Electronic Design Weekly: Aug. 24, 2026
In This Issue
- Editorial: Why Boards and Modules Still Matter
- Featured Content
- New Products
- Boards, Modules and Standards
- Multimedia on ElectronicDesign
- Editor's Choice: From the ElectronicDesign Archives
- Editor's Weekly Picks
- Illustrated Engineering
- Electronic Design Word of the Week
- New in Electronic Design's Member Library
- More Electronic Design Weekly
Welcome to Electronic Design's weekly publication where you can find the latest articles, videos, and podcasts. Think of it as Electronic Design magazine where you can read about the latest technologies and products.
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Editorial: Why Boards and Modules Still Matter
Building a system using boards and modules allows engineers to quickly create systems compared to a custom board design. There are reasons to go custom, such as minimizing the size or to incorporate features like embedded antennas. Cost might be an issue, especially where high volumes can generate savings.
Using boards and modules provide significant benefits to developers, thus putting the design and support onus on the supplier. It also lets companies easily provide customizable solutions at the board or module level, which can reduce cost or enhance performance by switching to a different board or module. The interest in embedded artificial intelligence (AI) also comes into play with this approach, as substituting an AI-enabled board or module allows features to be added without changing the overall system design.
Using something like a 6U OpenVPX board and backplane results in a rather large system, However, quite a few smaller form factors are in the mix, too, from VITA 90 VNX+ to M.2 , which we'll take a closer look at.
Continue reading the rest of this editorial
Editor's Choice: From the ElectronicDesign Archives
These articles were chosen by the editors at ElectronicDesign that complement the new articles above. They’re included in our regular newsletters.
Bill Wong's Board and Modules Picks
I decided to make a list of some of the board and module standards organizations.
- PICMG - Board, module and firmware standards like COM Express and Compact PCI Serial
- PCI-SIG - PCI Express boards and modules including M.2
- SGeT (Standardization Group fo Embedded Technologies) - small form factor (SFF) standards like SMARC and Qseven
- RMS Consortium (formally PC/104 Consortium) - stackable board standards like PC/104, PCI/104 Express and UxV/25
- VITA - rugged standards including, OpenVPX, VITA 90 VNX+ and VITA 93 QMC
- JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) - primarily focused on memory
These are some defacto standards that can be used in embedded systems although they tend to be used for prototyping. Professional versions that target end products are available as well.
- Raspberry Pi Foundation - supports the Raspberry Pi form factors
- Arduino - supports the Arduino form factors
Cabe Adds to the Board and Module Conversation
Boards and modules take the burden off you to recreate the wheel, so to speak. Which has unlocked so much creativity around them. Take a look at this short list. (I barely scraped the top of what's there too):
· Pi Day: What's the State of Raspberry Pi in 2024? - Surveys the Raspberry Pi 5, Pico, and RP2040 alongside projects such as retro arcades and robotics.
· May the 4th: Fan-Made Star Wars Props and the Electronics Inside - Shows makers using Raspberry Pi, microcontrollers, sensors, and motors to animate Star Wars props and droids.
· Opening Up the LabVIEW Community Edition - Demonstrates LabVIEW Community Edition with a Raspberry Pi-powered, web-controlled robot.
· A Pi-in-the-Sky Dream - Looks at Raspberry Pi through projects ranging from arcade machines to weather stations and synchronized light shows.
· Will Robots Replace Stuntmen? - Looks at Disney's acrobatic Stickman robot, controlled in part by an Arduino Micro..
· Give Peripheral Prototypes for the Holidays - Highlights add-on modules and expansion boards for Raspberry Pi, Arduino, BeagleBoard, and other platforms.
It seems dev boards and SBCs have become the focus of a lot of my cartoons. Take a look:
· Engineering on Friday 'toon: I'd Like to Teach the World to Code in Perfect Harmony - I riff on the world’s most famous commercial.
· Engineering on Friday: Pi Day 2026 - Harvesting all those Pi related fruits SBCs.
· Engineering on Friday 'toon: Start, Error, Throw - This one embodies my experience with a lot of boards.
