Sense and nonsense in electronic design today

Application note discuss about two theme in the electronic.

  1. circiut simulationen with the PC

  2. design methods


My friends please don't complain or laugh about the quality of my english, I'am not born under the union jack or the stars and stripes. Ok - you can smile if your german has the some quality like my german.

A designer knows very fast about what I'am talking in this note. For somebody who is not used to work with electronic it will be a little difficult to understand. That's why write in a extra funny way to let everbody understand. This note shows how some design methods are pushed too far. For example the wrong believing in the never incorrect working software or PC technology. For example the results of circiut simulation are many times not correct handled. This is not a critic about circiut simulation - no - I use them by my self, I only want to push you a little "think what you are doing" it's the original intention of the designers of the simulation programs. I want to help a little to come back to the truth in electronis.


what's this ? and what's that ?

Audio Schaltungen in der ersten Experimentier Phase, einige Wochen Arbeit kommen so leicht zusammen - Elektronikhaufen.jpg (78724 Byte)

simulation.gif (41719 Byte)

electronic, works bad at the beginning electronic, works bad at the end was a buffer amplifier

deutsch deutsch

The mystic animal PCehus digitalus

In our academic technical world counts not the own thougth, people listen to the PCehus digitalus, a mystic animal, which is a constant collegue to human beings since thousand of years. Many of us don't feel the existing animal close to us, it's hiding, hiding in his environmental like a Chamaeleon (pictures) and it permanently defines new constants we have to follow.


It used many names in his history:

It has a lot of children and grand children, one of it works in the electronic:

How works the PCehus digitalus in the electronic?

Blind trusting in technology and painted safety cost firms millions of dollars every year. Many circiuts are developed and trusted by simulation too much. After building up, it's a terrible task to keep them a live. People try to control them by mathematic for every price and time. As a result there a tons of paper very nice designed with fine funny colours to impress the people who are the deciders in a company. After months of hard discussion is borned a complicated, genmanipulated layout. After some time the "fire" of these layout goes off. The first hurdles are observed and function will be poor on some points. The dicision will be, "the fire needs new or better food", let's take petrol, petrol like many "meetings", "redesign" or as a special weapon "the external expert". It's always the same story.

What happens with the real thinking engineer, he only want's to reach his target in a fast simple way? he learns the new laws:

How could it be better?

A kind of faster and better electronic development, it's a classic circiut with first simple build up prototypes. And a well test equipment labority is a must for any fast work. The results will be much more closer to the truth. The circiuts works at the beginning in many cases only low and bad, because all real problems in electronics you see and feel them at once, not some months later when the others still believe their simulated circiut will work so good.

It's wrong to do all steps of electronic design within on simple step, using only circiut simulation and then the next step will be the layout, no -  it won't works good. Better to start with prototypes step by step, you'll faster reach your targets. First and most difficult task, you need to find your schematics, the rest is in most cases easy. Think, a simulation is always only so good like the model behind the part


For all circiuts most important and difficult, how to get the right schematic?, the rest will be easy and it's secondary. Think the right schematic and weel suitable parts most problems goes away.

If all all modulare parts of a big circiut are under control, next step to combine them together and to understand "what's changed now" after understanding please do the layout. And on this simple step it won't happens much, if so you'll find it fast. But if you do all these steps in one, you need so much luck. There are too many various parameters. Change step by step.

The solution for circiut problems is sometimes so simple, but for many parameters very difficult, time demanding or sometimes even impossible. And that's the bread for the "external experts" the designer is desperated and forced to do something he will hire external ones. And with luck the expert won't find not much more than exactly these things the designer told him before. The designer will be very happy about it, the expert is not more clever than himself. Finally the problem looks in the whole company as an big problem, and the winner will get an award for finding the solution.

Together with many people and a lot of time and money they'll find the solution. Full of proud all together: "we in our company produce very difficult complex electronic" Yes, it's true you produce it, but how much investigations, time and money were necessary to reach your targets? With a little bit more truth in the beginning of the project this terrible error would have never been happened and reached your layout at all ! My friends that's the the secret to safe time and money.

Don't convert a small fly to a flying elephant, fight against problems at the beginning not when you should have finished already. Forget about "milestones" and other nonsense created by economical people, who have never done any own circiut in their life.

It would be a wonderful economical result to start work with more respect to the truth.

But this is seldom to see. Everbody have his own reason why not to do. Water can mill stones, even a rock, but no wooden heads or a Camel (pictures), they swim away oder drink it out. My head takes it with humor and I'll won't stop to work.


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