Column: Embedded design


you’ve used before a dozen times. Te problem is that where it is being used this time it fails. Now this is the point where I’m


supposed to stroke my grey beard and impart some critical secret otherwise unknown to younger engineers. But, sorry: there is no Royal Road here. Tird order effects won’t just “go away” no matter what you do.


Every design is a complex, inter-


related synthesis of all its parts, and all of them have effects on each other. You can certainly reduce the likelihood by conservative design on not-too- congested board layouts, by employing good practice (such as separating analogue and digital supply rails) and avoiding especially troublesome circuits (like DC-DC converters) in designs with


known sensitive elements. Te thing to remember is that, no


matter how you arrive at your chosen circuit design (by hard mental slog, via simulation, or out of an AI), at the end of the day there is no substitute for real hardware being subjected to exacting tests on the bench and allowing for multiple iterations of your design to get it 100% right.


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