get
enough ability and confidence to go directly to a layout that has some
chance of working quite well. Validating simulations and getting
experience by doing PCB layouts is slow and thus expensive in
schedule, if nothing else. And just because there is a layout doesn't
mean they can't foul it up in many other ways.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:20:39 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP_at_interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:42:29 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:30 +0200 (EET), Okkim Atnarivik
Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> wrote:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko
That's 20 years old now, and Jim postly used leaded parts. Nowadays,
the good stuff is usually not available in DIP packages, so one is
faced with MSOP10s and even leadless chip-scale parts.

The best thing to do is simply not prototype. Read the data sheets
carefully, do all the math and check it, lay out the real,
sellable-product PC board, and go for it.
Yeah, it's what I almost always do. But I know what math to do.

There are huge long-term benefits from working that way.
Sure, with seasoned team members.

They have to get seasoned somehow.

Not doing it avoid analysis paralysis, and helps the inexperienced get
enough ability and confidence to go directly to a layout that has some
chance of working quite well. Validating simulations and getting
experience by doing PCB layouts is slow and thus expensive in
schedule, if nothing else. And just because there is a layout doesn't
mean they can't foul it up in many other ways.

Most of the stuff we - all of us - design these days is fairly
complex. We are using parts like fine-pitch, leadless, BGA, that are
hard to breadboard. We have to lay out a real board sooner or later,
so I figure go "sooner" and skip the prototype stage entirely. That
has advantages:

You get to check the board-related issues too: placement, footprints,
bypassing, impedances, thermals.

You can probably get the real thing built as soon as you could cobble
up a prototype by hand. It may wind up being cheaper, too.

You may be able to sell the first version. Ideal time-to-market.

You can make several first articles easily. Give one to the FPGA guy,
one to the programmer, one to the test department, keep one in case
somebody blows theirs up. Take a picture of it and press release it
ASAP.

It teaches good habits, namely *think* about the issues and bugs, and
don't expect to test for them. Develop a culture of expecting to get
it right the first time.

John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:20:39 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP_at_interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:42:29 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:30 +0200 (EET), Okkim Atnarivik
Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> wrote:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko
That's 20 years old now, and Jim postly used leaded parts. Nowadays,
the good stuff is usually not available in DIP packages, so one is
faced with MSOP10s and even leadless chip-scale parts.

The best thing to do is simply not prototype. Read the data sheets
carefully, do all the math and check it, lay out the real,
sellable-product PC board, and go for it.
Yeah, it's what I almost always do. But I know what math to do.

There are huge long-term benefits from working that way.
Sure, with seasoned team members.

They have to get seasoned somehow.

Not doing it avoid analysis paralysis, and helps the inexperienced get
enough ability and confidence to go directly to a layout that has some
chance of working quite well. Validating simulations and getting
experience by doing PCB layouts is slow and thus expensive in
schedule, if nothing else. And just because there is a layout doesn't
mean they can't foul it up in many other ways.

Most of the stuff we - all of us - design these days is fairly
complex. We are using parts like fine-pitch, leadless, BGA, that are
hard to breadboard. We have to lay out a real board sooner or later,
so I figure go "sooner" and skip the prototype stage entirely. That
has advantages:

You get to check the board-related issues too: placement, footprints,
bypassing, impedances, thermals.

You can probably get the real thing built as soon as you could cobble
up a prototype by hand. It may wind up being cheaper, too.

You may be able to sell the first version. Ideal time-to-market.

You can make several first articles easily. Give one to the FPGA guy,
one to the programmer, one to the test department, keep one in case
somebody blows theirs up. Take a picture of it and press release it
ASAP.

It teaches good habits, namely *think* about the issues and bugs, and
don't expect to test for them. Develop a culture of expecting to get
it right the first time.


Basically I agree 100%. But ... there are times especially when it come
to RF stuff where you want to try an idea right now. Maybe there is a
bunch of very worried folks in the board room who want to know whether a
proposed solution will do the trick before they head home on their
afternoon flights.

Even if you have a fat budget and can throw all the rush charges they
want at it, the Fedex truck with the boards in there won't pull up to
your delivery ramp until some time the next day. Or the day after that.
That is too long for some of my stuff.

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
Any suggestions for such a beast? In particular, methods that don't
necessarily involve a PCB or that use a PCB of less than ideal
characteristics (eg. a 2-layer for a 4-layer).

I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Surely someone has put this stuff down in a book? I'd hate for the
young 'uns to have learn the way many of us did.


Not really, I've never seen a good comprehensive book about it. Two that
come to mind:

a. ARRL Handbook. I have only old ones but that's what I learned my
stuff from when I was young. Plus from mentors. Ok, that book is mostly
about RF stuff but with modern analog parts just about anything is RF.
An oscillating amplifier won't care about the fact that it was just
meant to amplify a 30kHz signal :-)

b. Howard W.Johnson "High-Speed Digital Design, A Handbook of Black
Magic". Not for prototypes and contains stuff I won't quite agree with
but it's a very good resource for rookies. That is the reason I have it,
to be able to point client engineer to chapter five point something. The
book shows where pitfalls are and what to do about them.

But most of all, line up one or more consulting mentors. People whom the
rookie engineer can send a schematic, sketch, photo, scope plot,
whatever, and ask them "Now why does this go berserk on me?". Yeah, it
may cost an hour or a few in fees but that's better than having a guy
agonize over a recalcitrant circuit for days while your schedule is
floating down the Klondike. Sometimes 15 or 30 mins of billed time are
enough to cause a reaction like "Oh dang, that was it!". But it must be
someone who is able to relay the "story behind the scenery" so it won't
happen again next time. Just like a good fiberoptics guy thinks that
everything in life is an etalon, an analog guy must learn that
everything in life is a loop and comes with undesirable inductance.

