Top Internet of Things Companies Dominating the World

The world is undergoing a dramatic transformation, apace transitioning from isolated systems to internet-enabled things capable of merging digital and physical worlds. IoT has created things attainable that were not possible to realize before its emergence into turbulent technology. Solutions together with good Cities, Smart homes, good works, and Connected Devices are all presented offered by IoT and its potential innovations. beyond question, IoT 5 may be a multi-trillion industry in returning years.

IoT is ever-changing the thought of doing business in real-world whereas enabling wireless property between everyday objects across organizations. The technology is unquestionably unleashing innovations in numerous verticals. It helps enterprises to contour their processes, enhance productivity, and improve potency and operations across multiple industries. Those, United Nations agencies that have understood what power IoT holds to dramatically remodel the business, have already started transfer regarding changes in their productivity. corporations that have adopted this technology can supply higher and improved products and services to their customers.

To showcase innovative offerings of IoT solutions and services, Analytics Insights complies with a listing of high ten IoT corporations that are excelling in the technology adoption and its implementations across businesses worldwide.

IoT Development Company:

As IoT has been verified to be helpful in most of the sectors the market rate conjointly will increase. because of this IoT is evolving and increasing, therefore, the conjoint variety of corporations manufacturing products and applications associated with IoT has also accrued to an excellent extent. thence the production of the largest corporations flips towards IoT. Here are a number of the powerful corporations that have created IoT corporations and products.

Best Corporations concerned in IoT Technology Work

The top companies list along with their description is given below

IBM( International Business Machine corporation)

This Company has planned to stay a separate division for the IoT division at intervals consecutive four years and this may increase the productivity within the IoT community. IBM has been listed within the high for the IoT analytics sector. This sector has taken an enormous success on operating over increasing in a variety of staff acting on IoT. IBM has acted forthwith and thus the search traffic about IoT has conjointly accrued for the most part. additionally to forming its division it conjointly has partnerships with several alternative corporations.

Global organization of oriented Group language of earth

GOOGLE:

Recently this company has formally introduced its product at AN I/O conference. It had declared Brillo that is that the helper software package for the net of things. they're progressing to launch the developer preview this year. They even have a cross-platform known as Weave wherever the devices and also the net will visit one another.

  • Innovation: Having arguably the largest accumulation of secret writing talent in the world isn’t planning to hurt an organization attempting to supply innovative, versatile options for IoT users. Its Pub/Sub technology dramatically simplifies event knowledge handling, and also the company’s powerful AI/machine-learning technology is often delivered right down to the sting.
  • Market share: whereas Google’s the littlest of the 3 giant, general-use IoT public clouds, that also makes it a significant player within the IoT platform market.
  • Depth of solution: even supposing the main target is clearly on the back-end, Google boasts enough clever options – like a dedicated IoT development platform base and also the ability for its IoT Core to natively speak loads of various electronic communication languages – to form the case that it’s not simply applying its in-built data-crunching smarts to data that’ll be provided by someone else.
  • The breadth of solution: just like the alternative massive cloud suppliers, Google’s IoT offerings may charm just about anyone attempting to induce the foremost out of their knowledge, given the company’s experience in analytics and machine learning. Businesses with a very various lineup of edge devices, like those with a requirement to use multiple message formats, may well be particularly interested.

Intel( Integrated electronics )

Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich has learned from the past: once smartphones entered the market, Intel didn’t assume the chance was valued capturing. By the time Intel realized, however, giant the smartphone semiconductor market would be, others had grabbed the chance. With the web of Things promising some ~50 billion connected devices within the next five years, Brian Krzanich needs “Intel Inside”.

Thus Intel is at the cutting edge of underdeveloped new generation low-power chips for Affiliating IoT devices. Intel R&D centers (so-known as Intel Open Labs) and a variety of business co-operations (e.g., Intel and Kaka’s PC-based robot controllers) lay the inspiration for Intel’s IoT push. Moreover, Intel is targeting startups and developers. The Intel Galileo developer kit for anyone United Nations agency needs to make their factor is being marketed heavily throughout the planet. the most recent addition to Intel IoT portfolio may be a platform for connecting the info from your things to the cloud.

IoT Platform companies:

AN IoT device is connected to an alternative cloud-based mostly (mostly) IoT device And this gap between the device devices and every one of the info networks associated with the device any to the sensor arrangement is established by an IoT platform. it's wont to relay data mistreatment net protocols.

The corporations enclosed during this AR Kaa, Predix (from GE), Oracle (Integrated cloud), Carriots, Salesforce, Cisco, IBM Watson, ThingWorx, Microsoft Azure IoT suite, Amazon, and lots of a lot of. These corporations have a significant role in taking the IoT technology to a next level with several advanced options like providing a rules engine, secured entranceway, data observance, device management, knowledge storage, secure communications, real-time knowledge storage, protect from hacking i.e., security and lots of a lot of. These platforms typically are 100 percent open supply providing a middleware platform to everyone.

IoT device companies:

Sensors are found in a very form of applications in several devices. These sensors are connected along forming a network and send the info to the cloud. This knowledge is distributed to the user in real-time. The IoT device-based mostly leading corporations within the international market are ARM Holdings Plc., Henry Martyn Robert Hieronymus Bosch Gmbh, InvenSense INC., Digi International INC., Libelium, Ericsson, IBM, Infineon Technologies, ST electronics N.V., and lots of a lot of.

IoT security companies:

The most concern for cyber security in industrial corporations, primary enterprises, personal devices like laptops, computers, mobile phones, servers, and lots of alternative devices. knowledge privacy can facilitate to stay a company secure with no cryptography. several organizations have started AN early section of IoT adoption starting from a range of products. a number of the corporations involve AR Armis (Bluetooth based mostly attack vector), Bitdefender box, slammer, and lots of a lot of. These corporations have won the attention of many people because of their concentrate on security heavyweights.

IoT Industrial corporations:

Billions of companies from each finish are assaulting a race in providing solutions to the cloud services and connecting several enterprises. the economic net of things IIOT has created an excellent impact on the technology system, innovation of technology, and also the whole influence within the market.

Revolutionary

Proletarian Army (ASEA Brown Boveri), Cisco, GE (General Electrical), Bosch, Siemens, Dell, AT&T, Ericsson, Intel and lots of alternative corporations are concerned during this sector.

Cisco( Commercial and industrial security corporation)

Cisco coined the term net of Everything. the corporate is centering its business strategy on the web of Things like no alternative technical school heavy-weight. 720 Cisco staff that determine with IoT on Linkedin may be a variety that speaks for itself. Cisco’s move to embrace IoT may be a natural one' as a result of it's at the guts of what Cisco has forever done: Developing network instrumentality like routers and switches for enterprise customers. aside from network instrumentality, Cisco is additionally active in security solutions and Cisco is that the host of the IoT World Forum.

General Electric

GE is among the leading Industrial net of Things corporations. It coined the term Industrial net (of Things). GE is rolling out solutions in a very variety of industries like aviation, production, or power generation. the corporate claims to possess achieved $1bn of revenues with industrial net product in 2014.

HITACHI

  • Innovation: Another long-standing industrial player creating its presence felt within the new IIoT market, Hitachi offers its Lumada platform as AN appliance, package subscription, or as a service. Lumada takes a somewhat completely different approach to key IIoT practicality like digital multiparous, with a rather far-out version it calls “asset avatars,” that are centered on plus observance and alerting options, consistent with Gartner.
  • Market share: Lumada’s not nevertheless the go-to platform for any specific vertical market, however, Hitachi’s broad reach has created a Lumada presence across many industries, elaborated below. It’s conjointly valuable noting that Hitachi’s presence within the IoT market correct may be a fairly recent development, qualitative analysis back simply 2 years.

Microsoft

Microsoft shares constant fate as Intel. the corporate passed over on the chance for operational systems in smartphones with Windows phones presently enjoying a mere three-D market share.

Microsoft has three IoT propositions:

  1. Firstly: The Azure platform guarantees to become the one-stop-shop cloud platform for connected devices.
  2. Secondly: Microsoft Streaming Analytics aims to learn from a replacement quite process that may be necessary to extract that means from device knowledge in a period.
  3. Thirdly: Microsoft has entered the wearables and health house with the Microsoft Band.

Apart from these product lines, Microsoft is experimenting within the industrial IoT house. in a very joint project with golem manufacturer Kuka, Microsoft recently equipped a machine Wrangler plant with Microsoft technology to run-producing lines. Similar comes is piloted within the connected health and connected automotive house.

Apple

Apple will IoT the Apple means. Developing behind closed curtains and so popping out with a bang. immediately Apple’s net of Things activity is focused on the Apple Watch and also the Apple HomeKit platform. there's conjointly AN Apple HealthKit. however and how Apple is already on consecutive massive factor. though not nevertheless declared, it seems Apple is getting into the Internet-connected automotive marketplace for example.

Gartner

Gartner’s name within the net of things stems in the main from their illustrious hyber-cycle.

In 2011, once nearly no one used the term net of Things, Gartner placed IoT into its steeply rising part of the hype-cycle. In 2014, Gartner declared that IoT had finally reached the height of inflated expectations. What follows is that the trough of sophistication. Most nets of Things corporations hope that for once Gartner has it wrong and IoT won't fall as deeply as ideas like “virtual reality” or “gesture control” have.

Oracle

It appears like the technical schoolnology big is giving the web of Things less of a marketing push than alternative Silicon Valley tech heavyweights. Oracle’s IoT activity is focused on its cloud platform.

ARM

United Kingdom-based mostly ARM is that dominant smartphone semiconductor company that Intel ne'er became. ARM’s answer to IoT is that the low-power Cortex processor family is also because of the mbed cloud platform.

Accenture

Several recent publications have catapulted Accenture into the highest twenty of this ranking. Over simply three months, the quantity of Accenture staff related to IoT has gone from eleven to ~250 on Linkedin.

Amazon

Amazon’s Echo guarantees to become AN Internet-connected home companion. furthermore, Amazon is obtaining their established cloud services prepared for IoT devices.

HP

HP’s Helion cloud platform is AN ASCII text file dev-ready cloud platform aimed toward connecting devices.

Arduino

Arduino’s development boards still excite the maker scene. They function as a basis for several startup prototypes.

IDC

Together with Gartner, IDC is establishing itself collectively as the leading net of Things corporation centered on marketing research.

Blackberry

The once thus common manufacturer of 1st generation smartphones offers AN IoT platform, specifically for automotive and following.

PTC

PTC is that the mother company of the favored Thingworx IoT platform.