· Engineering on Friday 'toon: It's Time to SBC Duel! - This one honors my favorite artist and the venerable first Raspberry Pi.
Andy's Picks from Around the Web
Tatra Trucks electrifies its first off-road truck. Link
City leaders face death threats across the country as tensions grow over data centers. Link
Chinese memory firm CXMT relied on leaked Samsung technology to skip years of R&D, court testimony claims. Link
The AI developer bubble is going to pop soon. Link
[Don't be that guy/gal. CEOs establish the culture of a company - flakes 'r us?]
Employers are ghosting college grads and rescinding offers, destroying morale. Link
NASA Contractor's Attempt to Boost the Swift Observatory Fails [yes, I rewrote the headline]. Link
Andy's Video Pic of the Week
Here's an interesting 64 "pixel" display that uses fluidic logic, including a pneumatic transistor switching device that can even be configured into a ring oscillator.
Might be interesting for displaying Braille, or for you preppers out there, surviving that EMP that has you worried. Which of you will be first to build a pneumatic ENIAC?
Cat & Crow Save the Earth!
This one is all about a joke that became an environmental campaign and the creation of two characters I really like.
Read all about how it came about here.
Or, see the rest of my cartoons in the Engineering on Friday comic gallery.
This is one of the earliest cartoons I created for my Inventors series. It even looks like aged newsprint...
I'm throwing this one into the fray to hopefully elecit a "frown upside-down", given the insanity that has been thrown in between bretheren the past few days.
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About the Author
William G. Wong
Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.
You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.
Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.
You can visit my social media via these links:
- AltEmbedded on Electronic Design
- Bill Wong on Facebook
- @AltEmbedded on Twitter
- Bill Wong on LinkedIn
I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.
I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.
Roger Engelke Jr.
Managing Editor - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
Roger manages the websites and print issues for Electronic Design and Microwaves &RF.
Cabe Atwell
Technology Editor, Electronic Design
Cabe is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design.
Engineer, Machinist, Cartoonist, Maker, Writer. A graduate Electrical Engineer actively plying his expertise in the industry and at his company, Gunhead. When not designing/building, he creates a steady torrent of projects and content in the media world. Many of his projects and articles are online at element14 & SolidSmack, industry-focused work at EETimes & EDN, and offbeat articles at Make Magazine. Currently, you can find him hosting webinars and contributing to Electronic Design and Machine Design.
Cabe is an electrical engineer, design consultant and author with 25 years’ experience. His most recent book is “Essential 555 IC: Design, Configure, and Create Clever Circuits”
Cabe writes the Engineering Life & Engineering on Friday blog on Electronic Design.
See Cabe's cartoons & comic strips here.
James Morra
Senior Editor
James Morra is the senior editor for Electronic Design, covering the semiconductor industry and new technology trends, with a focus on power electronics and power management. He also reports on the business behind electrical engineering, including the electronics supply chain. He joined Electronic Design in 2015 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Andy Turudic
Technology Editor, Electronic Design
Andy Turudic is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design Magazine, primarily covering Analog and Mixed-Signal circuits and devices and also is Editor of ED's bi-weekly Automotive Electronics newsletter.
He holds a Bachelor's in EE from the University of Windsor (Ontario Canada) and has been involved in electronics, semiconductors, and gearhead stuff, for a bit over a half century. Andy also enjoys teaching his engineerlings at Portland Community College as a part-time professor in their EET program.
"AndyT" brings his multidisciplinary engineering experience from companies that include National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments), Altera (Intel), Agere, Zarlink, TriQuint,(now Qorvo), SW Bell (managing a research team at Bellcore, Bell Labs and Rockwell Science Center), Bell-Northern Research, and Northern Telecom.
After hours, when he's not working on the latest invention to add to his portfolio of 16 issued US patents, or on his DARPA Challenge drone entry, he's lending advice and experience to the electric vehicle conversion community from his mountain lair in the Pacific Northwet[sic].
AndyT's engineering blog, "Nonlinearities," publishes the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month. Andy's OpEd may appear at other times, with fair warning given by the Vu meter pic. His cartoon series, "Inventors", appears each week in Electronic Design Weekly.
