April 1, 2020
Three Erie companies will manufacture the shields, creating 5,000 every day
Bliley Technologies has partnered with researchers at Penn State Behrend and Case Western Reserve University to fulfill and distribute a face shield for medical professionals who are treating patients who have the COVID-19 virus. They expect to produce nearly 240,000 shields.
Quartz crystal oscillators are the high and mighty option for low phase noise and added frequency stability in circuit design. Yes, simple oscillators like those made with resistor-capacitor (RC) or inductor-capacitor (IC) resonators are fine for some circuits. But if you're dealing with higher performance applications in aerospace, military, and space industries... you're going to want a higher performance crystal oscillator that can maintain low phase noise & strong stability. Otherwise, you'll risk deviating from the very specific (and many times critical) center frequency selected for your design.
Topics: crystal oscillators, RF Technology, Integrated RF
Maintaining strong frequency stability in electronic RF circuits by eliminating phase noise is important in many high-end communication applications. This is especially true for precise targeting in radar systems and spectral purity in other communication systems.
Let's take a deep dive into exactly what phase noise and jitter mean. This will help give you a better idea as to why reducing a system's phase noise is significant.
In the simplest terms, phase noise describes the stability of an oscillator in the Frequency Domain, while jitter describes stability in the Time Domain.
Step 2: When plotting each spectral density point at varied frequency intervals of your choosing (In this case every 1Hz), you're left with a graph that looks like this:
You are now looking at what is known as the Signal Power Density of the noise.
Now focus only on the upper sideband of the graph from fstart to fstop, this is called the "Single Side Band".
We can now refer to the plotted part of the single side band as noise (Anything above the nominal oscillator frequency (Fosc) and not harmonically related can be considered phase noise). The technical term for this part of our graph is Noise Power Density (Step 3). We measure noise power density in dBW (LOG(Watts)) at this point because of the large range which we are looking.
Topics: engineering, crystal oscillators
Go into any electronics lab and you will undoubtably see a bench top multimeter. The humble benchtop digital multimeter is a staple of any lane and is one of the most fundamental and highly used pieces of test equipment for electronic design.
**Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links at no additional cost to you.
As the name implies, the digital multimeter is useful for a wide range of measurements and tests. Bench top digital multimeters, or DMMs, can be used to to make the basic (Ohm’s Law) measurements:
Topics: engineering, General Topics, Engineering Equiptment
Back in 2016, we wrote one of our most popular posts covering 12 popular Software Defined Radios or SDRs. While the previous post still holds some extremely valuable information, a lot has changed in 3 years... especially the technology related to SDRs. So we thought it was time for an update.
Topics: RF Technology, general
Our engineering team at Bliley is growing, which is great, but it also introduces some new challenges for small business like ours... finding the best performing engineering laptops for our engineers.
We want to give our engineers the best tools available and create an environment where they can be their most innovative and do the best work of their careers. Of course, a key to this whole equation is the technology they use day-to-day to get those next generations products designed. We recently kicked off a search for the best laptops that are perfect for engineering workloads. As you can probably imagine, the ideal laptop for an engineer needs to have great compute and graphics power.
Topics: engineering, General Topics, general, Engineering Equiptment
Have you noticed that your electronics lab could use a little upgrade from the 1970s to the present? If so, you've come to the right place. A reliable DC power supply is often considered a requirement in many of today's electronics labs. We wanted to share a few great power supply options to help you take your outdated power supply equipment further!
*This post contains affiliate links in which we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Topics: General Topics
Don't believe me? Many of us already know how designing can easily become extremely long, boring, and tedious. This is especially true for all you RF and Microwave Design Engineers!
Spending hours upon hours designing, finding problems, fixing problems, then repeating the process all over again...It all can become so mentally draining.
Am I bringing back bad memories? Sorry, time for the good news...
So how can you make the long and tedious design process easy (and possibly even enjoyable)?
You guessed it... Automation and design tools are key.
Having some great CAD tools on your side can release a significant burden off your back. These tools can save you time and dramatically increase your productivity. Our Top 4 Productivity and collaboration tools will help skyrocket your productivity even further.
Today, we thought we'd help you out by sharing these 18 CAD design tools that can lead to a more simple & enjoyable design session.
**Related Post: Check out our picks for the 5 best laptops for engineers.**
Topics: engineering, General Topics, general
I have a feeling you're in need of some new test equipment... a new signal generator to be exact. If so, you've come to the right place. Maybe your current signal generator is outdated. Or maybe you're looking for your first one (in which case we'd be honored).
No matter the reason, we wanted to share with you the best selection of waveform signal generators on the market today to help you make the best purchase based on your needs.
Topics: General Topics, Engineering Equiptment
Without further adu, here is our list of engineering thought leaders that you should be following on Twitter.
Topics: engineering