Verizon

Verizon is one of the leading corporations for machine-to-machine (M2M) managed services in North America that yield electronic communication via the cellular network. Verizon is specifically showcasing communication solutions within the connected health and connected automotive house.

Methodology of the ranking

The basis for the ranking is our info of 1700+ net of Things corporations. we tend to rank these corporations in four categories:

  1. However, usually folks seek for the businesses on Google in conjunction with IoT
  2. However usually corporations get mentioned in tweets on Twitter in conjunction with IoT
  3. However, usually newspapers and blogs mention the businesses in conjunction with IoT
  4. What percentage of company staff carry the tag “Internet of Things” on Linkedin

The highest grading company on every side receives a rating of 100 percent, with all alternative net of Things corporations receiving a lower share in linear reference to the particular frequency.

How the Internet of Things devices have made life easy?

In our previous articles, we grasp learn about examples, applications, and products of the internet of things. Now we try to understand how IoT has made our lives?

Thanks to the net, almost everybody – and everything – is connected.

Not solely is it easier and quicker than ever to speak with individuals and businesses everywhere on the planet, however, the net of Things (IoT) makes it potential for sensible devices to affix within the conversations, too.

IoT is quickly increasing, introducing new products all the time which will communicate with one another and transmit knowledge to support groups. ABI analysis estimates that IoT can grow to incorporate thirty billion connected devices by the year 2020. The application of IoT (Internet of things) in aid, transportation, production, education, and different fields has many wonderful use cases, and no single article will contain all of them. IoT-improved producing or IoT-supported provision – every trade has its technological wonders. allow us to check simply many of these IoT applications to create positive teams of sensible, interconnected devices that are capable of creating our life easier.

IoT APPLICATIONS IN HEALTHCARE

One of the recent use cases of IoT in aid is a wonderful demonstration of how yesterday’s sci-fi becomes today’s lifesaver: six funny robots known as “Tommies”, the golem nurses, are saving lives in one amongst the Italian hospitals throughout the coronavirus happening. These robots are used for remote instrumentality watching and attending rooms filled with COVID-19 patients.

Owing to robots, doctors and hospital employees are less exposed to the chance of catching this dangerous sickness. They conjointly facilitate patients to speak with nurses and doctors remotely while not in direct contact, and the possibilities for aid personnel to contract the disreputable virus are shrunken. that enables keeping doctors healthy (unfortunately, 4000 medics are infected, and sixty-six doctors have died in the European country since the start of the pandemic). It conjointly saves valuable masks and protecting costumes. The robots are used as IoT hubs for the medical instrumentality, that the doctors will distantly management necessary indicators, and if one thing goes wrong, a golem sends an associate alerting signal to the medical supervisor, therefore individuals physically enter the scene only it's necessary.

Besides it, fashionable hospitals are simply filled with high-end instrumentality, and this abundance of electronic devices has to be properly maintained. If all medical devices are connected to one hospital system.

Opportunities;

It creates spectacular opportunities for:

  • Consolidated knowledge analysis
  • Early hindrance of hardware failures
  • Remote health watching and medicine

As aforesaid higher than, it's extremely necessary to stay medical employees safe operating with communicable disease patients. as an example, once it involves routine daily check-ups which will be reduced because of remote health watching. IoT aid is already widely employed in several top-notch hospitals around the world. Still, currently, additional technology involves daily life: wearable sensors for chronic sickness patients watching their heartbeats, force per unit area and chemistry, vital signs, and so on. All that contributes to assembling a next-gen public health system targeted on quick response and early hindrance.

IoT APPLICATIONS IN MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing and industrial processes are already extremely automatized. In essence, massive factories across the planet are taking steps within the IIOT4.0 shift. They operate as absolutely autonomous systems involving a major variety of mechanical devices, production lines, robotic vehicles, driverless forklifts, industrial lasers, assembly lines, and robotic arms that are errorlessly put details along 24/7. Of course, these parts are united through IoT elements, like sensible sensors, industrial Wi-Fi connectors, cameras, and lots of others. A modern mill works as a well-orchestrated and immaculate mechanism that needs simply a nominal management effort from many supervision engineers and technicians. a complicated producing method consists of multiple sub-processes that involve thousands of various high-end IoT elements, that work all at once to make sure stable and diverse output with exceptional quality. What happens as a result of the full IoT-driven system of a contemporary plant or mill can:

  • Accurately track materials and details in offer chains
  • Monitor instrumentality parameters, limit power consumption, temperature, etc.
  • Control quality and amount of prepared product as they move through the method
  • Use electronic sensors to manage the atmosphere
  • Decrease operational expenditures through prognostic maintenance
  • Build in-depth analytics and facilitate individuals' service instrumentality before issues occur.

One of the simplest use cases of IoT within the trade is Amazon’s robotic repositing, which provides an extremely machine-controlled fulfillment service. It includes self-propelling robotic shelves that move around the warehouse rather than individuals. It helps human operators to deal with their manual tasks a lot quicker.

IoT APPLICATIONS IN TRANSPORTATION

Using IoT in transportation and supply could be an extremely promising field for creating transportation safer and providing chains a lot of cost-effective. sensible sensors and devices integrated into lading vehicles will facilitate remotely control:

  • Technical indicators, like tire pressure, oil, fuel, agent levels, and so on
  • Vehicle load, speed, mileage, etc.
  • The current location on the route
  • Driver’s behavior, health conditions, or driving vogue
  • The time between stops, etc.

IoT sensors, like RFID (radio-frequency identification) or AIDC (automatic identification and knowledge capture), are wont to track the route/status of packages and deliveries and to manage them consequently. Walmart, Amazon, UPS, and even Domino’s are finance in drone delivery comes, together with self-driving delivery cars and other forms of driverless transportation, that permits them to resolve the “last mile” issue. the higher such technologies become, the upper is that the demand for strong IoT infrastructure, that in projection can cowl whole countries or maybe the planet.

IoT IN EDUCATION

Last however not least, the sector of education provides us with a good portion of IoT use cases. doubtless, the routine of each instructional institution is considerably machine-driven and improved with the assistance of IoT, and here are simply a couple of examples:

Examples

  • Smartboards affiliated to pupil tablets with a two-way communication
  • Attendance record supported mobile device check-ins
  • Emergency sensors, audio enhancers, etc.
  • Smart video police work for bullying and misdeed interference
  • Gamified instructional expertise, interactive objects within the lecture rooms
  • Robotic academics, after all?

One of the foremost fascinating examples is the Associate in Nursing experiment happening during a few colleges within the U.S and different countries. Students have IoT-connected wearables throughout classes: devices live} wont to measure the private vitality parameters of every student. That helps to regulate stress levels, focus, and concentration, that the academics will switch between completely different activities if there's a desire to revitalize their bored and tired students

Control the temperature of your home from remote

A Wi-Fi programmable thermostat could be a gem to possess within the search lower monthly bills and save energy. Most of the models out there on the market can work with all major HAVC systems. Such a thermostat comes connected to the app, freed from charge in most cases, which can offer you data concerning the temperature wetness and can allow you to program your HAVC system for every day of the week, permitting you to regulate what quantity of energy you employ even after you are off from home.

Keep safe in the slightest degree times

From currently on, whenever you press on vacation you'll be able to rest assured that you just have a handle on what’s happening back home. A home security camera system is strictly what you would like for a decent night’s sleep.

When the inherent sensors are activated, the system sends you a notification on your smartphone, once that it records a video of the event, to be any sent to the cloud.

Home security systems today have lightweight, motion, sound, and temperature sensors that will notice even the slightest changes.

Don’t be below the weather, get on high of it Home weather stations are the perfect gadgets if you're a farmer or gardener and have crops to require care of or if you merely sleep in a district wherever the weather oscillates wildly.

These stations will offer you a good array of knowledge, keeping you up to hurry with changes in temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and air pressure. Similar to the devices delineated higher than, these weather stations are connected to an app that might give you knowledge from thousands of different personal stations. This way you'll be able to share and compare weather info and build your network of weather aficionados. These are solely a couple of the gadgets that primarily facilitate contouring your life. fantasy movies are delivered to life enabling us currently to even have remote over a myriad of things in our home: windows, doorbells, clocks, locks, lights, appliances, something you'll be able to consider and it'll solely grow within the future

Turning Devices into a degree of Sale

Visiting a petroleum pump to refill the automobile tank? Well, it’s trouble. First, there's a queue at the machines. so the payment takes ages. once paying by money, the attendant virtually ne'er has the desired modification. An electronic mode of payment is nice, however what if you forgot your card at home?

With the net of things, you wouldn’t worry concerning these things. IoT combined with psychological feature commerce? will facilitate remodeling any connected device as a mode of payment.

So within the future, you may merely add your credit automobiles info to your connected car, get your gasoline tank refilled, and your payment info would link with the timer or gasoline pump. Such payment suggests that are already creating their means in our lives, like Apple Pay rather than taking your Mastercard out of your case and swiping it, you simply scan your phone to acquire your stuff. There are several opportunities once it involves psychological feature commerce, and we’ll see a lot of samples of corporations turning any device into a degree of sale to eradicate steps and build your life easier.

IoT In businesses

The "Internet of Things" (IoT) might sound just like the futurist wave of talking refrigerators and self-starting cars, however, Internet-connected devices that communicate with each other can have an effect on our lives outside the "smart home" in addition. For employees, IoT can modification the means we tend to work by saving time and resources and gap new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Even a lot of knowledge

The Internet of Things are an information machine. this implies that corporations can rethink however they collect and analyze info — not solely can decision-makers ought to learn and adapt to a replacement variety of knowledge intelligence, however, the quantity and kind of information made by IoT also will introduce new or expanded roles for data analysts, strategists, and even client service.

Cheaper, greener producing

Thanks to IoT, device interconnectivity can facilitate the adoption of "smart grid" technologies, that use meters, sensors, and different digital tools to regulate the flow of energy and may integrate various sources of power, like stars and wind.

"The web of Things can drastically lower prices within the manufacturer by reducing wastage, consumption of fuel, and also the discarding of economically unviable assets," Namie aforementioned. "IoT may improve the potency of energy production and transmission and may any scale back emissions by facilitating the switch to renewables."

Save time and acquire a lot of out of your day

Other than dominant different IoT devices, your smartphone also will be very like distant management for your life, aforementioned Brendan Richardson, co-founder, and chief military officer of Psychics, a Charlottesville, Va.-based startup that develops IoT wireless sensors. One of the foremost convenient aspects of IoT is that you just have devices that "know" you and can facilitate save time by permitting you to induce in and out of places and conduct transactions quicker employing a mobile device.

