Welcome, Guest

Sign in to learn, create, and do more with the product you love.

News & Updates

Filters:
Tag
NEW
Embedded thumbnail for SFP Connector Routing: High-Speed Differential Pair Design Tips
How-To's
SFP Connector Routing: High-Speed Differential Pair Design Tips

Discover practical SFP and SFP+ routing tips in our latest video, inspired by a real question from the Altium subreddit. We cover how aggressive serpentine length tuning can be, how to reduce impedance discontinuities in tight meanders, and how meandering influences mode conversion at 10G and higher data rates.

NEW
Embedded thumbnail for Handle High-Density PCB Layouts with Ease
New in Altium's Software
Handle High-Density PCB Layouts with Ease

Push the limits of PCB design with support for up to 128 signal layers, empowering the development of even the most complex, high-density boards.

NEW
Blog
Who Needs Integrated Electronic Component Search

Finding the right component shouldn't mean searching through dozens of websites and datasheets. This article shows how integrated component search helps engineers select parts faster while reducing sourcing risks and design delays.

Embedded thumbnail for Skip Layer Routing for RF: Control Impedance & Cut Insertion Loss
How-To's
Skip Layer Routing for RF: Control Impedance & Cut Insertion Loss

Discover our latest video and learn how RF designers use a deeper ground plane to minimize skin-effect resistance, improve signal integrity over long high-frequency routes, and optimize impedance matching for oversized SMT pads in antenna launches and coaxial connectors.

Embedded thumbnail for Just Released: ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection
New in Altium's Software
Just Released: ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection

ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection lets you control exactly what design data is included in the ODB++ output, ensuring each manufacturing partner receives only the information needed for their specific fabrication or assembly tasks.

Blog
How to Design a PCB: From Schematic Capture to Manufacturing

This article walks through the complete PCB design workflow, from schematic capture and component selection to layout, design reviews, and manufacturing documentation. It highlights the key decisions at each stage that help engineering teams produce reliable, manufacturable products.

Embedded thumbnail for Future of Electronics Development in Security and Aerospace
How-To's
Future of Electronics Development in Security and Aerospace

See the highlights from Altium's executive event in Hamburg, where Security and Aerospace leaders explored AI-driven development, digital engineering, supply chain resilience, and the future of mission-critical electronics.

Blog
5 Power Integrity Myths: AC Edition

The biggest threat to your power integrity might be outdated design advice. This article challenges five common AC power integrity myths and shows what really matters when designing today's high-speed PCBs.

Embedded thumbnail for Create Clearance Rules Faster and with Less Effort
New in Altium's Software
Create Clearance Rules Faster and with Less Effort

Setting up clearance rules is now more intuitive in the Constraint Manager. Choose the Simple view for faster configuration with grouped object types, or the Advanced view when you need detailed, matrix-based clearance control.

Blog
Your Design Data Has Zero Defense

Your design data may be more exposed than you think. This webinar shows how to identify common security gaps and secure engineering workflows with centralized access control and governance.

Embedded thumbnail for Mastering HDI Design Rules in Altium Designer
How-To's
Mastering HDI Design Rules in Altium Designer

In our latest Altium Academy tutorial, we guide you through configuring the essential HDI PCB design rules in Altium's software. You'll learn how to use your manufacturer's fabrication capabilities to create accurate design rules and constraints for your PCB.

Embedded thumbnail for Search, Filter, and Navigate PCB Designs Faster
New in Altium's Software
Search, Filter, and Navigate PCB Designs Faster

The Web Viewer now features a redesigned search experience for faster access to PCB design data across supported CAD formats. A lightweight, intuitive interface lets you begin with simple search terms and progressively refine results using contextual suggestions.

Blog
Integrated PCB Design vs. Legacy Point Tools: What’s the Real Cost?

As hardware development grows more collaborative, disconnected point tools can introduce data inconsistencies, traceability gaps, and costly coordination challenges. This article examines how integrated PCB design environments connect design, mechanical, supply chain, and review workflows to improve efficiency throughout the product lifecycle.

Blog
Make Better Design Decisions with Signal and Power Integrity Insight

Signal integrity and power integrity are closely connected, with problems in one often affecting the other as designs become faster and more complex. This webinar explains how integrated analysis workflows help engineers evaluate PDN performance, identify potential issues early, and improve overall design quality.

Embedded thumbnail for Gain Better Control Over Wire Bond Visibility
New in Altium's Software
Gain Better Control Over Wire Bond Visibility

New bond wire visibility controls give you greater flexibility when working with wire-bonded boards and footprints, making it easier to focus on the details that matter most.

Tag
Blog
How to Create a PCB Manufacturing Cost Estimation

Some manufacturers have very convenient PCB manufacturing cost estimation calculators you can use, but the real costs depend on a number of factors. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re producing your own boards, or you are managing manufacturing, testing, and delivery for a new project, it’s your job to help clients understand the primary cost drivers for new boards. Here’s how you can get an estimate of your fabrication costs, both for local and overseas manufacturers.