Get lots of copper clad and never, ever, let the guy build anything on a
proto-board that has no ground plane. Perf board without a plane has
been the source of many outbursts of anger and hissy fits for engineers.
If you must use it for a somewhat neat looking prototypes get the stuff
with at least one full plane. This can be helpful:

http://www.busboard.us/pdfs/BPS-MAR-SP3UT-001.pdf

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:46:33 -0800, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:20:39 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP_at_interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:42:29 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:30 +0200 (EET), Okkim Atnarivik
Okkim.Atnarivik_at_twentyfour.fi.invalid> wrote:

: I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
: snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Maybe not as comprehensive as you'd like, but you may be thinking
the Linear Technology AN47 .

Regards,
Mikko
That's 20 years old now, and Jim postly used leaded parts. Nowadays,
the good stuff is usually not available in DIP packages, so one is
faced with MSOP10s and even leadless chip-scale parts.

The best thing to do is simply not prototype. Read the data sheets
carefully, do all the math and check it, lay out the real,
sellable-product PC board, and go for it.
Yeah, it's what I almost always do. But I know what math to do.

There are huge long-term benefits from working that way.
Sure, with seasoned team members.
They have to get seasoned somehow.

Not doing it avoid analysis paralysis, and helps the inexperienced get
enough ability and confidence to go directly to a layout that has some
chance of working quite well. Validating simulations and getting
experience by doing PCB layouts is slow and thus expensive in
schedule, if nothing else. And just because there is a layout doesn't
mean they can't foul it up in many other ways.
Most of the stuff we - all of us - design these days is fairly
complex. We are using parts like fine-pitch, leadless, BGA, that are
hard to breadboard. We have to lay out a real board sooner or later,
so I figure go "sooner" and skip the prototype stage entirely. That
has advantages:

You get to check the board-related issues too: placement, footprints,
bypassing, impedances, thermals.

You can probably get the real thing built as soon as you could cobble
up a prototype by hand. It may wind up being cheaper, too.

You may be able to sell the first version. Ideal time-to-market.

You can make several first articles easily. Give one to the FPGA guy,
one to the programmer, one to the test department, keep one in case
somebody blows theirs up. Take a picture of it and press release it
ASAP.

It teaches good habits, namely *think* about the issues and bugs, and
don't expect to test for them. Develop a culture of expecting to get
it right the first time.

Basically I agree 100%. But ... there are times especially when it come
to RF stuff where you want to try an idea right now. Maybe there is a
bunch of very worried folks in the board room who want to know whether a
proposed solution will do the trick before they head home on their
afternoon flights.

I do breadboard simple circuits that I don't have confidence in, like
to characterize a part or an unusual circuit. I don't consider that to
be a "prototype" because I'm not trying to validate an entire product
design, just one little piece of it. Call it Proof of Principle maybe.

Even if you have a fat budget and can throw all the rush charges they
want at it, the Fedex truck with the boards in there won't pull up to
your delivery ramp until some time the next day. Or the day after that.
That is too long for some of my stuff.

Sure, but you could spend a long time prototyping something complex.
We just go for rev A, as close to final and sellable as we can make
it.

Joerg wrote:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
Any suggestions for such a beast? In particular, methods that don't
necessarily involve a PCB or that use a PCB of less than ideal
characteristics (eg. a 2-layer for a 4-layer).

I think there is some info in the Jim Williams (rip) books.. are there
snippets in AOE? but I can't think of anything really comprehensive.

Surely someone has put this stuff down in a book? I'd hate for the
young 'uns to have learn the way many of us did.

Not really, I've never seen a good comprehensive book about it. Two that
come to mind:

a. ARRL Handbook. I have only old ones but that's what I learned my
stuff from when I was young. Plus from mentors. Ok, that book is mostly
about RF stuff but with modern analog parts just about anything is RF.
An oscillating amplifier won't care about the fact that it was just
meant to amplify a 30kHz signal :-)

b. Howard W.Johnson "High-Speed Digital Design, A Handbook of Black
Magic". Not for prototypes and contains stuff I won't quite agree with
but it's a very good resource for rookies. That is the reason I have it,
to be able to point client engineer to chapter five point something. The
book shows where pitfalls are and what to do about them.

But most of all, line up one or more consulting mentors. People whom the
rookie engineer can send a schematic, sketch, photo, scope plot,
whatever, and ask them "Now why does this go berserk on me?". Yeah, it
may cost an hour or a few in fees but that's better than having a guy
agonize over a recalcitrant circuit for days while your schedule is
floating down the Klondike. Sometimes 15 or 30 mins of billed time are
enough to cause a reaction like "Oh dang, that was it!". But it must be
someone who is able to relay the "story behind the scenery" so it won't
happen again next time. Just like a good fiberoptics guy thinks that
everything in life is an etalon, an analog guy must learn that
everything in life is a loop and comes with undesirable inductance.

Get lots of copper clad and never, ever, let the guy build anything on a
proto-board that has no ground plane. Perf board without a plane has
been the source of many outbursts of anger and hissy fits for engineers.
If you must use it for a somewhat neat looking prototypes get the stuff
with at least one full plane. This can be helpful:

http://www.busboard.us/pdfs/BPS-MAR-SP3UT-001.pdf

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Nice. I use Vector 8007 for that sort of stuff, so I can use
through-hole parts when possible. It's all 0.1 inch pitch, which makes
small stuff harder. A bit of that busboard stuff might be just the
ticket.