Future of IoT

The Internet could be a stunning place to explore things. All those sensible tekki things listed higher than don't seem to be the sole areas enjoying IoT. The impact of IoT is seen in virtually every sector and each field. ranging from self-starting automobiles and bikes, observation house to observation own health or maybe observation baby. One will presumably consider, and also the answer is IoT.

In easy words, IOT merely connects something to everything, that too during a smarter means. Smartphone on the opposite hand is act sort of a portal into to web of Things system. Giving complete remote to your life, if it isn’t still dominant it. It’s time that makers build trust among their clients ad prove that f they offer up access to their knowledge, then in exchange for that they're going to get quality tailored offers, deals, and interactions.

Conclusion

With giant school corporations returning in conjunction with IoT, we've already seen however brightly it's modified our lives. we tend to expect to check a lot of to that, within the near future. You ne'er apprehend, you imagine one thing these days which seems to be a reality tomorrow.

How to Host a Hybrid Networking Event?

Would you like to know how to host a hybrid networking event from A to Z? Buckle up because you are in for a sweet treat! Today, we will reveal everything, from greasing technical nuts and bolts to achieve better profit margins.

The idea of this article is to give you a bird's-eye view of the whole process. Of course, you will have to pick and choose some extra steps. But by the end of this brief guide, you will feel confident and able to plan your hybrid event.

Before explaining the practical steps, let's define the term hybrid networking event.

What Is A Hybrid Networking Event?

A hybrid networking event is a networking event that integrates multimedia tools for reaching another audience.

Unlike traditional networking events, a hybrid one entertains two audiences at once. The first audience is the people in the room with you. And the second crowd is the people that watch the show from home via streaming.

With this in mind, hosts need to learn new skills and use cutting-edge technology to achieve success. This is why we discussed how to host a hybrid networking event today.

How to Host a Hybrid Networking Event

Step 1: Analyse Your Audiences

Arguably, the most important reason why attendees want to join networking events is that they want to do business and network with similar entrepreneurs or colleagues. So, you have to allow interaction between the people in the room and the people at home.

You can easily overcome such technical hardship thanks to advanced hybrid event management platforms like Eventiia. In detail, this solution comes with an event mobile app that makes networking easy as pie for anyone who has access to it.

If you do not opt for ready-made technology, you will have to hire several specialists. In general, you will need a web designer, a back-end developer, and a software engineer. Making sure that both audiences can interact is imperative. Without achieving this step, discussing how to host a hybrid networking event is futile because people will leave sooner than desirable.

As soon as you have your platform, gather as much data as possible from the attendees. Later, match the members of the audiences accordingly by:

  • creating groups
  • planning activities that involve different sets of skills
  • sending personalized links to separate chatrooms before the event starts

Step 2: Baptise Your Hybrid Networking Event

Even if you come up with a cool-sounding name for your event, people still need to understand what you will offer them. In general, networking events are opportunities for people to connect. But every audience has different expectations.

Some people may be searching for a job, while most entrepreneurs may seek commercial partners. Establishing a theme for your event can help. And if the name of the event highlights the theme, making it even more memorable and obvious, that would be a better choice.

During the show, you could utter the event name as a slogan. Some hosts prefer to place their brand in front. Here, the idea is to choose a meaningful label for your event that helps promote it and clarify what it is all about. It could be the core message you want to bring home; the choices are endless.

Step 3: Commence Speaking With A Smile

A big part of mastering how to host a hybrid networking event is learning how to communicate effectively. If you hosted networking events in the past, maybe you already have effective phrases to introduce a successful discussion. But with the online crowd, you have to hone your skills. Otherwise, the online audience will not perceive you as sharp as a tack or equally charismatic.

Here are some tips for communicating effectively during a hybrid networking event:

  • Do a mic check before the show, or have a professional do it.
  • Give attendees time to get ready before the show starts or after a pause. Even better, prepare some activities for them to do during the breaks.
  • Handle interruptions as soon as they come up. In case of technical difficulties, have your staff crew fix them promptly. Above all, keep everyone on the same page.
  • Look in the camera to connect with the people at home. Of course, smile and convey your emotions. Even if you cannot see their faces, you can think of the camera as the most interested person in the room. So, take good care of it.
  • Make them introduce themselves and what they do when inviting them to speak or ask questions.

Step 4: Do Not Let Panellists Bore The Audience

Special guests can attract people you would never reach on your own. But this does not mean that your guests, panellists, teachers, and so on are perfect.

You had better schedule a guest's talk session ahead of time and have a plan B (and C) in case the expert starts dragging the topic non-stop. What will you do if they begin to spout their political agenda?

First, talk with your guests. Above all, make sure that they understand how much time they have to do their bits. But do not fully trust them to end their talk in time because most of them will not do so as soon as they have delivered their message or pitch.

If you cannot trust your guest, take the stage and interview the expert. As soon as the time is up, you can drop the questions, wrap it up, and ask for a round of applause.

Step 5: End With A Unique Selling Proposition

A UPS is essential for any event's success. If you want to take small steps and start with short webinars, prepare an offer for your audience.

It is vital that you can give them the opportunity to do further business with you and your company. But make it an offer that follows what you have discussed up then. In other words, make it relevant enough for them to buy it.

Active listening skills are necessary to create the perfect UPS. In fact, you may have to alter it before the end. Think of the hybrid networking event as an unprecedented opportunity, mainly because it is.

Have a dedicated link sent to people who did not buy the offer you made on stage. Or give them a personal call after collecting their consent for marketing calls and communication during the registration.

5 Common Used PCB You Should Know

The digital industry is evolving day by day. Today, computers and phones are no longer heavy. They are sleek, powerful, and very light. Actually, some smartphones are more powerful than laptops. All this is possible because of the miniaturization of the electronic gadgets' printed circuit boards (PCBs).

Printed Circuit Boards or PCBs are categorized into several types based on design specifications, manufacturing processes, and application requirements. They are used in various sectors such as automotive, medical, defense, and other areas, you can learn more information at PadPCB.

Before you select a PCB, there are several factors you need to consider. Moreover, it is essential to seek advice from professionals. Although there are several types of PCBs, the five standard PCBs are multilayer PCBs, Rigid PCBs, Flex PCBs, HDI PCBs, and Heavy Copper PCBs.

Common Types of PCBs

Let's have a look at the common types of PCBs:

1. Multilayer PCBs

One commonly used PCB is the multilayer PCB. The board has more than two copper layers and is designed in a sandwich fashion. Also, they have many double-sided conductive layers separated by several insulating material sheets.

All are laminated and bonded together through high temperatures to ensure no air gaps occur and ensure the final PCB assembly is stable.

Advantages of Multilayer PCBs

  1. Compact in size – one advantage of multilayer PCBs is compressed in size. This means they can be used on numerous devices.
  2. More robust – multilayer PCBs are strong and are suited for extreme environments and harsh conditions.
  3. Suitable for high-speed circuits – multilayer PCBs are the best for devices that require high-speed circuits.
  4. High level of design flexibility – PCBs can be used in various sectors.

What are the applications of Multilayer PCBs?

Multilayer PCBs are commonly used in laptops, computers, tablets, smartphones, medical equipment, GPS trackers, and many other complex gadgets and circuits.

2. Rigid PCBs

A Rigid Printed Circuit Board cannot be folded or twisted. The board base is made of a rigid substrate giving it strength and rigidity.

In addition, it is composed of many layers that include a copper layer, a substrate layer, a silkscreen layer, and a solder mask layer. They adhere together with heat and adhesive.

Depending on the needs, it is possible to find single-sided rigid PCBs, rigid double-sided PCBs, and rigid multilayer PCBs. Nevertheless, once a rigid PCB has been made cannot be changed or modified.

Advantages of Rigid PCBs

  1. Cost-effective
  2. Simplicity of diagnostics and repair
  3. Solid
  4. Lightweight
  5. Little electronic noise
  6. Capability of absorbing vibrations

What are the applications of Rigid PCBs?

Rigid PCBs are commonly used in laptops, GPS equipment, computers, mobile devices, tablets, CAT scans, X-rays, heart monitors, MRI systems, control towel instrumentation, and temperature sensors.

3. Flex PCBs

Flex PCBs or Flexible Printed Circuit Boards are designed with several printed components and circuits arranged on a flexible substrate. Flex PCBs are also known as flex circuit boards, flexible circuits, or versatile printed boards.

A flex PCB is mainly made from polyamide, transparent conductive polyester film, or polyether ether ketone.

They are made using the same elements as rigid printed boards. But with Flex circuits, the board can flex to your preferred form throughout the use. There are flex single-sided PCBs, flex double-sided PCBs, and flex multilayer PCBs.

Advantages of Flex PCBs

  1. Save space due to flexibility
  2. Eradicate connectors
  3. Increases repeatability and reliability
  4. Thermal management
  5. Suitable for various applications, especially where high signal trace density is required.
  6. Offer uniform electrical features for high-speed circuitry

What are the applications of Flex PCBs?

Flex PCBs are typically used in flex solar cells, LCD fabrication, cellular telephones, automotive industries, laptops, cameras, and many other devices.

4. HDI PCBs

HDI PCB or High-Density Interconnect is a PCB with several interconnections but minimal space. The components are placed nearer, and the board space is considerably reduced, but the functionality is not affected.

Advantages of HDI PCBs

  1. Compact design – the combination of buried vias, blind vias, and micro vias offers the board space requirements.
  2. Cost-effective – the tasks of a standard 8-layer PCB are reduced to a 6-layer HDI board without affecting the quality.
  3. Phenomenal versatility – the boards (HDI PCBs) are perfect where space, weight, reliability, and performance are the primary concerns.
  4. High reliability – HDI PCBs are reliable even against extreme environmental conditions.

What are the applications of HDI PCBs?

  • Medical devices - are involved in HDI PCBs because they can fit in smaller gadgets such as imaging equipment and implants.
  • Automotive – HDI PCBs are the most recommended to save space in automotive. This helps in providing a better driving experience.
  • Smartphones and tablets – modern smartphones are HDI PCBs. These PCBs are responsible for creating smaller and thinner electronic devices.
  • Military and Aerospace – HDI is integrated into most military communication gadgets such as defense systems and missiles. Moreover, HDI PCBs are suited for harsh environments and dangerous conditions.

5. Heavy Copper PCB

Heavy copper Printed Circuit Board is also known as a thick copper PCB. It features three ounces of copper. Hence, they are highly valued due to their thermal management capabilities. Due to the increased copper thickness, the board can carry more current.

