It looks like RapidIO is continuing its battle against PCI Express and Ethernet and the trade group is publishing the new roadmap.

Microcap (a very nice PSPICE simulation tool by the way) in their recent newsletter had an article on how to model ferrite beads using passive SPICE components. Good overview of the SPICE modeling for ferrite beads in case you need to model them for your next PCB design.

Tektronix has a nice application note covering the basics of how to select the right oscilloscope and discusses some of the considerations like bandwidth.

EMPC 2011 is being held in Brighton England September 12-15 2011. I haven’t attended these conferences before it looks like there is going to be some interesting panels/papers on 3D packages which is starting to become a hot topic.

Mentor Graphics has an updated version of their BGA Design book by Charles Pfeil (Mentor employee) This is actually a really good PDF (full color) book on BGA package design and layout. Signal Integrity topics are covered as well and lots of design examples are provided all with the goal to make designing and laying out BGA packages easier. This is a free download and well worth a read.