Blog
PCB Mountable Connectors: SMD vs. Through-hole

Selecting a connector is as much an art as it is a science. The artistic side is all about aesthetics and satisfying clearances, while the scientific side is all about signal integrity. For PCB mountable connectors, you’ll need to choose between surface-mounted or through-hole connectors, and you’ll need to consider how each type affects signal integrity in your application. Here’s what you need to think about beyond the standard connector specifications.

Article preview
Blog
PCB Via Current-Carrying Capacity: How Hot is Too Hot?

Trace and via current-carrying capacity are legitimate design points to focus on when designing a new board that will carry high current. The goal is to keep conductor temperatures below some appropriate limit, which then helps keep components on the board cool.

Blog
How to Maximize Copper in Your PCB Design: The Pros and Cons of Copper Pouring Versus Placing

There is a saying in copper pour PCB design, “Copper is free.” It means a PCB editor designer must think in reverse. A board starts off as solid copper, and the copper you don’t want is removed. It is faster to build, less consumptive, and less expensive to make a board that is mostly copper as compared to the same size board that is mostly bare. Picking the correct technique will make the difference between an effortless or frustrating experience.

Article preview
Blog May 14, 2020
How to Highlight Nets in Altium Designer to Simplify Schematic and PCB Designs

Highlighting nets will help you simplify your schematic and PCB design. In Altium , there are multiple options that enable you to leverage this capability to simplify the verification of connections and circuit paths and make sure that the design you send to your manufacturer accurately reflects the printed circuit board you need built.

Routed tracks
Blog May 5, 2020
Helpful Tips for Interactive Routing in Altium Designer

Before you jump into the software, you should know the types of things you’re going to want to look out for. Traces, connection lines, differential pair routing, and route paths can all affect the routing process of your board. Make sure that you’re equipped knowing, ultimately, what you want your board design to accomplish and furthermore, where you anticipate potential problem areas to be.

Blog Apr 22, 2020
Any Angle Routing: When Should You Use It?

EDA tools have come a long way since the advent of personal computing. Now advanced routing features like auto-routers, interactive routing, length tuning, and pin-swapping are helping designers stay productive, especially as device and trace densities increase. Read full article in our blog:

Blog Mar 20, 2020
A Message from Altium on COVID-19

We understand that many of you, like ourselves, have transitioned to working remotely. This process comes with its challenges and we would like to offer all and any help we can to minimize disruptions for your teams and business.

Blog Mar 2, 2020
About Altium Designer Home Page

With the new Altium Designer Home page, we are aiming to help users stay up to date with the latest features and productivity tricks available in Altium Designer. Learn more about the Home page in this documentation article.

altium-community-forum
Blog Feb 25, 2020
Getting Connected: Altium’s User Community Forums

The Altium design environment is a complex and sophisticated set of software tools. Not surprisingly, becoming proficient with these tools will take some time, and you’ll need to practice every step of the design process from beginning to end. So what happens if you get stuck along the way?

Tag
Embedded thumbnail for Present Large Harness Tables More Clearly
New in Altium's Software
Present Large Harness Tables More Clearly

Harness Draftsman now supports splitting connection tables across multiple pages in *.HarDwf documents. With the new page height limit setting, you can easily control how much of the table appears on each page.

Embedded thumbnail for Innovate Beyond - The Future of Electronics Development in Automotive
How-To's
Innovate Beyond - The Future of Electronics Development in Automotive

Discover how the future of automotive electronics is being shaped by a more connected development approach that unifies teams, data, requirements, design, collaboration, and manufacturing. Recorded at BMW Welt and the BMW Museum during Altium’s "The Future of Electronics Development in Automotive" event, this video explores the key challenges and innovations driving the next generation of automotive design.

Embedded thumbnail for Coming Soon: Design Rule Sets
New in Altium's Software
Coming Soon: Design Rule Sets

Soon, PCB design rules in Altium will be organized into reusable Rule Sets within the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor. These rule sets can be created, duplicated, enabled or disabled, renamed, deleted, imported, and exported, making it easier to manage rules for specific interfaces, manufacturing requirements, or unique design constraints.

Embedded thumbnail for Decoupling Capacitor Routing: When to Use Vias vs Traces
How-To's
Decoupling Capacitor Routing: When to Use Vias vs Traces

Check out this video, a follow-up to the decoupling capacitor placement series, exploring the inductance tradeoffs between trace routing and via connections. Using real component examples from an Ethernet switch design in Altium, the video demonstrates how different routing choices can impact overall performance.

Embedded thumbnail for Coming Soon: Interactive Dynamic Phase Tuning
New in Altium's Software
Coming Soon: Interactive Dynamic Phase Tuning

The Interactive Length Tuning tool allows you to manually tune a single net in a differential pair while maintaining equal pair length and phase alignment across the entire route. This enables more efficient differential signal transmission, greater control during manual tuning, and faster pattern creation within defined phase tolerance limits.