Advantages of Heavy Copper PCBs

  1. Increased current carrying capacity, mechanical strength, and increased thermal endurance.
  2. Easy incorporation with high power circuits and control circuits
  3. Many copper weights on the same circuitry leads to a smaller product.
  4. Heavy copper PCBs can withstand high thermal cycling.
  5. Permit the use of exotic materials to their total capacity without causing a circuit failure.

What are the applications of Heavy Copper PCBs?

Some of the applications of heavy copper PCBs are overload relays, solar power converters, power converters, weapons control systems, nuclear power applications, HVAC systems, and safety and signal systems.

Summary

PCBs have modernized the electronic industry. Today, the boards are used in almost every electronic gadget you know. However, those mentioned above are the commonly used PCBs.

If you are not sure of the best PCB to consider for your applications, make sure you seek help from an expert. Moreover, it is essential to purchasing PCBs from reputed manufacturers for commercial or industrial use.

Interlock in Ladder Logic Programming

Hi friends and hope you are all very well. Today, we are going to deal with one of the most important and common problems that would be there in everyday tasks in industry and its solution. The problem is the safety of equipment and operators by preventing the machine from running under specific conditions for realizing the safety of equipment and human as well. Not only does it fulfill safety but also it is for performing the designed sequence of operation. If there is a problem, then it should be the solution for it. the solution is what so-called “Interlock”. So, what is interlock? And why do we need it? And how we can design a good interlock? Well! We may find such concerns exist in two aspects which are safety and operation sequence. In the first aspect, safety happens when we need to make the execution of one operation or process locked by some condition for realizing the safety of the operator or equipment. The second one is operation sequence for which we need to sort the operation into sequential and concurrent tasks according to the logic philosophy of the operation. That can be realized by preventing one task of execution until one other task is finished or letting one task wait until one or more conditions are fulfilled. I hope that makes the reason why we need interlock close comes to your mind. Now, how we can perform interlock? Well! It can be done in many approaches. However, we can say simply there is only and only one idea to do interlock. It is by putting the condition “contact” on which it will be decided if the process will go on or not, or based on it, one piece of equipment can go running or keep stopped. By completing this article, you will have known what is interlock, why we need it in industry daily life problems, its techniques, and for sure how to program interlock. Furthermore, types of interlock, real examples from industry, and how you can implement it using ladder logic programming in different ways will be ready for you to learn and practice in this tutorial.

What is interlock?

Interlock is how to prevent one process or equipment from running to satisfy safety requirements or fulfill the logic of the operation. A clear example of an interlock is to prevent cutting weapons from executing as long as the hands of the operator are away from the working area. In this case, there will be two push buttons on the left and right of the operator and out of the working space to make sure, when the operator requests the cutting machine to operate, his hands were pressing those two push buttons which are out of the working space. The previous example shows how to employ interlock for realizing safety purposes. Another instance that shows how Interlock can be used to satisfy the operation logic requirements is when we need to drive the motor in two directions. In that case, we commonly use two relays or contactors for forward and reverse directions. So, there should be an interlock of each contactor to each other meaning we cannot activate both at the same time because that will end up with a short circuit on the motor or the supply.

What are types of interlock?

There are two main types of interlock which are safety interlocks and machine or equipment interlocks. Safety interlocks for securing people from getting hurt while they operate the machine. And machine interlock concerns with securing the safety of machine parts and or realizing specific philosophy of logic. Figure 1 shows the different types and subcategories of interlock. The machine or equipment interlock can be classified into three types which are mechanical, electrical, and logical interlock types. And from their titles, the mechanical interlock can be physically satisfied by making mechanical connections between equipment to let or prevent them from running. An electrical interlock can be achieved by using electrical devices like relys’ coils, sensors, and switches. The first one which is relays’ coils is the most interesting electrical interlock technique as they can be utilized in creating a dependency between equipment so we can design flexibly dependence between two motors, for example, to not running simultaneously meaning one of two running scenarios. The last type is the logical interlock which is the most important here in this tutorial and I hope you get an astonishing start to master that type because that is the most frequently used in real life in the industry. Do you know why? Because it is done programmatically without the need for mechanical connections and setup or even electrical devices or hardwiring. Also, it is very flexible as you can change it when there is a need to change the logic at any time.

Fig.1: interlock types

Figure 2 shows the very example of a safety interlock to protect the operator from entering the zone of robot work to save him from the movable parts. Is that a mechanical or electrical interlock? Or maybe logical? What do you think? Well! Let’s move forward in the tutorial and come back to this question to see if you know the answer or not.

Fig. 2: the safety interlock

The non-safe interlock is designed for protecting equipment and lock specific processes from execution. The machinery interlock is classified into three main categories which are mechanical, electrical, and logic interlock. In mechanical interlock, a set of mechanical setups is designed to prevent equipment or operation from running at some operating conditions. Figure 3 shows a schematic of a mechanical interlock for a setup that makes the motor spin either forward or reverse direction and prevent enabling both at the same time. The dotted line represents the mechanical interlock between the two contactors for reverse and forward contactors for guaranteeing to enable only one of them at any given time.

Fig. 3 mechanical interlock example

Figure 4 shows the case of missing the mechanical interlock between the two contactors. It shows the possibility of activating bother of them at a given time. In that case, you can see the damaging effects on the motor and the short circuit possibility on the power lines.

Fig. 4: fault condition due to missing interlock

Another example of mechanical interlock is car steering interlock as shown in fig. 5. The steering wheel is interlocked mechanically and unlocked by inserting the key.

Fig. 5: car steering mechanical interlock

The mechanical interlock was commonly used in the past and my be exist nowadays but very rarely. On the other hand, the electrical interlock is the most commonly used in control systems currently. Similarly, the idea of electrical interlock can be achieved by preventing the flow of current between two devices at the same time. Typically two contactors or relays are used for achieving such electrical interlock. One of these contractors will be normally open and the other will be in a normally closed configuration as in Fig. 6. It is very clear that for energizing the lamp, CR2 will be energized when CR1 is de-energized.

Fig. 6: electrical interlock example 1

Another example of electrical interlock which is very common is the thermal overload shown in Fig 7. It shows two contactors are used in electrical interlock configuration. The main contractor is in a normally open configuration while the thermal overload contactor is in a normally closed configuration. When there the temperature is getting high to a specific value the thermal overload turns over from normally closed to normally open to disconnect the load.

Fig. 7: electrical interlock example 2

Now, let's move to the logical interlock which is our target in this tutorial. Logical interlock is applying the same concept of interlock programmatically. In this type, there is no mechanical or electrical physical connection for achieving interlock. Instead, programming is used to perform the interlock. This logical interlock saves the effort of commissioning including mechanical or electrical connections. In addition, it realizes reliability and flexibility.

Logical interlock in ladder logic programming

Figure 8 shows one example of logic interlock. You can notice the left part of the figure shows there are no mechanical or electrical hardwiring or connections between pumps 1 and 2. However, pump 2 is interlocked with pump 1 logically as shown in the most left part that shows the ladder logic code. To have pump 2 running, pump 1 should run first by the level switch. As shown on the right part of the figure below, when the level of the liquid reaches above the level switch, the switch is turned on and energized pump 1 which activates pump 2.

Fig. 8: logic interlock example 1

Figure 9 shows another logic interlock example in which a timer of type on delay is used to interlock equipment. As shown on the left the ladder logic code and on the right, an image shows the scenario of the logic with astonishing visualization. It shows that, when the operator presses the start pushbutton and keep pressing on it for the preset time value which is 3 second, the timer contact turns on and the coil of the contactor is energized. Now let us go to the lab and open our simulator to run those examples to validate their logic and verify their proper operations.

Fig. 9: logic interlock example 2

Logical interlock using ladder logic

Let’s get to experimental work, now open your simulator, the first example as shown in fig. 10, there are two pumps. And we need to run one pump at every given time. So, no one of them will work when the other does. The ladder logic code shown in Fig.1, uses the contact of each pump’s coil to lock the other pump. For instance, if the first pump is running, that will open the path to prevent energizing the second pump’s coil when it is requested to run. Similarly, the first pump’s coil is hindered from running while the second pump is running. It looks smart but let us test and see if the logic we designed matches the real-time environment or there is an issue to solve!

Fig. 10: The first example ladder logic program

Simulation example 1

Well! Now we have started our simulation. Figure 11 shows the initial case when no pumps are requested to run. So you can see each pump is all set to run once being requested.

Fig. 11: the initial case when no pumps were requested

Figure 12 shows the case when we requested the first pump to run. Because the stop button is not raised and the second pump is not running; The first pump goes running as shown in figure 12. So the question is that what is going to happen when requesting pump 2 to run?! Let’s see

Fig. 12: starting the first pump

Fig. 13 shows the case when we request pump 2 to run by hitting its start push button “start-pump2”. As expected, the second pump does not run for the interlock condition we designed for by putting a contact of the first pump’s coil as a condition to run the other pump. So let’s remove the hindering condition of interlock by stopping pump 1 and trying to run pump 2 and see.

Fig. 13: requesting one pump to run when the other is running

Figure 14 shows what happens when we remove the interlock condition. By hitting the stop push button of the first pump “stop-pump1”, the first pump has stopped. Consequently, the second pump went running once the interlock conditions has been removed. So now simulation verifies our design and proves our code of interlock is working great. Well done!

Fig. 14: remove the interlock condition by stopping the first pump

Interlock ladder logic example 2

As we aforementioned section earlier, the interlock could be done by sensors state or reading, running and stopping statuses of other equipment, or logical devices like timers or counters as well. Timers and counters can be used as an interlocking technique for creating a running condition based on some delay or specific counting. Figure 15 shows one example of a timer-based interlock in which the pump won’t run by hitting the start button until the operator holds the start push-button pressed for 3 seconds then the pump goes running.

Fig. 15: timer-based interlock ladder logic example

Figure 16 shows the simulation of the second example. My friends, please notice, despite the start pushbutton having been hit by the operator; the pump does not start because it waits for the timer to count 3 seconds, and then it can run.

Fig. 16: pump wait timer to start

Now after 3 seconds of holding start push-button pressed, fig. 17 shows the pump goes running because the interlock condition is no longer there. I am very happy you would get that!

Fig. 17: pump start running after 3 seconds

What’s next?

My friends, before talking about what we are going to practice next time; I just want to express my appreciation that you patiently follow up till this point and hope your experience moves forward and gets more and more every lesson. Next time we will navigate the mathematical functions and how to perform mathematical computations in your ladder logic programming. my friends I really can’t wait to see you very soon to practice mathematics in ladder logic programming.

