Reading of datasheets is or should be an important part of designing electronic devices. Reading datasheets is necessary in writing device requirements, planning budget, and selecting suitable components. Datasheets of each component may be found in manufacturer’s website.

Once you’ve selected suitable component be sure that you read the datasheet and understand everything in it. Otherwise you may miss some critical parts that could ruin all your plans. It is better to find errors before you start designing than after.

Another important issue is that always check for newest datasheets and errata – datasheet bug lists. It is not good practice to use your old datasheets from your hard drive archive or other places. These datasheets may contain bugs.

Just download newest Atmega8 or other semiconductor data sheet and compare to yours downloaded lets say a year ago. Errata’s and datasheet changes are usually listed at the end of datasheet. You may look at this and find out what would you miss with old datasheets. The electric characteristics maybe are the same, but there may be configuration bugs or even discovered bugs in hardware and proposed workarounds to avoid them.

So be critical and don’t relay blindly on everything. Always double check.

Good luck.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.