Embedded thumbnail for AI PCB Layout vs. Human Design: The Honest Truth
How-To's
AI PCB Layout vs. Human Design: The Honest Truth

The question is: Can AI really route a PCB as well as an experienced human designer? In this video, we set out to find the answer. Our expert, Zach Peterson, puts it to the test in a side-by-side layout review. The challenge is based on a LinkedIn post where viewers had to guess which board was AI-generated and which was designed by a human.

Embedded thumbnail for Improve Your 3D Wire Bonding Workflow
New in Altium's Software
Improve Your 3D Wire Bonding Workflow

Check out the video where we showcase enhanced wire bonding features, including precise bond wire shape definition, improved clearance checking, streamlined import and export workflows, and efficient management of wire bonding objects.

Embedded thumbnail for Customize Your ODB++ Output for Each Partner
New in Altium's Software
Customize Your ODB++ Output for Each Partner

You can now precisely control what design data is included in your ODB++ outputs for different manufacturing recipients. Choose which signal layers to export, decide how the netlist is handled (included, disabled, or neutralized), and control whether component data is removed or shared without properties.

Embedded thumbnail for Proper Voltage Built a Universal Battery Platform with Altium
Altium Stories
Proper Voltage Built a Universal Battery Platform with Altium

Watch our latest customer success story to see how Proper Voltage partnered with Altium to accelerate high-power battery development for next-generation robotics. With our software, they streamlined collaboration, sped up design reviews, improved sourcing visibility, and reduced risk.

Embedded thumbnail for Improve Readability with Custom Pin Spacing
New in Altium's Software
Improve Readability with Custom Pin Spacing

You can now control the vertical spacing of a pin’s designator and name with a custom margin. This setting can be applied globally via Schematic Preferences or adjusted individually in the Pin properties.

Embedded thumbnail for Does Decoupling Capacitor Placement Actually Matter?
How-To's
Does Decoupling Capacitor Placement Actually Matter?

Our new video tackles common questions about capacitor placement on a PCB. Expert Zach Peterson explains why placement is often less critical on multilayer boards with well-designed power and ground planes and shares the key insights most application notes leave out.

Embedded thumbnail for Teaching Power to Think - How Proper Voltage Accelerates Innovation with Altium
Altium Stories
Teaching Power to Think - How Proper Voltage Accelerates Innovation with Altium

Watch the video where you can find how Proper Voltage centralized communication, synchronized ECAD–MCAD development, and gained early insight into supply chain risks using Altium’s connected design platform.

Embedded thumbnail for  Detect Z-Axis Clearance Issues Earlier
New in Altium's Software
Detect Z-Axis Clearance Issues Earlier

The Z-axis clearance rule enables accurate verification of minimum interlayer copper spacing. It supports targeted constraints between net classes, differential pairs, and schematic parameter directives for advanced rule definition.

Embedded thumbnail for Fix Inconsistent Part Parameters in Your PCB Schematic
How-To's
Fix Inconsistent Part Parameters in Your PCB Schematic

Watch our latest video to learn what parameterization really means, why getting the manufacturer name and part number right is essential, and how to quickly identify inconsistencies across your schematic components using Altium’s Parameter Manager tool.

Embedded thumbnail for Create IPC-Aligned Footprints with Less Effort
New in Altium's Software
Create IPC-Aligned Footprints with Less Effort

The default value for the Solder Mask Expansion rule has been updated to improve consistency across design environments. In both PCB documents and rule-driven solder mask expansion within PCB library documents, the default setting is now 0 mil, replacing the previous default of 4 mil.

Embedded thumbnail for Via Dispersion: Why Propagation Delay Changes with Frequency
How-To's
Via Dispersion: Why Propagation Delay Changes with Frequency

Explore the concept of via dispersion and how it impacts propagation delay across frequencies. This tutorial walks through the math behind extracting delay from insertion loss and return loss S-parameters and explains why results can vary depending on your operating range.

Tag
Integrating Requirements June 2025 Webinar
On-Demand Webinar May 28, 2025
Integrating Requirements into Your PCB Design Workflow
Join our webinar where you will learn about integrated requirements tools who can help you eliminate late-stage design changes, AI support through system requirements and integration of design requirements directly in PCB Design. Don't miss it, register now!
Streamlining Team Collaboration
On-Demand Webinar Apr 17, 2025
Streamlining Team Collaboration in Industrial PCB Projects
Join us for our upcoming webinar to discover how Altium Designer and Altium 365 can transform your team’s collaboration and take your PCB design projects to the next level. Attend for a chance to win free access to the Altium 365 Training Bundle.
PCB CoDesign Webinar
On-Demand Webinar Jan 24, 2024
Discover How Altium Designer 24 Revolutionizes Team Dynamics in PCB Design
Expand your collaboration skills and stay ahead of the curve with PCB CoDesign. Design teams often grapple with prolonged design cycles and coordination issues, leading to delays and inefficiencies. In the current landscape, design processes are hindered by fragmented collaboration, resulting in increased layout times and difficulties in synchronizing design updates.