Water Level Indicator using Arduino

Hello geeks, welcome to our new project. Here, we are going to make a very useful project which we can use for ourselves or we can use this as a product as well on an industry level.

In this project, we are going to make a water level indicator. We all know it is one of the most essential products because there are many water tanks in every house or office, and most of them are not easily accessible to check the level of water in it and I think most of us faced the problem such as shortage of water as we do not have anything to monitor the exact amount of water available in the tank and this causes many problems on our daily lives.

Where To Buy?
No.ComponentsDistributorLink To Buy
1LEDsAmazonBuy Now
2Arduino UnoAmazonBuy Now

Software to install

As we are going to make this project in the simulation first, for that, we will use the Proteus simulation tool. It is a tool used for electronic projects in which, we can run the real-time simulation of any electronic project and we can debug it in real-time without making any damage to real components.

Proteus has a very big database for electronic components which comes in the installation package of Proteus, but still, sometimes we have to install packages or libraries for some modules which are not pre-installed in it.

As in this project, we are going to use Arduino which is not pre-installed in the Proteus software. So we can download the Arduino module package from the link given below:

Components Required

In this project, we will use the following components
  • Arduino UNO
  • LEDs
  • Water level indicator

Components details

Arduino UNO

  • Arduino UNO is an open-source microcontroller of the Arduino family.
  • We have used this as the main controller of this project.
  • Using this we can measure the readings of the water level sensor and indicate the user accordingly.
  • It has 14 digital input/output pins which can be used for controlling any digital components or can be used to read digital sensors.
  • It has 6 analog input /output pins which are used for analog read and write functions.
  • The ADC used for analog pins is 10 bits which range from 0-1023.

Note- While uploading the code on the Arduino UNO, disconnect any wire which is connected to Rx(D0) and Tx(D1) pins, otherwise it will give an error while uploading the code.

Water Level Sensor

  • The water level indicator works on the principle of the potentiometer.
  • It has three pins as Vcc, Gnd, and Signal.
  • There are two kinds of exposed copper strips on the sensor which are Vcc and sensor line.
  • When it emerges in the water tank, the conductivity increases and the resistance decreases due to that, it increases the output voltage on the sensor pin of the water level sensor.
  • The output value of the sensor changes with the height of the water level in the water tank.
  • And this gives the analog output so that we will use the analog pin of the Arduino UNO for reading the sensor value.
  • As this will have analog values, we have to calibrate the sensor before using it in the project.
  • We will talk about calibration later in the article.

LEDs

  • LED stands for light-emitting diode.
  • They are used for indication purposes in this project.
  • LEDs are like normal diodes, they will allow the current to pass from only one direction.
  • They come in different colors and the color of LEDs differs as per the used material in its manufacturing.
  • There are two terminals in the LEDs, the larger one is the cathode and another one is the anode.
  • Using the length of the terminals, we can figure out the polarity of the LED but if in case both terminals are the same size then there is a flat side on the LED, that side is the negative terminal and another is the positive terminal.

Project overview

The water level indicator works on the principle of change in the resistance of the water level sensor due to a change in the amount of water in the container.

Basically, there are two parallel strips in the water level sensor, one for the power supply and another is for the sensor strip. As we know, water is a conductor of electricity so when we increase the amount of water in the container then more length of the sensor emerges in the water and that will increase the conductivity between the strips therefore, it increases the voltage on the sensor pin as well. We will read that voltage on the Arduino UNO.

To get the exact amount of water level in the container, we have to calibrate the sensor with the water because we can not be assured that the output voltage will be the same for every water because we know that there are lots of materials dissolved in the water so it will vary for a different source of water, therefore, we have to calibrate it first.

For calibration of the sensor, we will take a container with the water and we will read the values from the sensor by changing the level of water in the container. We will perform this action till the container gets filled with water and we will note down all the reference values and mark them as thresholds for each level.

As in this project, we are making it in the simulation so it would not be possible for changing the values as per the water level therefore we have used the potentiometer and we have chosen the threshold values randomly.

No need to worry while making this project with the real components as the sensor values from the water level sensor will be in the same format as the output of the potentiometer.

Now that we know the working principle of the water level indicator let’s go for the circuit diagram of the project.

Circuit diagram

As we know the required components which we are going to use in this project.

  • First of all, start a new project in the Proteus simulation software.
  • Import all the listed components in the Proteus workspace.
  • For sensor simulation, we will import one potentiometer.
  • Connect the output pin of the potentiometer with the analog pin of the Arduino UNO. In this project, we are using the A0 pin.
  • And other pins with the ground and 5volt Vcc.
  • Now start connecting the LEDs, for controlling the LEDs, we will use the digital pins of Arduino and they are D2, D3, D4, D5 pins.
  • While connecting the LED pins, keep the sequence the same otherwise there will be an error in the indication of levels.
  • Connect the positive terminal of the LED with the digital pins of the Arduino and the negative pins with the ground.
  • Now we have completed the connection of our project. Let’s move to the coding side of this project.

Arduino code of water level indicator

For coding, we will use the Arduino IDE. It is a built-in IDE for Arduino developments.

Arduino code is divided into mainly three parts: declaration of function and variables, second is void setup section, and third is void loop.

First of all, declare the variables and pin number which we are going to use in this project.

  • Declare five variables for storing the pin numbers of LEDs and one variable for storing analog pins for reading the sensors.

Void Setup()

  • This is the most important function in Arduino programming because our code will not compile successfully without using this function in the code.
  • When Arduino code starts this is the first function that runs.
  • This function runs only once when the code restarts.
  • So here, we will write the code which requires only one time to run.
  • In this function, we will basically declare the pin modes of the pins which we will use in the project.
  • Declare the pin mode of LEDs as output mode and sensor pin as input mode. Because we want to control the LEDs so that they must be in output mode and to read data from the sensor as input then it should be declared as input mode.

Void loop()

  • This is the second most important function of Arduino code structure.
  • This function also must be in the code without it our code will not compile successfully.
  • In this function, we will write the main application code which we want to run continuously.
  • First of all, we will read the sensor value because we will make the decisions on the sensor values.
  • And for debugging purposes, we will print that value on the serial monitor.
  • As the sensor will give the analog output data, we will use the analogRead function for reading the sensor data.
  • After reading the sensor value, set the LEDs as per the threshold which we have calculated while calibrating the sensor for each level.
  • We will divide the values into five conditions for each level we set the LEDs accordingly.
  • First, we write the condition for when the container is full then, let’s assume the value will be more than 760. Then switch on all the LEDs.
  • After that, set the condition for the second level when the sensor value is lesser than 760 but greater than 720. Here we will set the 5th LED to low state and other LEDs to a high state.
  • Next check the condition for the third level when the sensor value is in the range of 615 to 720 and here we will set the 5th and 4th LED to low state and other LEDs to a high state.
  • Next check the condition for the fourth level when the sensor value lies in the range of 615 to 410. Here we will set the 3rd, 4th, 5th LEDs to low state and the rest two LEDs to a high state.
  • After that, check the condition for the fifth level when the sensor value lies in the range of 410 to 250, and here we will set 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd LED to low state and remaining one LED to a high state.
  • Last check the condition for when the container is almost empty when the sensor value lies in the range of 250 to 0. Here we will set all five LEDs to a low state.
  • After that give a delay of 1 second for settling of sensor values and calibration.

Results and working

Now we have completed our code and circuit, it's time to run the project.

  • To run the simulation, we have to include the hex file of the Arduino code.
  • We will generate the hex from the Arduino IDE.
  • To generate the hex file, go to the Sketch >> Export compiled binary, after that, it will compile the code and in the project folder, there will be two files one is binary and the other is hex file.
  • Now we have to include the hex file in the Arduino module in the Proteus software.
  • Click on the Arduino UNO module, then a window will pop up where you can add the hex file of the project.
  • Now we are all set to run the project, click on the Run button in the software to start the simulation.
  • To change the water level in the simulation, we will change the value on the potentiometer and as the values from the potentiometer change then the LEDs will also respond accordingly.
  • First check the condition when the water level is very low, mostly when the container is empty.
  • When the water level is very low then there will be very less conductivity or maybe no conductivity, in this case, the output voltage from the sensor will be very less.
  • So in this condition, all LEDs will be off.
  • In the image, we can see that the voltage at the analog pin is 0.5 volts.
  • Now when the water level increases then in that condition the conductivity will also increase so does the output voltage from the sensor.
  • So let’s increase the water level to the first level.
  • Here we can see the output voltage increased to 1.5 volts and the first led is glowing.
  • Now similarly increase the water level for next levels.
  • Check water for the second level. The output voltage is iincreased to 2 volts.
  • Now check for the next level.
  • Now check for when the container is filled. Then all LEDs will glow.

Conclusion

I hope we have covered all the points related to this project, and I think it will be very useful in daily life and it will give us ease of monitoring water in our water tanks. After this project, we don’t have to take the headache of how much water is available in our tank. And please let us know in the comment section if you have faced any issues while making it and also how you are going to use it in real life.

Thanks for reading this article. All the best for your projects.

 

Introduction to High-Speed PCB Design

Hello everyone and welcome to this article which will be a great introduction to high-speed PCB design. For sure it is going to be a very interesting class. Let me start by posing a question; Is this something that you have ever come across in your world of PCB design? Where you spent too much time doing the schematics, selecting the right components, doing the footprint addition, generating the netlists, doing the proper layout and routing and sending the end product of your design to the manufacturer? At this level you might probably be designing standard types of PCB boards and if someone was to introduce a project that talks about signal integrity, reflections or even crosstalk, very much believe you will feel like a lost person. It might be something new to you. The reason is that such kind of task is not what you have been handling in your day-to-day design activities.

In this field of PCB design, you might not guess what your clients want in the future and sooner or later, you might be slapped with a design that involves high-speed PCB design process and at this stage be assured of finding things so hard if you have never worked with the high-speed PCB designs. Today we are going to have a look at the high-speed PCB design and this article is best suited for people who want to go beyond the horizon when it comes to printed circuit board design.

What is a high-speed PCB design?

When we introduce a high-speed PCB design, signal integrity should be the first thing that runs in your mind. When your signal integrity starts to be affected by the physical properties of your printed circuit board like the schematic, layouts etc then the design of your board is a high-speed PCB design.

Signal integrity is a set of measures that define electrical signal quality.

