Schematic & PCB Design Course, led by Motherboard Designer

I am thinking to run this course, because I believe you will learn something new and useful. I don’t want to waste your time. I have been on several courses and I almost fell asleep within 10 minutes from beginning. Many courses are about bla bla bla and really really really boring. I will try to be much better and be very practical.

The Course

The course will teach you about techniques and best practise which I learned over the last 10 years while designing motherboards, processor and microcontroller boards.

The course is designed for everyone – from electronic beginners/hobbyist to design engineers. It will show the ways how you can design boards more effectively and produce professional outputs. It gives you tips and tricks to help you to design boards which works at first time.

The course is practically based and will teach you everything by actually doing it. You will design your own Microcontroller board from scratch. By the end of the course you will create all production ready manufacturing outputs. And, if there is interest, I will manage manufacturing of your PCB and everyone will get components to build your own board designed during the course.

Content of the course

• Starting new project (Useful folder structure, Importing reference schematic, Collecting and sorting documents)
• Schematic design (Drawing schematic, Conventions and useful tips to create well readable schematic)
• Selecting components and creating libraries (About how to select components for your designs to prevent problems during production and about how to create useful libraries)
• Variants & BOMs (Creating and using variants, generating professional BOMs)
• Checking Libraries and Schematic (Explains techniques to properly check your libraries & schematic to help you design boards which work right at the first time)
• 3D model of your PCB (You will learn how to create 3D model of your PCB and why)
• Placement (How to do placement, tips & tricks )
• PCB layout (How to do layout, what is important)
• Impedances and Stackup (How to design your own stackup)
• Finishing your PCB and Manufacturing (How to check your PCB and add important information for manufacturers, Assembly drawings, Gerber files)
• Generating Output documentation (How to generate professional documentation)

More Information

Schedule
Starting again in MAY-2013, duration 10 weeks (check the next start day here)

Workload
10 hours per week

More information
You can find more information at FEDEVEL Academy Program website

Technical Requirements
You need a computer that allows you to run Altium Designer and watch the video lectures, and the ability to upload your projects. I will try to get Altium Designer licence for you during the course.

About Instructor

Robert Feranec (36), started designing advanced boards during PhD study. He designed his first Linux OS running board in 2002 and his first x86 board in 2004. Next 5 years (2005-2010), Robert spent in the UK designing processor boards. Since 2010 he has been working for different clients around the world as an independent contractor. Robert’s skills and knowledge are in designing Schematic and doing PCB layout for advanced digital boards such motherboards or processor boards.