News & Updates
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Getting Through a PCB DFM Check
In this article, we’ll discuss the key design features to implement, and steps to take prior to fabrication that will help prevent some common DFM problems. I’ll also provide examples of where I commonly see these PCB DFM problems in signal integrity circuits.
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What is Spreading Inductance?
If you’re working with a high-speed digital component, there are some simple power integrity rules that should be followed. However, there is one quantity that is sometimes ignored when building a PDN impedance simulation: the spreading inductance of your plane pair. Here are some points designers should know about the spreading inductance of a plane pair.
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PCB Design Basics for New Designers
In this article, I’ll present some design basics that every new designer should follow to help ensure their design process is successful. Some of these points may challenge the conventional view of how circuit boards are constructed, but they are intended to help balance low noise signaling, manufacturability, and ease of solving a layout.
On-Demand Webinar
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Efficient PCB Routing Using Gloss and Retrace Tools
The primary goal of your traces is to carry signals throughout your board without losses. To do this properly, you must familiarize yourself with the requirements for signals on the printed circuit board and how to optimize the topology of the board in terms of signal integrity. We will analyze the most popular routing cases applicable for using the Gloss and Retrace tools in Altium Designer to optimize your signal integrity.
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Selecting Materials for High Voltage PCB Design and Layout
High voltage PCBs are subject to certain safety and reliability concerns that you won’t find in most other boards. If your fabrication house specializes in high voltage PCBs and keeps materials in stock, they can likely recommend a material set, as well as a standard stackup you might use for certain voltage ranges and frequencies. If you need to choose your own materials, follow the tips below to help you narrow down to the right material set.
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When to Use Tented Vias in Your PCB Layout
There are some guidelines I see many designers implement as a standard practice, often without thinking about it. Some of these practices are misunderstood or implemented without best practices. Others are implemented without thinking about the potential problems. One of these is the use of tented vias, which is sometimes implemented in a PCB layout by default. Is this always the right practice?
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How to Impedance Match and Terminate Capacitive Loads
The idea of a purely capacitive load is something of a fallacy. Yes, capacitors exist, but all capacitors are non-ideal, and it is this deviation from a theoretical capacitance that determines how to impedance match a load that exhibits capacitive behavior. Let’s take a look at this important aspect of interconnect design and see what it really means to terminate a capacitive load.
Blog
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Using Altium 365 Over Your Vanilla Version Control System
There are all sorts of version control systems out there that people have been using with their PCB design software. As discussed in Why Use a Version Control System, we looked at different options ranging for local hard drive storage to sophisticated online revisioning systems. In this article we will be reviewing the differences between a standard VCS and Altium 365.
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Why Use a Version Control System in PCB Design
Version Control Systems (VCS) have been around for many decades within the software world but can be surprisingly new to some folks in the electronics design industry. This article will cover what a VCS is, what it does, and why you should be using one for your PCB design projects.
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Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring
Designers often conflate leftover annular ring and pad sizes - they need to place a sufficiently large pad size on the surface layer to ensure that the annular ring that is leftover during fabrication will be large enough. As long as the annular ring is sufficiently large, the drill hit will not be considered defective and the board will have passed inspection. In this article, I'll discuss the limits on IPC-6012 Class 3 annular rings as these are a standard fabrication requirement for high-reliability rigid PCBs.
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Decoding PCB Fabrication Notes
Sending a board out for fabrication is an exciting and nerve-wracking moment. Why not just give your fabricator your design files and let them figure it out? There are a few reasons for this, but it means the responsibility comes back to you as the designer to produce manufacturing files and documentation for your PCB. It’s actually quite simple if you have the right design tools. We’ll look at how you can do this inside your PCB layout and how this will help you quickly generate data for your manufacturer.
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Crosstalk Reduction and Elimination Techniques in Altium Designer
Whether you're designing a digital board with a ton of traces, or an RF board operating at very high frequencies, any electronic device with propagating signals will experience crosstalk. Learn more about some sure-fire ways you can reduce crosstalk in your high-speed designs.
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Baxandall Volume Control for Audio
The Baxandall volume control is an especially useful, flexible, and simple-to-implement circuit for numerous audio designs. In this article, we will demonstrate how to design this type of equipment.
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Common Flex Design Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Designing flexible circuits involves managing numerous factors. Discover how to prevent mistakes in this process and how to rectify them post-implementation.
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How Much PCB Mask Expansion is Too Much?
In this article you will learn about finding the right balance between PCB mask expansion and potential problems.
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RF Power Amplifier Module PCB Design
RF power amplifiers can be found in many wireless products, often integrated into chipsets or modems. However, in certain specialized systems, you might require higher power output at a specific frequency. This necessitates a discrete amplifier circuit to deliver that power. In this article, we present an example project for a power amplifier that you can incorporate into your RF project.
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Avoid GIGO in Your PCB Simulation Tools
Simulation tools are extremely useful for understanding electromagnetic behavior in a design. Learn more about how to avoid obtaining inaccurate results during your PCB simulation process.
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Choosing a Converter or Regulator For Your Power Supply Design
When designing the power supply for your device, there are lots of different options. In this article, we will take a brief tour of the main choices in DC power supply design.
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The Benefits of Ultra HDI
Learn more about the combination of using both flexible materials and ultra-HDI feature sizes in this article.
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Understanding Power Supply Current Handling Issues: Causes and Solutions
Troubleshooting power supply current handling issues is crucial to achieving optimal performance of your electronic devices. In this article, we will explore the common reasons why a power supply fails to handle the defined output current and provide practical solutions to solving these issues.
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Concept Phase – Cooling and Airflow Part 1
Next step in our open-source laptop project is to explain how to design cooling and airflow. In this article, we can show you the first part of this process, such as airflow concept, fan measurement and clearance.
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Create Connections with Harness Design
Many modern electronics have multiple boards, and connecting those different boards and systems together are harnesses. Learn more about how Altium Designer can help you create harnesses for your own multi-board designs here.
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Do You Know How to Prevent Voltage Fluctuation?
We invite you to explore the causes of output voltage fluctuation. In this article we provide you insights on how to solve and prevent these issues.
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How to Build Your Own Laser Range Finder
In this article we will show you how to create step by step a digital laser range finder for your own. Everything is based on Raspberry Pi board.
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Nucleo Shields Multi-Board Design
Learn how easy it is to create multi-board projects. This practical project article covers the reasons for breaking larger boards into sub-assemblies and explores the various connection options available between sub-assembly boards.
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Analog Solar Tracker Project
In this article you can learn about light sensors while building an analog solar panel tracking system. This open-source project covers multi-channel design, window comparators, driving motors, and photosensors.
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Concept Phase – Initial CAD Design
We are continuing our journey through the open-source laptop project. This article explains an initialization of CAD design process from the early concept and brainstorming phase.
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