  • When you complete the design of your PCB boards and you come across challenges such as attenuation, reflections, delays, crosstalk and so on, the feel at home and welcome to the field of high-speed PCB design.
  • The amount of attention paid to these arising challenges is what makes the High-speed PCB design very unique.
  • You might have been used to the design of easy boards where your focus is only on the placement of components and routing but sometimes you will come across a design that where you place your components is very important, the way you do the routing, the distance between different signals must be considered, where you place your traces and which type of components should be interconnected
  • If you take all these precautions then expect a very new different type of PCB design. You will be having a whole new experience in your design work.

Having introduced what high-speed PCB design is and making note that it is all about signal integrity, now let us have a look at the signal integrity to get a proper understanding;

How to place an order for High-Speed PCB?

There are many online PCB companies, that offer High-Speed PCB designing. For this tutorial, let's take the example of PCBWay, a China-based PCB Fabrication House, that offers competitive prices for PCB designing. So, let's take a look at how to place a High-Speed PCB order on PCBWay:
  • First, create a new account on the PCBWay official site.
  • Click on the PCB Instant Quote tab and a PCB Calculator will open up.
  • Here, click on the Advanced PCB Button at the top and you will get the calculator as shown below:
  • As you can see in the above figure, I have selected High Speed in the Materials section.
PCBWay has an excellent customer support team, so if are ordering for High-Speed PCB  design, then it would be recommended to discuss your requirements with their team first.

Brief on signal and signal integrity:

When doing a PCB design of any kind, it is obvious that you will be sending some sort of signal through copper traces from the input to your desired area of interest. The signal you will be sending can either be a digital signal or an analog signal.

Digital signals

  • Also referred to as the square signal and it is the output that you will always come across any digital signal that exist in this planet.
  • Unlike in the analog signal which has random numbers spread all over, the digital signal has a well-organized system of outcomes represented by a high and a low point or a 1 and a 0 or even some refer to them as an off and an on.
  • Let us look at the figure below which is an indication of a digital signal.

Analog signals

  • This type of signals has random points of output which are made up of both negative and positive values.
  • Unlike the digital signal that has on and off points, the analog signals have random results that are defined by there frequencies and the signal strength.
  • The following is the output you should expect when using the analog signals.

The main issue about these signals is that they are prone to interference and this is where we bring in signal integrity because anytime a signal is affected by the environment there are some issues that arise.

Let us have a look at the following example.

Let us say you have a circuit that is transmitting signal from point 1 to point 2 in your PCB board. The point 1 can be classified as the transmitter and point 2 can be classified as the receiver. As the signal moves from point 1 to point 2, there is a likelihood that the signal is affected by different factors like;

  1. Signal ringing; this occurs when there is unwanted shifting of current or voltage which will lead to the flowing of extra current in your trace hence delaying the arrival of the signal.
    1. Signal reflection; this is when your signal is flowing in your coper traces but the whole signal does not get to the destination since some of it is reflected back to the origin.
  • Signal noise; this occurs when there is a random fluctuation of signals in your board which in turn affects the signals that are close to it. The fluctuation may end up damaging the signal data being transferred in your board.
  • Signal timing; some times when you send your signal through your copper traces, they do not get to that destination in time so that it can match with the clock signals. When this happens the signal might be interpreted as a zero while in actual sence it wss one. This is called signal timing.
  • Signal crosstalk; this occurs when you place two copper traces too close to each other whle the traces carry different signals. The electromagnetic radiation that canoriginate from one signal might affect the other sisgnal hence corrucpting the data flowing in it.

Remember that the listed challenges above are just some of the challenges that you might come across during the design of the PCB. Otherwise, we have so many others that we have not mentioned above and all of them just have one thing in common which is causing of disturbance to the signal you are sending from point 1 to point 2.

  • Anytime the signal path is disturbed, the integrity of the data being send is corrupted and therefore, your work as a high speed PCB designer is to ensure that the integrity of the signals is protected at all cost.
  • The signal should leave point 1 with a particular wave form and it should arrive at the destination which is point 2 with the same wave form and all the data intact.

How to determine if the project is high speed.

In reality, there is no a specific way to determine if the project is a high speed PCB project or not but the evaluation should be done by case to case. As we have noted in our example above, the first thing that should indicate that your project is classified as a high speed project is when you come across some signal integrity challenges in your PCB layout process.

You can identify a high speed design PCB by;

  • Some specific device designs involve high speed PCB design. Some of them are designing of cell phone boards, motherboards and DSL routers are classified as high speed design projects. If you will be using specific technologies such as HDMI, SPI, UARTS, I2C and USB, just know that you will be dealing with the high speed projects.
  • When the digital frequency is equal or more that the 50MHz.
  • When the PCB board being designed has a very small size and the location of the components to be place creates a huge challenge to the designer.
  • The main circuit is made up of so many subcircuit that are connected to each other by the use of very high speed interfaces such as the DSI and the CSI.

High speed PCB design Big Three Problems.

When working on the high speed PCB design, there are a number of issues that you will come across while trying to transmit your signal from point 1 to pint 2 and the main three challenges that you are likely to encounter are;

Integrity

Here we have to look at our signal at the destination and ask ourselves if the signal looks exactly as it should look like. If the signal does not look like it should, then it must have faced some interferences along the way which might have ruined its integrity.

Noise

The issue here is if your signal came across any form of interference during the transmission. It is obvious that PCB signals have some sought of noise in their output, but if this noise exceeds a certain limit, it might corrupt the signals being transmitted.

Timing

We are looking at how the signals are arriving at the destination. Are they arriving at the expected time with respect to other signals? Remember that all the signals in a PCB board are controlled by the clock and if the transmitted signal does not match with the clock signal then the signal is corrupted.

Correcting the Big Three Problems

The big three problem can be rectified by involving the following three solutions;

Matching

If traces have a matched length, it will ensure that the signals arrive at the same time and sync with the rates of the clock. Matching is a must thing when working with HDMI, SATA, USB, PCI Express and the DDR.

Spacing

The close you place your traces to each other, the more they are prone to noise and other forms of interferences. Therefore, it is advisable to ensure that your traces are having proper standard spacing. By placing your traces where they should be, with proper spacing reduces the amount of noise affecting your trace.

Impedance

By ensuring that you have proper impedance between your receiver and the transmitter will create a direct effect on the quality od the signal and its integrity. This will also have an impact on how your signals are exposed to the noise challenge.

Design rules and challenges for high speed design.

As it is in any engineering design work, there are rules that have to be followed when we are handling the high speed PCB design. Let us have a look at some of these challenges in depth;

Tuning of the trace length

Here if you are using the high speed interface, you have to do a signal tuning of the length of your traces in order to synchronize your signal propagation. If you miss to do the synchronization, then expect your interface to fail at very high frequencies or even not to work at all. Therefore, the tuning aspects is a very important aspect when it comes to high speed designs.

  • In any high speed design, there shall be two types of interferences and that is the parallel and the serial interface.
  • The parallel interface will involve the length of the trace tunning only while for the serial interface signals are united into several differential pairs.
  • The tunned differential pair
  • Below is the tuned length of tracks;
  • Tuned parallel interfaces.

Shape of the truck

It is very rare to meet straight tracks from the source to the receiver on a PCB especially when the high speed design is involved because you have to keep bending the tracks while looking for track locations that will fine tune the trace. In real sense, tracks required smooth, rounded corners without sharp bending and you will need a lot of time to make that possible. What makes since task more time consuming is the fact that you will have to redo this so many times repeatedly until you get the optimized path.

Don’t bent tracks at 90 degrees because the width of the track changes affecting the impedance of the track. It is advised you do the bending at 45 degrees as shown in the figure below;

The impedance

Any time you are doing a PCB design, it is very important to make an observation of the single-end point ZO impedances and also as well as the differential impedances Zdiff.

Adherence to the correct impedance is one of the most important rules in the design of the PCB.

Given below are the parameters for the differential impedance calculations;

Location of the components

Component placement is one of the most important rules in process of high speed PCB design. Before you begin this process, you have to mark where you are going to place your component.

For example, you can place components according to their functions. If components do same functions or even related purpose, they should always be in the same location to each other.

Analog components should be placed in their locality, with their ground different from others to avoid the EMI.

During placement, remember that the tracks are not long and therefore you should ensure that you leave the space for tuning.

Termination

Most common type of termination is the parallel termination. This is where a resistor is placed in the track between the differential pair and as close to the receiver as possible.

The purpose of termination is for getting rid of the reflected signals in the truck and this leads to the upgrading of the data that is being transferred. When differential pairs are used, the resistor should be equal to the differential impedance or less than the differential impedance.

Grounding

In most occasion, it is very impossible to completely trace high speed interfaces in a single layer and this will require introduction of vias in order to move the traces from one layer to another.

Vias are just electroplated holes that allows you to move the tracks from one layer of the board to the other.

It is very important to ensure that you accompany the track via with a ground via. These vias are called stitching vias and they help in maintaining the use of a single reference point in the high speed PCB design.

Tips for high speed PCB design.

Start with a plan

This is a basic thing in PCB design and it is very important to have a plan to avoid so much errors and issues in the design process. So before doing any connections of the symbols or the net list you need a checklist at hand so that you can confirm what to do next to ensure that you have done everything accordingly. The plan will help in;

  1. Organization of the system
  2. The power supply
  3. The signal speed
  4. Sensitive signals identification.

This are not the only things that you will consider during planning but it is among the first things to do.

Every detail of your board stackup for manufacturing documentation.

After having the plan, the next thing is to ensure that your layer stackup are documented. This is where you have to contact your manufacturer in order to know which material you will use in the design and also and what type of constraints you should employ in those designs.

Expect to work with the following type of materials;

  • FR-4
  • Nelco
  • Rogers

Floor planning

Here you have to organize your board into logical sections. Remember high speed boards are organized into many subcircuits and it is your duty as a designer to determine where each subcircuit should be placed.

This is more so for the case of the analog and digital signals which require that they placed in separate places so that they cannot interfere with each other.

Your physical floor planning should have something like what is below;

Use of power and ground plane

Now that your plan and stackup is fully laid, it is time to get into important details that you will need in order to start the design.

The size of your land patterns should be kept at minimal.

I the previous design, you might have been using very large pads maybe for easier soldering and inspection. For the high speed design, the space you leave is the key for the success and therefore pads should be 0 to 5% of the size of the components. This drop in space will always help in improving the mechanical strength of the board.

Signal routing for maximum shielding benefits

The high frequency signals will be producing a lot of electromagnetic effects as they travel from the source to the sinking region. And this might lead to two signals having an interference on each other. To avoid this, consider each of the following;

  1. Minimize parallel signals
  2. Ensure you maintain us much distance between your signals as possible
  3. Signals between layers should be routed orthogonally.

Efficient path for current should be provided.

This will involve the use of vias so that to avoid the current path from crisscrossing each other or the ground and to make sure that the signal integrity is maintained.

Ensure that you employ the use of the 3W rules in order to minimize coupling between traces.

Use the 20H rule to ensure that the coupling is at minimal.

7 Tips for Selling an App

Selling an app to a buyer requires a careful approach to extract the most value from the digital asset. The marketplace for apps extends well beyond the iOS and Android market to ones for e-commerce platforms, Amazon’s Alexa, Salesforce, and many other places.

If you’re thinking ahead about the long-term prospect of selling your app that’s now in development or wanting to exit in the next year, these 5 tips for selling an app are for you.

Can You Sell The App?

You might believe it is time to cash out your app, but there could be a few problems in your immediate future. Apps developed for the Apple ecosystem can’t always be transferred from one developer to another. It is a good idea to check the latest criteria on app transfers before you look at selling your app. While developers can transfer an entire account to a buyer, it will limit the price you can ask for.

Apps Don’t All Sell the Same

Apps don’t all sell with similar multiples or attract the same level of interest.

It depends on how large the related app marketplace is, how many apps are for sale, and the pool of interested buyers too. The multiple of earnings for app sales reflects their long-term potential but also the demand in that particular marketplace.

If you discover that the app you’ve developed and built up over the years sits in a marketplace that isn’t much in demand, maybe choose differently next time?

Maximize Value by Marketing Better

It’s necessary to get the most value from your app before listing it for sale. Ideally, any boost in top-line revenues should have occurred months ago. This helps to confirm that it wasn’t a one-time bump and is sustainable.

So, when identifying profitable marketing channels, do it as early as you can. Avoid trying one and adding others incrementally over the years. It’ll make it harder to implement them all before you’re thinking about selling the app.

Ensure the Customer Reviews Are Positive

A buyer is purchasing the app’s code, an existing relationship with its customers, and the reputation of the app too. When there are negative reviews left and right, the listing will be avoided.

It might be impossible to not get any negative reviews – some people are overly critical – but deal with them pragmatically. Reply to them in an informative, helpful, and friendly manner. Even if the review was unfair, unbalanced, or rude, don’t reciprocate.

Also, if one or more points within the review were valid, update the app to address those. Then amend your response to reflect how the app has been updated based on their observations.

Reconsider the Pricing Model

Apps are typically sold for up to 36X the app’s monthly profit. So, that’s the money you make after all associated expenses have been deducted. Be clear on this figure from the get-go. Potential buyers will want to see evidence of your earnings. Even if an app is making good sales, if operational costs are high, profit margins are going to be lower.

You may have landed on the best pricing model that’s fine with the customers and extracts the most value for what’s offered. However, it might just be the first one you tried, and you never considered any others.

Before concluding that that’s all your app can realistically generate, reconsider all options. Do some market research with current customers to gauge their reaction to switching the monetization model. See if there’s any wriggle room to add a premium version, extra features, add-ons, or something else to increase the app’s earnings when selling it.

Remember, an app is only worth what someone will pay for it. Be realistic about how much you can charge for the app. If you overvalue the app, interest will be limited for obvious reasons and you may struggle to find any buyers willing to take things to the next level.

Ensure the App Doesn’t Flout Expected Standards

While an app might flout standards set for the marketplace, it can’t do so forever.

Any broker or prospective buyer who’s aware of the appropriate standards will actively avoid an app that’s in breach of them, especially if they’ll be eventually stuck with making changes to fix the problem after delisting and begging forgiveness from the powers that be.

Depending on the marketplace, standards differ. Therefore, they must be investigated properly. For example, there are established WordPress Coding Standards. For WordPress plugins, these state that they must be written in the PHP language and be fairly easy to interpret. Spaghetti code that technically runs but is confusing and intentionally so won’t pass muster.

Also, requirements do change, so verify before any app sale listing it still isn’t in breach of standards that came into force recently.

Is it the Right Time to Sell the App?

Prepare ahead of time before selling your app and consider whether this is a smart business decision. Often, there is no good reason to sell an app, as you can continue making a great monthly income and the app won’t be worth any more in a year. However, you may have personal reasons for wishing to take a step back, and that’s OK. You may also want to pursue new development opportunities, which is another common reason why developers decide to sell a successful app and move on to the next project.

It’s also worth pointing out that there are tax benefits, as the sale profit could be classed as capital gain and taxed at a lower rate. Speak to an accountant to verify this first.

Once you are ready to sell, it’s time to look for buyers. There are sites where you can list an app for sale, such as Flippa, or you can work with an app broker. Either way, don’t rush into anything, and always check the reviews first if you decide to use a broker.

Finally, never accept the first offer you receive, it’s likely to be a low-ball offer and you can do much better if you exercise some patience.

Introduction to Ceramic Printed Circuit Board

Hello friends and welcome to this article. Today we are going to have a look at the introduction to the ceramic printed circuit boards. we have previously introduced what a printed circuit board is and we noticed that it is a very important part that makes electronic circuits complete and well organized. Having that in mind, we had also discussed several materials that build up these PCBs and today our focus is on the ceramic types of PCBs.

Introduction to Ceramic Printed Circuit Board

  • This printed circuit board is referred to as ceramic PCB because of the substrate used in the construction of this board is made up of ceramic and it finds applications in special areas.
  • The process of making this board is that copper is pasted on the surface that is made up of alumina ceramic which is the substrate material at a very high amount of temperature.
  • Its substrate material offers a very high value of conductivity features, very great insulation factors and provides easy soldering surfaces.
  • The most preferred manufacturing process is the laser rapid metalization technique which is a very important process.
  • The structure of ceramic borders is very simple when compared to other types of these boards and it offers high-level operations than what is offered by the other type of boards.
  • The size of the conductive layer used in this type of board is between one micrometer and 1-millimeter thickness.

How to order Ceramic PCB

There are many online PCB companies, where we can place our PCB orders and the best of them all is JLCPCB. JLCPCB is a China-based PCB Fabrication house and offers the cheapest PCB rates. It's quite simple to place your PCB order on the JLCPCB official site. Here are the steps:

  • First of all, create an account on the JLCPCB site.
  • They have an online PCB calculator, where you can calculate the final price of your order by adding all your requirements.
  • Next, you need to upload the Gerber file of your PCB design.
  • Finally, made the payments through an online secure payment gateway, they have multiple options i.e. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal.
  • That's it, once your order got ready, you will get it through DHL express delivery service.
[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/homeOrderVideo.mp4"][/video]

Structure of the ceramic PCB

In this discussion, we shall have a look at a single-layer ceramic PCB. It consists of; the ceramic substrate layer, the copper layer and the solder mask layer. Let us have a look at the image below which is a double-sided layer ceramic PCB constructed through the normal method of lamination.

Ceramic substrate

  • Compared to the FR-4, ceramic has good thermal conductivity and thermal insulation features and there in these boards, ceramic plays two very important roles one is about thermal dissipation and the other is about providing insulation between the board’s circuit layers.
  • When double or multilayer ceramic PCB is required, vias are necessary for providing connection between the layers. To achieve this, vias are drilled through the ceramic substrate by the use of laser technology.
  • The drilled vias are then filled with the copper core through plating.

Copper layer

  • This is in form of a thin copper foil that is bonded to the substrate by the method of magnetic sputtering.
  • After bonding the copper foil on the ceramic substrate, the circuit is etched on the copper by the use of the photoresist coating of the yellow light way.

Dielectric layer

  • Made up of various materials such as epoxy resins, phenolic, etc.
  • It is used to bond the structures of two adjacent ceramic substrate layers.
  • This substrate has poor thermal conductivity properties compared to the ceramic material hence it ends up affecting the overall thermal conductivity of this board.
  • it is important to note that ceramic boards can only be used in applications that have lower heat dissipation.

Solder mask

  • this has the importance of protecting the exposed copper wires from solder, metals and damages from the environmental conditions.
  • The solder mask is applied on the top layer of every PCB after completion of lamination. It might be white, green, beige, red, etc in color.

Single-sided layer ceramic PCB is shown below;

We can notice that it has a copper layer, the substrate layer and the copper shield but the dielectric is missing. This is because the two ceramic layers are bonded by the PP.

Types of Ceramic PCB

Ceramic PCBs are classified according to ceramic substrate material used and also according to the manufacturing method that was used. Let us have a deeper look into these classifications below;

Classification according to the type of ceramic substrate used

Alumina PCBs

They are the most used types of ceramic PCBs and aluminum oxide is the most readily available substrate.

Aluminum nitride PCBs

They are also commonly used PCBs but they are a bit expensive when a comparison is done with the alumina PCBs.

They gave high thermal conductivity and smartly higher frequency performance again when compared to the Alumina ones.

Silicon nitride PCBs

More costly when compared with the aluminum nitride PCBs. They have higher mechanical strength and toughness hence finding greater use in the power modules such as IGBT and military modules.

Silicon carbide PCBs

This is diamond and has high thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity. They find applications in the areas of laser technology.

Boron oxide PCBs

Has dozen times boron activities than the alumina ceramics but this type of ceramic is very poisonous. They find use in high power and frequency applications

Classification according to manufacturing.

High temperature co-fired ceramic – HTCC

This is the earliest method known for PCB manufacturing. The method is suitable for high power and not for high speed or high-frequency PCB manufacturing.

Direct bonding copper method – DBC

This one requires lower temperature compared to the HTCC. They have no PTH vias and they are mainly preserved for power electronic module packaging.

Thick film ceramic PCBs

This has a requirement that the circuit line space should be at 60 micrometers. They find their use in applications that require lower power utilization.

Low temperature co-fired ceramics PCBs – LTCC

They are usually multilayer and normally three-dimensional. They are best suited for communication devices with high frequency.

Thin-film ceramic PCBs.

Has very high precision circuits but the copper layer has a limited thickness. These types of PCBs find their use in high precision devices and also in very small devices development.

Direct platting copper PCBs

They are developed from thin-film technology and can be in 3D and has very high circuit precision. They find their use in high-frequency and high-power circuits.

Characteristics of the ceramic PCBs.

Ceramic boards have very distinct characteristics that always give them an advantage over the other type of boards. below is the list of these special characteristics;

  • They are excellent heat conductors.
  • Offers excellent CTA component compliance.
  • With ceramic PCBs expect a high level of mechanical compatibility.
  • They are not easily corroded by chemicals.
  • It is very simple to do a high-density outline in these types of PCB boards.

Benefits/advantages of the ceramic PCBs

The ceramic PCB boards are given high priority due to a number of material features and characteristics that they offer which proves to be beneficial in the process of PCB manufacturing. The character of heat dissipation gives this board an advantage over the traditional types of PCB boards. components of the board are placed on the boards directly without the involvement of the isolation layer and this makes the flow of heat throughout the board better compared to the other types of boards. The following are some of the benefits that make this board the most preferred;

High thermal expansion

They are the most popular in the field of electronics due to their features that are unique. One of these features is that it provides a very high thermal coefficient expansion. These boards will still offer very high thermal conductivity even when operated at high temperatures.

Adaptability

These types of boards use a metal core. The metal core is used when the board is undergoing the engineering process. The board can be changed to a rigid carrier which will offer a stiff mechanical strength. This stiffness is very crucial as it allows the board to be used in both fluids and solids.

Durability

The ceramic material offers a lasting-results to the PCBs being manufactured. The toughness of the material used in the making of the board will protect it against routine wear and tear. In addition, these boards offer high thermal resistance which will slow down the decomposition of these types of boards and therefore increase their durability.

Stability

They offer very high stability which is a result of a stable dielectric property that originates from the dielectric materials. Due to the toughness of the ceramic materials, it has a natural resistance to many chemicals.

Versatility

It has a very high melting point hence it can be used in many applications for both low and high temperatures. The best thing about these ceramic boards is that they will offer good thermal conductivity while distributing heat evenly throughout the board and different positions of the devices.

Ceramic boards disadvantage

  • It is very hard to find ceramic PCB boards because they are hardly available.
  • When compared to the standard boards, the ceramic boards are very expensive.
  • These types of boards are highly fragile and therefore they require handling with great care.

Ceramic PCBs applications

Memory module applications

It was done in Japan when a company crested an SRAM memory module by the use of the multilayer ceramic PCB. The ceramic PCB is appreciated for both high-density PCB and low-density PCB. Another example is about the USA company that had developed the telecommunication, aerospace and missile products using this type of board.

Transmission module

This is being done by an American company that is determined is building a transmission module for radar communication using the ceramic PCB boards.

Digital PCBs

Japanese have used low-temperature PCBs in the manufacture of digital PCBs. This is used because it reduces the weight of the circuit greatly. It also reduces the volume of the circuit.

Interconnect boards;

The ceramic boards are mostly used in printed circuit boards because they support the miniaturization of the devices. It has a very high probability in the application of the boards in multilayer interconnects.

Solar panels

HTCCs and LTCCs are both applied in the process of making photovoltaic panels. In this device, we shall use multilayer ceramic PCBs to make them tough and durable.

Electrical power transmitter

There has been an increase in the use of wireless power transmission systems and this implies that most power transmission system has to use ceramic boards to achieve that ability.

Semiconductor coolers

With the introduction of very small pocket gadgets, many electronic circuits are getting miniatured. To achieve miniaturization, it starts with the use of semiconductors that have a highly reduced size. The normal boards cannot give the support needed in order to make sure that the miniaturization process is fully achieved. In order to make this possible, ceramic semiconductors have been introduced and this is accompanied by the use of ceramic PCBs.

How to choose the right ceramic PCB manufacturer

When you are choosing the person or the manufacturer who can produce your board, you have to consider the manufacturer who has the superior tooling that is required to make the process successful. The manufacturer should be able to control the oxidation process so that the board can have superior thermal conductivity and higher temperature resistance.

Ensure that the manufacturer uses the automated process to do the manufacturing and this will make sure that your board is in perfect condition and of very high quality and the process will be less time-consuming.

Introduction to the MATLAB Datatypes

Hello friends. In this lecture, we are going to have a look at the different kinds of MATLAB data types.

As we have already seen in previous lectures, MATLAB stands for MATrix LABoratory and allows us to store numbers in the form of matrices.

Elements of a matrix are entered row-wise, and consecutive row elements can be separated by a space or a comma, while the rows themselves are separated by semicolons. The entire matrix is supposed to be inside square brackets.

Note: round brackets are used for input of an argument to a function.

A = [1,2,3; 4,5,6; 7,8,9];

An individual element of a matrix can also be called using ‘indexing’ or ‘subscripting’. For example, A(1,2) refers to the element in the first row and second column.

A larger matrix can also be cropped into a smaller matrix, as we can see in the example below.

A scalar is just a special case of a matrix and its element size is 1x1. Square brackets are not needed to create a scalar variable. Also, a vector is a special case of a matrix with a single row or column. Square brackets without an element inside them create a null vector. We see examples of this in the code below:

  • u = [1 2 3]; %Produces a row vector
  • v = [1;2;3]; %Produces a column vector
  • X = []; %Produces a null vector

Elements of a matrix can be all kinds of numeric datatypes, whether they are floating-point, integers, or imaginary numbers, as we will see in the next section. They can even be symbolic.

DataTypes of MATLAB

Every variable that is stored in the workspace of MATLAB has a datatype. It can be an in-built or default datatype or users can build their own datatypes depending on the purpose of the code.

You can always find a datatype in MATLAB by using the 'class’ function.

Numeric datatypes:

Double:

  • This datatype takes 64 bits to store a number. This essentially represents a floating-point number, i.e., a decimal number with double precision, and can be positive or negative. You can use the function ‘double’ to declare the datatype when creating a variable, but double is the default datatype in MATLAB and whenever you call a command such as the one shown below, the number is stored as a double.
  • These variables can store values varying from between -1.79769 x 10308 and -2.22507 x 10-308 for the negative numbers and the range for positive numbers is between 2.22507 x 10-308 and 1.79769 x 10308 In situations where such large values of numbers are not needed, single-precision floating-point variable can be used.

Single:

  1. When storing smaller numbers, it is better to use the single-precision floating-point numbers which vary between-3.4x10^38 and 3.4x10^38. This stores a variable in only 32 bits and helps to speed up the code. We use the function single in order to create this kind of variable.

Integers:

  • MATLAB supports four types of signed integers and four types of unsigned integer datatypes, given by, int8, int16, int32, and in64 for the signed integers, and uint8, uint16, uint32 and uint64 for the unsigned integers. The number refers to the number of bits required to stored these integers and the range of allowed numbers is decided accordingly.

Complex numbers:

  • You can create a complex number by using the ‘complex’ function or using the default symbol ‘i’ for the imaginary part of the complex variable. We can also extract the real and imaginary parts of the complex number using the ‘real’ and ‘imag’ functions on the complex number.

Infinity and Nan:

  • Any number larger than the range given above is represented in MATLAB by the value ‘Inf’. Such a number can result when we divide by zero, which leads to results too large to represent as floating-point values and they end up being outside of the ranges discussed above. We can check if a variable is an infinity or not by using the function ‘isinf’ on it. Some numbers that can’t be represented by a real number such as the result of calculating ‘0/0’ or ‘inf/inf’ are called NaN, i.e., “Not a Number”. We can check if a variable is NaN or not by using the function ‘isnan’ on it.

Logical:

  • These are variables that only have values of 0 and 1, and are the result of a comparison operation. An example of a result of comparing two matrices that gives a logical matrix as an output is shown below:

Representation

We can represent the output of a double in a shorter format which is easy to read or in a longer format which will help with learning about the accuracy of those double variables, using the commands below:
  • format short
  • format long

Conversion of numeric datatypes:

We can convert between double or single-precision numbers, as well as from floating-point to integers or vice versa using the functions described above which we use while declaring the numeric data type.

Operations on numeric datatypes:

Following is a list of operations on the numeric datatypes.

  • abs: to determine absolute and positive value of a signed or complex number.
  • Fix: round-off a floating point number towards 0. For example, fix([-2.1, 2.9]) = [-2, 2]
  • floor: round-off a floating point number towards –Inf. For example, floor([-2.1, 2.9]) = [-3, 2]
  • ceil: round-off a floating-point number towards +Inf. For example, ceil([-2.1, 2.9]) = [-2, 3] round: round-off a floating-point number towards the nearest integer. For example, round([-2.1, 2.9]) = [-2, 3]
  • Rem: Remainder after division of first argument by second argument. For example, rem(10,3)=1
  • Sign: signum function returns the sign of a number.

Other datatypes:

Characters/strings:

  • The character or string array is used to store text data in MATLAB.

Single quotes are used to declare a character array. For example,

A = ‘Hello World’ is a character vector.

However, double quotes are used to declare a string. String is different from a character because individual parts of a character array can be accessed using indexing but the same is not true for strings.

You can carry out the exercise shown below to understand this subtle difference.

The various operations that can be performed on character array include:

Cell matrix:

  • Just like matrices, a cell array is an indexed data container with each element known as a cell and can contain any type of data, including other cells and arrays which can be numeric or non-numeric types. Cells can be declared with curly braces, { } to let MATLAB know the input is a cell array. Individual cells inside a cell array can be called using round parentheses whereas contents at a location can be accessed by curly braces again, as shown in the example below:

The function ‘cell2mat’ takes a cell as an argument and outputs a matrix. However, for this, all the elements of a cell array must be the same data type. This is what distinguishes Cell arrays from Matrices.

Tables:

  • A table is a convenient data structure to write column-based or tabular datasets that can be stored in a text or spreadsheet file, or plotted easily as well. Tables let you access individual columns with variable names. Each variable can be a different datatype. The only restriction for different columns is for them to have the same number of rows. You can load the inbuilt tabular dataset inside MATLAB as shown below.

Structures:

  • Structures are the most generic datatype in MATLAB which consist of indexed elements and each index can store a different datatype or in fact, a structure itself. Such structures are known as nested structures and the various branches of a nested structure can be accessed using the dot notation.

Non-numeric datatypes also include function handles, symbolic variables and anonymous functions but they are a topic worth a separate lecture for discussion and will come up in the upcoming lectures.

In further chapters, we will look at some of the applications of MATLAB in Linear algebra, look at different kinds of matrices inside MATLAB that are commonly used in a linear algebra class, and also work with input and output of data and functions using ‘m’ files as well as ‘mat’ files. We will also read about saving and loading operations, for input and output of data from MATLAB, and we will look further at making GUI in MATLAB, plotting linear, polar, 2D and 3D graphs with data sets.

Syed Zain Nasir

I am Syed Zain Nasir, the founder of <a href=https://www.TheEngineeringProjects.com/>The Engineering Projects</a> (TEP). I am a programmer since 2009 before that I just search things, make small projects and now I am sharing my knowledge through this platform.I also work as a freelancer and did many projects related to programming and electrical circuitry. <a href=https://plus.google.com/+SyedZainNasir/>My Google Profile+</a>

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